Bicycle x-mas tree.

Happy holidays, from Creating Current.

This bicycle xmas tree was created by "The Rocks" in Sydney Australia, its 23 feet tall utilizing more than 100 bicycles. If only it was bicycle powered, one continues to dream...

This does however bring up an interesting thought, is reclaiming such things as bicycle frames and wheels that appear to still be somewhat functional for use of sculptural objects, especially ones that are seasonal really make an environmentally friendly impact? On one hand it seems a little wasteful (coming from someone who has no idea what they are doing with those bikes afterwords) but from the educational standpoint, is this mind expanding enough to show viewers that you can build things from pre used materials?

Thank You!

Thanks to the Team at Green Diary for the write up!

http://www.greendiary.com/entry/innovative-bike-based-curriculum-to-help-facilitate-learning/

Sneak Peak!

This is a sneak peak at the Bicycle Generator Exhibit about to hit the floor at the Rochester Museum and Science Center. Shh! Hush Hush.

What takes up the most power

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question272.htm
http://www.itfacts.biz/94-of-families-with-small-and-teenage-kids-have-a-pc-90-a-tv/6717

These are two interesting posts about how much power each electronic device takes up while plugged in on a daily basis.

And an energy calculator so that you can figure out how much you are spending a month on electricity for your different devices. 

http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.html

Design Mind

Solving Better Problems


By Eric Wicks - January 4, 2010

What the bicycle can teach us about the design challenges of the next century.



Albert Einstein once said, “The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them…” and he was right. In the next century, our job as designers will be to evaluate accepted solutions through a different lens. For a solution to be truly sustainable and good it must have a positive return to the environment and society. At the heart of any design problem is a question: Are we trying to make something less bad or are we trying to make things better?



With the industrial revolution came great responsibility that has taken us decades to face up to. There is more to getting everything we ever wanted than meets the eye. With the green movement things have gotten better, but just because something is labeled as “green” doesn’t mean it’s good. The Federal Trade Commission has a guide to sort out “green” advertising claims here. But Federal regulation can only go so far. Products and processes must be rethought. Expectations are still at a fairly low level and we have a responsibility to exceed them by not focusing on the end product, but by looking at the whole ecosystem in which it exists. Simply making a t-shirt with a different type of fabric is not enough. We really need to consider whether we are solving the right problem in the first place.



It’s not just about solving for the negative; It’s about creating a positive. The bicycle is a good example. We have figured out how to harness kinetic energy while braking to recharge batteries in electric vehicles. Imagine applying this idea to a bicycle. Most of the challenge of cycling is in creating motion rather than sustaining it. Having the aid of an electric motor might help adults that are older or overweight to adopt cycling as a more serious and attractive mode of transportation.



In fact, just such a two-wheeler was unveiled last week at the COP15 Copenhagen Conference when MIT students introduced The Copenhagen Wheel. The bike captures kinetic energy during braking and stores it in an electric motor pinched to the back wheel. It also uses Bluetooth to transmit data about speed, distance, pollution levels, and location to the rider’s iPhone. Technologies like these can help decrease the barrier to natural physical activity for certain riders while also connecting them more intimately with their environment. To solve the problems we face we need to create solutions relative to a better set of criteria that work with and not against natural forces.



H.G. Wells once said, "When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race." Riding a bike is something that provides more than just the practical benefit of moving people from A to B. As somebody who regularly commutes by bike I can say that the benefits are wide and far-reaching and impact everything from the finer details of my budget to the core of my fitness.



But there's also another, less tangible benefit to biking: It reduces the barrier between the rider and the environment. Every time I get on my bike—whether it’s a ride to work or distance over the weekend—I look around at some point and truly notice something about my surroundings. Having a closer connection with the environment shows us what it is and what it means to save it. When a person rides a bike they are not only moving; they are actively participating in the world around them and are present to their surroundings. It’s at that point when riding a bike transcends the simple act.



With our minds and our technology, we must let go of the lens of the industrial past and approach our problems with hope. What we need is a paradigm shift to solving better problems. Instead of design that reduces our negative impact, we should figure out how to create a positive impact. We need design that, like the bike, gets us from point A to point B in a way that is comfortable, beneficial, and beautiful.



Eric Wicks is an Austin-based artist, designer, and strategist.

Its Finally Here, Please Come.

Edu Cycle entering completion.

Preview of Thesis Edu-Cycle

This is not the finished stand that comes next for the May 7th opening.

RMSC coming along.

This is a prototype for a standard bike to accommodate our bicycle powered exhibits. We used a old automatic car seat motor to adjust the seating position for a variety of visiter sizes. The next step is creating a safety mechanism for user interaction.

edu-cycle mock-ups

CONCEPT: a traveling exhibit that will be rode from k-12 science classroom to k-12 science classroom at another school by the hosting teacher. The kit is designed for multiple experiments depending on the level of student.

When the host receives the bike they can log into www.creatingcurrent.com and post pictures and talk about how they created their specific experiment.

What design Can do.

What design can do on XD Adobe.

Design Revolution Roadshow

http://designrevolutionroadshow.com/

This is an extremely popular example of what my thesis has now morphed into. The real idea behind this project as well as my own is "why mass produce products when you can mass produce ideas?" The education that the Roadshow is providing students all over the country and soon my classmates as well will work to inspire them in their own endeavors.

Great book as well as website.

Design Revolution is a project part of Project H, Product design initiatives for Humanity, Habitats, Health, and Happiness.

Here is a list of their itinerary-

Itinerary of School Stops

* February 1: Redwood High School, Larkspur, CA
* February 2: Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
* February 3: California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA
* February 4: Academy of Art University (and Kick-off Party!), San Francisco, CA
* February 5: San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
* February 8: Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA
* February 9: The Design High School, Los Angeles, CA
* February 9: Reception at the Ecology Center, San Juan Capistrano, CA
* February 15: University of Texas, Austin, TX
* February 18: University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA
* February 19: Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS
* February 22-23: Auburn University, Auburn, AL
* February 24-26: Hale County Workshop (Learning Landscape build), Greensboro, AL
* February 27: Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA
* March 1-2: North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
* March 4-5: Bertie County School District, Windsor, NC
* March 8: Chowan University, Murfreesboro, NC
* March 11: Maryland Institute College of Arts, Baltimore, MD
* March 12: The Park School, Baltimore, MD
* March 15: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
* March 22: Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
* March 23: Brooklyn Community Arts & Media High School (BCAM), Brooklyn, NY
* March 25: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
* March 26: Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY
* March 29: Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH
* March 30: Design Lab High School, Cleveland, OH
* April 1: College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI
* April 2: Cranbrook Academy of Art and High School, Detroit, MI
* April 5-6: School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
* April 7: Samata Mason + DesignCHAT, Chicago, IL
* April 12-13: University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, Stevens Point, WI
* April 15: University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH
* April 16: Wilmington High School, Wilmington, OH

Day Four

Today was for the most part spent doing documentation and getting the booklet printed out.

The booklet.-


The rationale behind the instructional take away booklet is that I wanted to produce something that anyone throughout the world could use to be able to create a bike generator. I have not yet in my research have found distinctive step by step how to plans on producing power from a bicycle. Also language becomes a barrier and since putting up the site I have heard from people from several countries that speak very little English interested in knowing more about being able to empower themselves through power on demand. So I have created the document to be completely graphic based to assist people in walking through the instructions. I have checked this with several people and made many corrections to hopefully make it as easy to get through as possible. The other interesting factor is planning out a document that does not rely on color to assist you in moving through it. So now we have a fully image based, black and white document that explains how to take apart a bike, build your own stand, and hook up a generator to a series of lights. It was a very good design challenge and directly related to my thesis. Knowledge is the first step at empowering people and empowerment is the first step for people to take charge of their own lives and create their own source of energy.

With a stack of 50 take-away booklets sitting on my desk in A-1 format we walk down to “Viva” market and purchased the light bulbs that we need for Friday. It was very interesting to walk around the market; so much of culture is based on the food they eat. For one thing peanut butter is almost non-existent here, when I asked some locals if they have ever had it, they say yes but they don’t like it and would prefer Nutella. We shop around for awhile and make our purchases.

Based on quality of the ginger cookies I ate that night I also think that I was born to be eastern European. The amount of sugar in even the sugary things here seems be half that of what I have found in the US. That is not to say that they do not have twenty variations on the Kit Kat bar that have never seen the shelves in our country, but overall the feeling I have received thus far has been of less sugar. We walked down Mother Teresa blvd and discuss that even though it would be interesting to duck into some shops, neither one of us are really the shopping type. My wonderful host then takes me to a fantastic bakery where we eat French style cheesecake for dinner and drink mint tea. The cheesecake and conversation were wonderful until I heard a strange smacking sound from behind me. I take a quick glance and a younger couple are going full boar into a make out session. Beings that we are the only two tables in the restaurant this feels a bit awkward and last way too long. After dinner we take a very relaxing walk back up the hill to campus in a complete downpour. I had a raincoat with me but refused to wear because my walking partner was without one and I thought it to be a bit rude to be dry while watching someone else completely dripping.

Day Three

Monday started after a great night of sleep, I woke up with the intention of meeting Hasan to try to find generators for the Pedal Power workshop I am running coming up on Friday. Walked down stairs and left my key with the hotel (it’s just what they do here), he offered me a breakfast and noticed that I was in a hurry so he mentioned that by no means did I have to eat so I took the offer and went about my way.
I arrived at the school and was given a lap top to use for the next few days and then met up with Hasan, we agreed to meet after lunch and he would take me to “his guy.” I went to office and started the long process of documentation for the trip and the upcoming conference.

I meet up with Hasan at the agreed upon time and we jump in the AUK SUV and here we go. While driving, he talks to me about how he used to work on cars and was quite familiar with what I was doing, which put me at ease a bit. He also talks about the importance of the idea of power on demand and how he has tried successfully before to make his own windmill out of bike parts. He also mentioned how strange it feels to have gone so far backwards during his time here. He has grown up here and lived here through the war and is now seeing the aftermath. He talks about a time that there was not power shortages and the streets were not all torn up. He says it’s never been a bad place to live but now he sees more people that need work. The thought had not occurred to that was actually a time before the war, a time when people were happier and did not have to worry about not having enough electricity or their water shutting off from time to time. Hasan sounds optimistic and tells me that he sees things getting better all time, but with improvement come trouble. All the new technology that keeps coming out such as computers and cell phones all takes up mass amounts of energy. When the energy that they have for the day is used up then they must go without. At times that can be hours or at critical moments or when they need heat for their homes.

We continue twisting around the streets and head up a large hill to a narrow street where Hasan asks me to get out, because if I did not I would not be able to after he parks. I get out and look down below at the city then at the yard that has now popped up where a house used to be. From where I am it’s about a 20 foot fall to the yard and the old foundation. I shimmy up the sidewalk toward a man who is eyeing Hasan and assisting him park and then I hear a loud crack. I hope that these guys are old friends because Hasan just rammed into the front of what seems to be this guy’s car. In most places in New York if this was to happen someone would most certainly lose their temper, but in this situation it all seems fine. The man signals me to follow him into this open garage with the skeleton of a 67 ford mustang rusted out with green paint on it sitting in the middle. He immediately starts speaking to me…in Armenian. I wait politely for him to finish and give him a queer look and say excuse me. He stares at me and snickers; Hasan is here now and starts to help translate. The man shows me two old generators that have been pulled from what I think would have to be old Volks Wagons. I think they should work and he is insistent this will do the trick. He also tells me that he is going to mount them to the bike stands so that they have maximum tension. He is speaking my language without a word of English. His shop for having enough junk in it to get whatever scrap that you need is nicely organized and quite clean. It is very reminiscent of the Rochester community bikes organization. I try to thank him gratefully because he has basically down everything I was nervous about doing myself. In fact there was very little that I have actually had to do myself while I have been here. In one sense has been disappointing, and in another sense has been wonderful to see that everyone is excited enough to help out with this. We leave the generators with him and go to the next shop to buy some electrical cable and tape. As we are parking I noticing all the people just hanging around the city, the time is about 1:30pm so I sort of shrug it off to a late lunch. When we walk into the shop, it’s a little smaller then my hotel room and has a very familiar smell of cigars. I pick some cable and we decide if we need tape then we walk out. I am sort wondering why we did not have to pay or how we have really not paid for anything today. I have heard people explain to me that Hasan is just someone who is connected, so I hesitate and still ask “so how come we have not had to pay for anything yet?” Hasan explains it me and sheds a whole lot of light about how things work there. It’s nothing suspicious or illegal, but still I am not going to go blabbing about it on the internet. With that we go back up the hill to the campus and he tells me about how he loves his job more than anything, sometimes, he says it is hard because you have to do some jobs that you do not really want to do but the good stuff very much outweighs the bad stuff.

For dinner that night we ate at a small Italian style restaurant down town and I get risotto with mixed seafood. Sven drops by and we get free Raki, this one is more the true style, and taste of anise. This is something that is good for one round a night; I don’t think you would ever want more than one. We stay and talk for four hours and then head home.

Day two

After a restless night listening to the wild dog packs that patrol the neighborhood and a band that was celebrating Albanian Flag Day I awoke early and walked down town with Lyndsey and Julia to meet up with some other staff members at a small café. When walking down the streets of Pristina you are constantly stepping on top of garbage, I was informed that this was because when the country was communist, what was yours you kept in your home, what you placed on the street or in public was the problem of the government to take care of. This helps explain a lot, when looking at the store fronts you should never judge a book by its cover. The café we run into is on an ally type street and is not decimated on the outside but is not what we consider to be a typical “nice” storefront. As soon as you open the door you see that the place is immaculate and the smell of baked goods and coffee enlivens the senses. The interior design is personal and lively such as if Starbucks was a small independent store with a real fashion sense. Everything is thought out and works together, the chairs are made to sit and have long conversation, and the drinks are made with an artistic nature and sense of pride that is well deserved. I found out later after getting about half way through the best macchiato that I have ever had, that this was the first restaurant in Kosovo that you actually go up to the counter to order. That is saying a lot since it just opened two months ago. This experience continues throughout the day going from small café to small café and falling in love with stunning interiors and the amazing food.
From there I get a walking tour from a local who works with AUK, through the city down to the newly unveiled Gold Bill Clinton Statue. The statue obviously says a lot about Kosovo culture and the locals for the most part very much dislike it. My immediate assumption was that they had issue with erecting a large statue of someone from another country who has mixed reactions from his home country. I was wrong, the people that I have spoken to about it actually just really dislike that the statue looks nothing like Bill, and It literally could be anyone. It makes me think of Harrison Ford being frozen in carbonate. The hands on the statue are just enough out of proportion to make it look very odd, also there are creases in the clothing that stand out in a very stiff way to make the jacket seem as if it was made of rough cut steel. I would say this is the perfect example of fear of commitment to an idea. That being said apparently the street named after him and the two giant billboards were not enough.



That night we were invited to a house above the city with an amazing view. The other plus of this is that owners with both architects and had designed the entire loft space apartment with huge windows looking out over the city. They also make their own wine and were very generous with the tastings. It was of course fantastic.

Kosovo- Day 1

Arrived 11/28/09

After exiting the time warp machine that we have created through air travel, I have arrived in Pristina Kosovo. From the air looking down it seems like a very hilly upstate NY. This being the first time that I have traveled internationally my naïve expectations of this place being completely foreign on all fronts were met with self reflected laughter upon realizing that the earth is the earth is the earth. Nature always shares similar features, it’s always some sort of soil that lies underneath your feet. As I peer out the window of our Air Berlin extremely impressive airplane I notice the flora is reminiscent to that of northern California during the winter months; varied tints of sepia and yellow fill a seemingly desaturated landscape. It does not help that there is so much cloud coverage and it is November. In that sense it is also like Upstate NY, the grayness that we have come to associate with a long winter approaching. I notice the difference in the how the houses are laid out. On an earlier flight over the Washington DC area, you see veins of roads alienated with white Victorian houses and their divvied out one acre plot of green land affixed with pool or trampoline. At the edge of that property begins another property. Here staring out the window is different, the houses are collected in clusters with no real form as to how they come together. Surrounding them is wide open pasture, the kinds that you can still find in some of the more central northern states in the U.S. Upon touching down we exit the plan and board a shuttle which travels about 100 feet from plan to customs. Although it seems frivolous it is a very welcoming way to corral everyone from plane to security. After collecting our various luggage Bill Myers, Lyndsey McGrath, and myself walked out into a sea of people that were awaiting their loved ones. If I had to liken the experience to something I would say it must feel similar to what it feels like to exit a rock concert, except instead of people greedily asking for signatures they are greeting you and welcoming you to their country.

The ride from the airport starts out on a bumpy dirt road; the roadsides are lined with garbage, mostly water bottles. The first groups of houses are small farm houses with tall fences, the tops of which are wrap with razor wire. There are cars pulled over on all sides of the roads and men standing around in black leather jackets smoking cigarettes and eyeing the traffic as we fly by. As a car passes us crossing into oncoming traffic and pulls up onto what I thought was a sidewalk the feeling hits me, I have just entered a very different world with a very different set of rules. I fortunately was asked to be sit "shotgun" so that I could experience the beauty of Kosovo driving first hand. Our driver Hasan Salihu (Operations Manager for American University in Kosovo) was very capable. What you don't read in the visitors guide book is the custom for driving is traffic laws are more of a suggestion than enforcement. Drivers weave in and out passing each other constantly there seems to be a notion of lanes, but it’s not same feeling that you have in United States. The feeling that you have an invisible wall separating you from oncoming traffic is nonexistent. People seem to have figured out a way to navigate each other knowing what the other car will do and speed around like it’s an old time comedy film where the chase scene is sped up.
As we approach the city we see tilled soil and Bill cannot help but notice that it seems much for fertile than what he is used to in Croatia. He says that in Croatia the soil is abundant with Rocks, so much so that getting good farm land becomes an ever growing task. Hasan mentions that in Kosovo they have been moving further and further away from farming. He talks about how small farms are not sustainable. The initial cost is far too great after you add the amount of work into for what you receive monetarily and the end of the growing season. We have now reached the city limits and the pattern of buildings that boarder the roadside is shocking. The first building seems about to fall down, the bottom has some sort of store front with broken glass and the upper floors have no face at all. The skin of the building seems to be peeling itself away from the structural aspects. This is not a renovation; this is time and war torn. The type that repairs may not be able to fix, the type that you may just want to start over from scratch because you are not sure how structurally sound the foundation could possibly be. The open soil around has covered all parts of the white stucco with a film of dirt unevenly spread from back to front. The pollution from the road makes a gradient with the dirt that later meets from the top down with the soot that is falling from the sky. The next is a few very tight stacks of bricks that make up a brand new slab skeleton. Its cleanliness stands out as does its hollowness. The style seems to be almost brutalist, square and very vacant. It’s obvious that this project has been stagnant for quite some time. All the makings are there but it seems that finances are so that the job could not have been finished. The third is a brand new four story building with extremely modern architecture; this seems to be someone’s home. Everything about it sparkles and looks excessive. The colors used are bright and feel like neon against the brown and yellow desaturated landscape. The entire front is tinted glass and seems to have the appearance of a bastard son of Frank Gerry. The shapes are rounded in strange ways, if I had to compare it to an object I would have to say a very over designed toaster.



It’s similar to walking through a used car lot and viewing an old tan Buick skylark, a hollowed out frame of a new Volkswagen Touareg and then a bright yellow Prius. The contrast is brutal but gives a hint of some sort of progress. This contrast runs throughout Kosovo culture; a land that is creating a new history and is constantly in development in an economy with no support.
Upon arrival at American University at Kosovo, I received a brief but in depth tour of the school highlighting the creativity of the students that spreads through all of the four floors of AUK’s only educational building. The building next door to the University is the Luxor Hotel, my shelter for the next 12 days. Not at all as it was explained to me, the Luxor is a great hotel, but also has led me to the first observation of design. When entering a new building with new customs, you expect certain things to be different. You do not expect simple things to change, like the shape of light switches, or how to flush the loo. What I love most about Kosovo thus far is this, Objects, not all objects but most and especially the things that you interact with the most are thought out and well designed. Case in point… the light switch. On an object that you must flick on and off constantly, would you want to flick a stick or a square flat yet rounded soft surface? The Stick is abrasive; it also juts out from the wall in a way that seems to injure the passerby in any way possible. Also after thinking about how much we actually use the light switch, it does not seem to be a smart idea to have a thin sharp rectangle that comes out of the wall. The other thing that I have found amazing about these phenomena is that it’s very difficult to find information about these sorts of switches. A Google search does not seem to come up with any just results. For being such a technologically advanced country (USA) we certainly have not given any thought to the everyday things in our lives. From door handles to wall outlets we have neglected such things in our country, this is an area of the future of design. We have become so jaded with making Cell Phones and Toasters we have not taken the time to improve the everyday necessities that constantly add to our daily stress levels. Is this not one of the goals of design? To assist in improving our everyday lives. Some things to think about, perhaps we have not become “dumb” as a country but we have become “numb” to the things that are not up to par in our lives.



Dinner-
Dinner was set at a lovely restaurant the next building up from my temporary home at the Luxor. The name of the place was ¬¬¬______. As I walked to the restaurant I notice large cow prints in the dirt sidewalk underneath my feet. I was told the herd grazes through this area quite commonly. Turning left and meandering through a rocky vine strewn path we reach a stone structure with the warm glow of a large fireplace inside. The interior is something else that we are now missing in our culture of chain restaurants as, it’s as rustic as a true cabin found in the middle of the woods. You could feel the handcrafted decor and tell how much time had been spent over the years perfecting the nuances of the wine and coat racks. We sit at a white linen table and are treated like royalty but the courteous staff. Dinning this evening was the president of the college along with his wife, the Director for the center for energy studies along with his wife (who makes amazing “American” cookies) Bill Myers ( a new faculty member) Julia (another new Faculty member) Lyndsey McGrath, and myself. A little know fact is that Albanian bread is the best bread in the world. What’s great about this is that not only is that true, but it also that a majority of Kosovo is inhabited by Albanians. After perusing the menu, the waiter brought us a plate full of a variation of the fish that was to be served that night. I will not even try to write out most of these names, but I was told that beyond the fantastic calamari, the trout was one of the best served in the world and only cost 8 euro’s. This fish was served whole and was delicious, no special seasoning, just grilled over real flames and served with some side dish vegetables. Dinner was great and the conversation even after being awake for 27 hours was energetic and absolute. When everyone had finished their meals there was an offer of desert or Raki. Raki is a non-sweet anise-flavored spirit popularly consumed in Turkey and the Balkans as an aperitif in particular alongside seafood and mezze. It is produced in the Balkans from distilling pomace, similar to Italian grappa. It is a must try for anyone who love to experience new things.

Finally!

Pedal-Powered OLPC Laptop for Kids in Afghanistan (Video)
by Jaymi Heimbuch, San Francisco, California on 10.13.09
Science & Technology
Buzz up!



A prototype for a pedal-powered charging option for OLPCs was created OLPC Afghanistan so children can still have access to the computers even during power outages. The station charges the laptop while it is being used, and can be run without difficulty by typical 3rd and 4th grade children.

There's one way to get all the extra energy out of a kid during class time! OLPC Afghanistan states, "The system connects the Freeplay hand crank with pedals underneath to enable the XO to be used as long as desired at home, into the night, etc; and it requires no additional or backup battery."

The laptops have very low power requirements in the first place - a significant reason why they were created at all - so keeping them charged in this manner would be practical.

Beyond Bicycles with Rock, Paper, Scissor.

Beyond Bicycles
The Gossamer Albatross crossed the English Channel in 1979. For more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Albatross

The Gossamer Albatross crossed the English Channel in 1979. For more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Albatross

This is a call for work – Artists, Thinkers, Creators – We seek your human-powered machines, bicycle-based inventions, and interactive kinetic sculpture. In May of 2010, Rock Paper Scissors Collective is hosting BEYOND BICYCLES a celebration of the art, science, and politics of harnessing human power. Our inspiration is the bicycle, a simple machine that has transformed our experience of moving through the world. We see the bicycle as possibility, the tip of the big ol’ iceberg of human potential energy.

BEYOND BICYCLES will be an exhibition documenting the many ingenious uses of human power past and present. The Gallery space at Rock Paper Scissors Collective is limited so large works will only be displayed during opening night. Our month long exhibition will consist of a collection large color photographs of works, accompanied by a printed zine. There will also be a web zine which will be more extensive than the printed version.

We invite you to send us your work – past, present and future. What do you do with your potential and what do you believe is possible? Please send us digital images (no more than 10M at a time), specifications and descriptions. If you have video, please send us a link. We will accept proposals if your work is as yet unrealized. Include your contact information and let us know whether or not your work will be available for the May 7th opening. If your work is chosen, please be prepared to write a one to three page piece (how-to, history, etc.) about it for the exhibition zine.

The submission deadline is March 15th.

Send entries to:
gallery _at_ rpscollective _dot_ com.

By post:
2278 Telegraph Ave.
Oakland CA 94612

Mark Twain

"Get a bicycle, you certainly wont regret it, if you live."

H.G. Wells

"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of mankind."