Heart of the Matter

 

 Heart of the Matter,  Art Center Gallery, Laney campus  2007

Heart of the Matter, postcard from the show
Jody Stegman

Heart of the Matter is the 4th exhibition of the Laney College EcoArtMatters class.  Each class develops its own personality depending on the unique individual artists that spend so much creative time together.  This group has obviously worked hard, benefiting from the class guest speakers and at the Bioneers Conference, from lively discussion, readings and films, and from collaborating with each other.  The work reflects their extensive research and the rich diversity of their personal talents and passions.  

My great reward in teaching this class is witnessing the transformations that take place and seeing the work produced as students learn about and become impassioned about their own choices of concern.   I am continually amazed at what these remarkable students invent and envision, reinforcing hope and belief in our ability to survive through creative and compassionate action. 

I congratulate and thank all my students for their hard work and talents, and hope this is just the beginning of an ongoing process of creative adventures.  May you be inspired to spread not only the word about these urgent matters, but also the great hope as manifested by this work.

Andrée Singer Thompson

Pedal a Watt
Mary White, James Cline

The Watt Energy Pedaler
Salvaged exercise bike from Urban Ore, salvaged DC generator from a treadmill found on the street, recycled bottles and slumped broken window glass, DC halogen lights, steel stand found on the street in San Francisco, prisms from WWII tank windows, salvaged DC headlight, salvaged DC water pump, salvaged LED lights

We addressed the following question: How do we become power generators, without using more embodied energy to make new apparatus? How do we bring more awareness of the amount of energy needed for simple household appliances.

Clean and available energy will become more and more important to our world as more people require more power.

Traditional forms of electrical power: coal and nuclear power plants, create environmental pollution. "Clean" producers of power: solar, wind, wave, hydro and pedal powered energy, don't emit toxic waste, are usually quiet and provide electricity with less poisoning of the air, the water or the soil. We need to encourage more sources of clean power in the future and new ways to use our current clean technologies.

We need to learn to appreciate how much power is used in our daily life for lights and appliances. If we experience the human energy required to power the simple appliances around us, perhaps then we can learn to conserve and more wisely use the energy we have.

Our Watt Energy Pedal bicycle helps the user stay aerobically fit while creating power that may be used to power lights and/or other small appliances. The Energy Pedaler may also be used to charge a battery so that the power may be used at a later time
The average rider will produce between 125 and 200 watts an hour using the bike. While this may not seem like much power, many pieces of equipment draw very little power and can be powered for long spans of time with small amounts of power.

Lights, laptops, and radios all draw small amounts of current at 12 volts DC. In addition, LED lighting and high efficiency fluorescent lighting now allow 200 watts to go a long way. A typical 25 watt fluorescent light bulb, which replaces a 100 watt incandescent bulb, will last 8 hours on 200 watts worth of power. LEDs (light emitting diodes) are even more efficient and will last days on 200 watts worth of power.

Here is the Power Consumption of Typical Appliances:


Small TV 100 watts

Large TV 200 watts

Laptop PC 10 watts

Desktop PC 75 watts

Stereo 20 watts

Charging a cellphone 5 watts

Hi Effic. Desk lamp 15 watts

An Explanation of Watts vs. Watt-Hours
Watts is an instantaneous measure of power at any moment in time. Watt-hours is a measure of power over time.

 For example, the Energy Pedal creates 200 watts of power per hour. If you pedal for 2 hours, then you have created 400 watt-hours (200 watts x 2 hours) of power.
 This 400 watt-hours would power a 100 watt light bulb for 4 hours, a 200 watt large screen TV for 2 hours and so on.

Directions
Carefully climb onto the bike and begin pedaling. Pedal hard
enough so that you are turning on the lights and fountain.
The fly wheel does not stop when you stop pedaling. When
you decide to stop, be careful to take your feet off the pedals to let the bike slow down to a stop.

Dinner Kills

From Predicament to Possibility
Nzinga Irene Pace
Clay, Oil on canvas
9 ft. x 6 ft.

Diesel exhaust is the number one toxic air pollutant in California.  The Port of Oakland is the fourth busiest in the US.  Diesel truck exhaust directly affects the air quality in West Oakland.

The black smoke causes cancer, reproductive harm, asthma, heart disease and premature death.

Average diesel emissions per square mile in West Oakland are more than 90 times greater than average emissions for the rest of the state.

West Oakland residents breathe air with diesel particulate levels that are five times greater than what residents breathe in other parts of Oakland.

An examination of death certificates dating back to the 1060’s revealed that residents of West Oakland live ten years less than people living in the Oakland hills. They also have five times the risk of getting cancer than residents in other parts of Oakland.

Asthma is epidemic in this neighborhood. Children here are seven times more likely to be hospitalized for asthma than the average child in California.

By the year 2010 the number of truck trips to the Oakland Port will double from 11,000 to 22,000.

 

Happy Shopper, by Kin Kwok 

La Madre Tierra: So Pleased with your offering. Urine separating toilet seat.
Christina Bertea

Lotus: Inside Out
Prototype urine separating compost toilet seat
Clay, hose, found metal and plywood
Feeling alienated?...DIS-connected?
Not a meaningful part of the greater whole?
Here’s how to restore your link to the sacred web of life:
Get PISS-connected!
Claim your right to participate in the nutrient cycle:
Consume, give back…
Consume, give back…
Consume, give back…
Your urine is a near perfect fertilizer (diluted
3 to 5 times with water…)
Use a urine separating composting toilet or urine separating flush toilet (from Sweden,
where they harvest urine to sell to farmers)
and share your “gold” with the garden!
Your trees and shrubs will thank you, and you
will feel oh so useful and connected to life.

The Challenge:
*Natural gas is a non-renewable petroleum product, in decline as is oil
*Natural gas is used to make the nitrogen fertilizer used in conventional agriculture
*If fertilizer becomes prohibitively expensive or scarce, much of the world’s human food supply could be in jeopardy

Option:
*Find a plentiful new source of nitrogen fertilizer (human urine)
*Educate people to value and collect that source

Residual Impact:
*Increased awareness that what goes in /comes out, and is beneficial for the earth—or not
*Possible improvement in diet and less consumption of pharmaceuticals