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Art, Science, and Technology Installations
Art, science, and technology installations are the foundation of Yuri's Night. This year we've got a dazzling array of amazing installations!
Stay tuned for more updates on some of these amazing art works, science exhibits, and feats of engineering! We're updating this page with more details every day!
2008 Tesla Roadster(Tesla Motors)
The Tesla Roadster, now in production, is the world’s first high performance production electric vehicle and is the only full performance electric vehicle in production. It is a literal embodiment of the event theme: “Radical Technology for a Sustainable Future”.
360 Degrees
(Frank Pietronigro)
An Art in Space video installation celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Frank Pietronigro’s first parabolic flight, when the artist flew in weightlessness from the NASA Johnson Space Center on April 4, 1998 while creating ‘drift paintings’ as scientific research. Chiori Santiago, arts advocate and writer, flew with Frank’s team as In-flight Journalist. She is featured floating throughout 360 Degrees. This video work shows a painter’s creative experience as one story celebrating human space exploration. This flight was part of the Texas Space Grant’s NASA Reduced Gravity Student Flight Program and was flown in collaboration with the California Space Grant Consortium and the San Francisco Art Institute.
Presented by the artist in memorial of Chiori Santiago, who passed away the night we were celebrating Yuri’s Night Bay Area 2007. In 360 Degrees we see Chiori floating above us, waving to us at times, while sharing in our 2008 celebration.
Ames Amateur Radio Club
Demonstrations of live television transmisions, satellite spectral displays, and radio communications.
BD-5 Jet(Hiller Aviation Museum)
The BD-5 jet holds the Guinness World Record as the world’s smallest jet airplane. It was released in 1971 by Bede Aircraft Company. This particular BD-5B, a propeller-driven version, is brought to us by the air boss for Aeronautika, the evening aerobatic flight demonstration taking place at Yuri’s Night. This aircraft originally belonged to Seth Anderson, who was an aerospace engineer at NASA Ames for many years. (Photo copyright Ben Wang.)
Brainwave-reading technology for consumer applications(NeuroSky, Inc.)
NeuroSky is the worldwide leader in providing solutions to effectively interface bio-signal information, including brainwaves, to consumer electronic products. Our installation will demonstrate a brainwave-reading headset that interprets Attention and Meditation states of the user to control a telekinesis-based video game. NeuroSky encourages audience participation!
Bumble Bee and Cyclefuge
(Cyclecide)
The Bay View Space Administration and San Francisco Heavy Pedal Cyclecide Bike Rodeo present an Exploration of Bicycle Flight! Bicycle mechanics have been instrumental in our historic effort to master gravity: the Wright Brothers’ early pedal-powered designs and Henry Ford’s as well. Since 1997 we have used bicycles not just as a vehicle, but a medium for expressing our interests in art, music and performance. We see the bicycle as a malleable machine that can be altered and transformed for the sake of fun! (Photo by Jo Jo Klown.)
Burning Man Earth(Burning Man Earth)
Would you like to fly over Black Rock City, zoom to your favorite theme camp, zip out to deep-playa art installations, and connect with your fellow participants, year round? Welcome to Burning Man Earth: a 3D virtual representation of Black Rock City as it existed any given year. It's available year round, so you can learn what was done, how, and connect with who made it happen. Burning Man Earth is a mapping of the Burning Man cultural genome.
CalCars.org — Bringing Plug-In Hybrids to Mass Production(The California Cars Initiative)
We’s a Palo Alto-based nonprofit startup of entrepreneurs, engineers, environmentalists and consumers promoting 100+MPG plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). The increasingly-successful effort is becoming recognized as a hopeful sign we can get off our addiction to fossil fuels. This may be the first time a high-ticket consumer product will be mass-produced and come to market as the result of a “bottom-up/by popular demand” campaign. This could provide a model to be applied in other sectors of society where we need to develop zero-carbon products.
Color Space(Luis Maurette)
Color Space is an interactive three-projector video installation based on RGB color space theories. Participants walk inside the color space, observing colors as they combine to form new colors and gradients. “An RGB color space can be easily understood by thinking of it as ‘all possible colors’ that can be made from three colourants.” (Wikipedia)
Cosmonauts Monument — in video(Mark McGothigan and the Mad Scientists)
A twenty-first century visual representation of the Cosmonauts Monument (in Russia) to commemorate manned space flight. The imposing 1960s structure, outside of Moscow is clad in titanium, a classic space-age material that symbolizes strength and purity. The twenty-first century version will be covered in video to suggest the fractal and increasingly dynamic nature of human activity. The inspiration for this piece replaces the hard metal of concrete achievements with the illusion of video montage to illustrate how scattered our thought processes have become.
Countdown Generator(Peter Foucault and John Urquhart)
Countdown Generator is a 5 channel video installation created by Bay Area artist Peter Foucault and Bay Area filmmaker John Urquhart. Countdown Generator utilizes low-fi cumulative mark making systems to allude to an unknown epic event that is about to take place. Marks appear additively across the screens and enshroud the viewer in a numerical universe that exists suspended in a state of heightened awareness and suspense.
Crucible of the Firmament
(Zachary Jones and Jeannine Davies)
Vortex motion is present across all scales of life, and forms a common element of experience to people from any background. Like our relationship to space, the vortex is the edge of great mystery. This work presents a new facet of vortex motion via a water sculpture. The “braided” character of the vortex motion is unambiguously familiar, yet decidedly novel. Its distinct character of motion transcends memory and intuition and inescapably leads to a new realization of physical space.
Earth From Above: globeSynth
(Peter Kirn)
Using NASA’s open source World Wind Java SDK, the globeSynth pulls topography data and satellite imagery of the Earth’s surface, as seen from above, and transforms it into real-time 3D visualizations and music. The custom software “reads” the surface of the Earth by profiling terrain in real-time and sampling texture tiles from satellite imagery, which then are visualized and modulate sound synthesis parameters. With real-time control by the performer, the result is an audiovisual instrument.
Eat Drink Sleep and other works(Lili Smith)
Light installations reflecting the Repetitions in life experience and stages in human society.
Epimorphism
Robotic Fire Sculptures and Lithium-Powered Electric Motorcycles(Justin Gray)
Come see some of Justin Gray’s latest robots and electric motorcycles!
Gigapan: Explore your planet with Gigapixel Panoramas
(The Global Connection Project)
GigaPan consists of three technological developments: a robotic camera mount for capturing very high-resolution (gigapixel and up) panoramic images using a standard digital camera; custom software for constructing very high-resolution gigapixel panoramas; and, a new type of website for exploring, sharing and commenting on gigapixel panoramas and the detail our users will discover within them.
A Home Forever
(Ellen McManis)
My work is one student’s vision of a future in which we get our materials and energy primarily from renewable resources. It consists of a sculpture showing a possible futuristic city accompanied by a story taking place in that possible future. I want people to view my installation and start thinking about what their vision of a renewable future might be.
Homebuilt Aircraft N42PE(Paul Eastham)
This RV-9A aircraft was built by me, in my garage. Homebuilt aircraft are becoming more and more popular, making a strong statement about the accessibility of aviation and aerospace technology to nearly everyone. The RV-9A aircraft is all about efficiency—its mileage can approach that of some hybrid cars, which is unheard-of in most aircraft. This aircraft also carries some energy-efficient innovations, such as high-brightness LED-based external lighting.
Hunab Ku(Dwight Loop and Lynn Augstein)
A light/sound installation piece conceived by Dwight Loop in three parts originally. This work will represent the sound and light representative of the energetic shift which is taking place as we head to the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012. Deep cellular space music combined with planetary visual light images and geometric representations of the Mayan cosmology. Colorful and inspiring visual/video images created by light artist Lynn Augstein shown on two inflatables balloons, giving the appearance of planetary bodies.
The Hydrogen Economy(False Profit Labs)
Come get up close and personal with fire. In our vision of The Hydrogen Economy, participants wield dragon torches and touch rising bubbles filled with an explosive cocktail of hydrogen, oxygen and propane gas. Beautiful fireballs explode in patterns of light and sound.
I.T.
Interactive Wall(Kenneth Willes et al.)
Immerse yourself in a large digital wall of graphics and interact with it by moving your body. You will be challenged to wade through liquid and race through challenges. The Interactive Wall fun starts at 7:40 pm.
JPods. Solar powered automated guideways. Moving people and cargo in a Physical-Internet.Jpods.com
JPods is an operational example of PodCars, ultra-light vehicles that operate on automated guideways to move people and cargo with zero-emissions. On-demand mobility is provided at about 183 miles per gallon, without the gallon of gas.
Methane Machine
Microbial Mats: Earth’s Earliest Ecosystems — Microalgae: Earth’s Latest Source of Energy?(Brad Bebout et al.)
Microbial mats, Earth’s earliest ecosystems, have been around for 3.5 billion years. Come and see why these complicated communities of microorganisms are relevant to NASA missions, our search for life elsewhere, and the quest for economical biofuels. Join NASA Ames investigators, members of the Thermal Biology Institute and the ABRC NAI node from Montana State University, and investigators at Bodega Algae, LLC for live demonstrations of mat microbial ecology, laboratory and field instrumentation, a microbial batik project, and a state of the art photobioreactor.
Mindchill (GSR) and Introscope (EEG)(Infodelic Ectomorphs — Gautam Agarwal, Tim Mullen, Jonathan Toomim, Geoffrey Brookshire)
Through biofeedback, users will explore the intricate coupling between their mental and physical worlds. Measurements of brain activity and arousal will be transformed into an audiovisual environment that users can navigate in real-time.
Mutopia: Seedpod #7(The Flaming Lotus Girls)
Flaming Lotus Girls will be debuting a portion of their latest interactive creation, Mutopia. In its eventual form Mutopia will be a spiraling sculptural installation of thirteen Seedpods laid out according to the Golden Ratio, a proportion found throughout art and nature. Made of interactive fire, cast aluminum, LED light, video screens, sensors, steel, copper and stainless steel, these thirteen Seedpods will lie within a 97' x 60' footprint. Each Pod will showcase a different stage of growth, from emergence to full bloom. The lucky attendees of Yuri’s Night will receive a special sneak preview of an emerging Seedpod, which includes some of our latest interactive technology. They will be invited to play and interact with the growing life form Mutopia. (Pictured is one of the Flaming Lotus Girls’ earlier works, Serpent Mother.)
Past Proprioception, 2006(Michael Joaquin Grey. Computational cinema with stereo sound. Film object, computer, custom software designed with R. Luke DuBois.)
“Past Proprioception: Oct. 4, 1957 – Oct 4, 2007” is a beautifully hypnotic and immersive meditation on space fifty years after the first satellite. The journey continues Grey’s relationship to the art and ontogeny of visualization. The synaesthetic computational film object captures the essence of the artist’s own movement and propioception practice with a universal surrogate or avatar—the lost astronaut/cosmonaut moving through a range of fantastic visualizations of space, film objects and images. (Image courtesy the artist and bitforms gallery nyc.)
RocketCam Greatest Hits(Ecliptic Enterprises Corporation)
Ride a rocket to space! RocketCam is the world’s leading product family of onboard video systems for use on rockets and spacecraft, with nearly 60 successful launches so far since 1997 Enjoy approx. 90 minutes of RocketCam video highlights from over two dozen space projects. View dramatic scenes from launches of the Space Shuttle, Delta and Atlas rockets, plus stunning highlights from the flights of SpaceShipOne, the XCOR EZ-Rocket and other leading-edge aerospace vehicles.
The Rosetta Disk(The Long Now Foundation)
The Rosetta Disk is the physical companion of the Rosetta Digital Language Archive, and a prototype of one facet of The Long Now Foundation’s 10,000-Year Library. It is intended to be a durable archive of human languages, as well as an aesthetic object that suggests a journey of the imagination across culture and history. The Disk surface, meant to be a guide to the contents, is etched with a central image of the earth and a message written in eight major world languages: “Languages of the World: This is an archive of over 1,000 human languages assembled in the year 02002 C.E. Magnify 1,000 times to find over 15,000 pages of language documentation.” The text begins at eye-readable scale and spirals down to nano-scale. This tapered ring of languages is intended to maximize the number of people that will be able to read something immediately upon picking up the Disk, as well as implying the directions for using it—‘get a magnifier and there is more.’
Share a Ride and Sustain the Earth
(GaryAir and Tradewinds Aviation)
New technologies such as enhanced flight deck displays and web-based ride share are bringing improved safety and efficiency and lower costs for convenient and fun travel options, reducing green house gas emissions, pollution, and dependence upon foreign sources of energy. Sharing rides using social networking technologies such as Facebook will also provide fun and safe ways to spend time with new people. Attendees will do a flight planning exercise and web-based rideshare demo, and can view a video hosted by Norman Mineta about the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen).
SOFIA Interactive Infrared Display
(SOFIA — Stratoshperic Observatory for Infrared Astronomy)
The largest flying observatory, SOFIA, is a Boeing 747SP with a Hubble-sized infrared telescope in the aft of the airplane. The observatory’s capabilities have advantages from both ground based and satellite telescopes. The SOFIA exhibit contains an interactive infrared display to help demonstrate the special characteristics of infrared.
SolFocus — Focus on Solar for a Sustainable Future(SolFocus)
SolFocus provides solar energy solutions which will enable solar energy generation that is cost competitive with traditional fossil fuel sources. SolFocus has an expanding portfolio of products and technologies including solar concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) systems, intelligent tracking systems for CPV and flat panel PV, and will be expanding into other solar technologies. For more information about SolFocus, visit www.solfocus.com.
Sub-Orbital Aerodynamic Re-entry Experiments (SOAREX)(Marcus Murbach, NASA Ames Research Center)
SOAREX is a NASA Hypersonic Program project based out of Ames Research Center. Currently on their sixth mission, with plans for two more in the works, SOAREX utilizes sounding rockets to test advanced re-entry probes including the self-stabilizing Slotted Compression RAMP (SCRAMP) probe and the hypersonic waverider lifting body. SOAREX also conducts research into simplified planetary entry, descent and landing technologies; sensor and instrumentation development; hybrid rocket propulsion; and novel planetary rover design.
Superdrawathon(Joshue Ott and Ezekiel Honig)
Bring your Wii controller (or use one of ours) to interact with this multi-user art/sound experience. Since your movements affect both the visual and audio portions of the installation, the more you do, the more you see/hear changes, and the more you interact with other users.
Tin Girl(Daniela Steinsapir)
Interactive electromechanical video sculpture used with found discarded materials. The sculpture is able to sense sound and to recycle the viewer’s image. Inspired by Mr.Tin man from the wizard of oz.
Wind-Powered Hydrofoil Boat
(Makani Power)
Makani is developing high-altitude wind energy extraction technologies aimed at the most powerful wind resources.
Wrightspeed X1(Wrightspeed)
The world’s quickest street-legal electric car. This car has beaten some of the fastest cars made by Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborghini on the racetrack. It uses no fuel and returns the equivalent of 170mpg in urban driving. Innovation, transportation, energy. Plus it’s just cool.
Yuri Frees the Stars(Sean Stevens)
Just as Yuri brought the Heavens within Human reach, we each have the power to reach the stars. Use your energy to bring an ordered chaos of stars to life.