Design Drift’s Fragile Future uses real dandelions in these spectacular light fixtures to tell the story of the amalgamation of nature and technology that will happen in the future in a pact for both to survive.

Vincent Callebaut Architecte designs for the future, a future that requires sustainability to address the consequences of a changing climate. Their project Hydrogenase was created to meet the need for a sustainable transport system.  To accomplish this they have designed airships powered by seaweed. 

Vincent Callebaut Architecte describes their project:

HYDROGENASE, ALGAE FARM TO RECYCLE CO2 FOR BIO-HYDROGEN AIRSHIP

Between engineering and biology, Hydrogenase is one of the first projects of bio-mimicry which draws its inspiration from the beauty and the shapes of the nature, but also and especially from the qualities of its materials and its self-manufacturing processes. The new green revolution is really in progress and enables us to design the air mobility of the foil after shock, 100% self-sufficient in energy and zero carbon emission! This inhabitated vertical aircraft inaugures a clean and ethic mobility to meet the needs of the population en distress touched by the natural and sanitary catastrophes, and all that without any runway! Its architecture is subversive and fundamentally critic towards the ways of living of our contemporary society that we have to reinvent totally! Let’s take off thanks to biofuels and let’s propel to the eco-responsible transport of the future!

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Phillips bio-light design uses bacteria to light up your living room

Philips has shown off a concept for a light that runs on not grid electricity, not solar power, not even wind power. Nope, it runs on bacteria.

According to Philips, “The concept explores the use of bioluminescent bacteria, which are fed with methane and composted material (drawn from the methane digester in the Microbial Home system). Alternatively the cellular light array can be filled with fluorescent proteins that emit different frequencies of light.”

Photographer Edward Burtynsky wants us to look more closely at the things we least want to see.

Burtynsky on his work:

Nature transformed through industry is a predominant theme in my work. I set course to intersect with a contemporary view of the great ages of man; from stone, to minerals, oil, transportation, silicon, and so on. To make these ideas visible I search for subjects that are rich in detail and scale yet open in their meaning. Recycling yards, mine tailings, quarries and refineries are all places that are outside of our normal experience, yet we partake of their output on a daily basis.

These images are meant as metaphors to the dilemma of our modern existence; they search for a dialogue between attraction and repulsion, seduction and fear. We are drawn by desire - a chance at good living, yet we are consciously or unconsciously aware that the world is suffering for our success. Our dependence on nature to provide the materials for our consumption and our concern for the health of our planet sets us into an uneasy contradiction. For me, these images function as reflecting pools of our times.

Takayuki Hori’s intriguing project Oritsunagumono uses x-rays of endangered birds folded origami-style to call attention to the amount of waste discharged into the ocean and its effects on the wildlife. The translation of the title of his project means “folded and connected”. 

Ghosts of Gone Birds is a touring exhibition with a lofty cause.

About the exhibition:

We are raising a creative army for conservation through a series of multimedia exhibitions and events that will breathe artistic life back into extinct birds species. Ghosts Of Gone Birds celebrates their diversity thru paintings & sculpture, talks & poetry, installations & live music. Plus a series of Ghosts stories that shed light on front line conservation work being done around the world to prevent any more birds migrating to gone status.

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Jason LaFerrera’s fantastic collages of wildlife made from maps

LaFerrera explains his work:

The textures and contours of old maps are fascinating, even the tattered and stained parts. In this series, I digitally manipulate cartographic materials to create fauna and fowl in poses reminiscent of field guides from a similarly early era of publication. These idealized depictions created from recycled imagery question our relationship with the boundaries we draw to divide the natural world. The patterns of forests and shores often become an animal’s feathers or fur, while the rings of topography often trace out wings or antlers.

As we contemplate the full impact of reaching a world population of 7 billion, it seems like a good time to check out National Geographic’s slideshow of the 10 least crowded places in the world. 

Beautifully heartbreaking: Industrial Scars by J. Henry Fair. This project documents the damage caused by industrial pollution, but it also captures how toxic waste can produce unnaturally vivid colors and abstract patterns.

Exposure by Antony Gormley

Gormley explains his project:

My concept of how sculpture works in the landscape is that it is a still point in a moving world. The whole idea of EXPOSURE is that this work, made at a particular time, rooted to ground, reacts over time to the changing environment. One of the known environmental changes that is happening is the rising of the sea level through global warming. It is critical to me that at the time of its making this work reacts with the viewer, the walking viewer, on the top of the polder and that the surface that the viewer stands on is the surface that the work stands on. The work cannot have a plinth. Over time, should the rising of the sea level mean that there has to be a rising of the dike, this means that there should be a progressive burying of the work.

Atmosphere: and your troubles, like bubbles will disappear is a project by Jasmine Targette.

Atmosphere discusses the alarming number of toxic gases ‘bubbling up’ in the Earth’s atmosphere.work examines the fragility of the Earth’s atmosphere that in the current ecological climate appears constantly on the verge of collapse. Underlying tension in the title of the work highlights the need to quantify ecological concerns.

Photographer Ian Shive recently won the Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography from the Sierra Club and is currently working on a long-term project to document the world’s most endangered ecosystems. He has also just begun working with the U.S. Department of Interior to document the nation’s wildlife refuges. 

Opposites is a wonderfully clever poster series by SVA Undergraduates 

This impressively large recreation of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man in the Arctic Sea was made by artist John Quigley in collaboration with Greenpeace. It will slowly melt away over the coming years until barely anything is left.

Greenpeace said they designed the art to represent how ‘climate change is eating into the body of our civilisation’.

The environmental campaigners claim that this September could mark the lowest sea ice levels on record. They say that world leaders need to take urgent action on climate change.‘We came here and created The Melting Vitruvian Man , recreating da Vinci’s famous sketch of the human body,’ Mr Quigley  said.

‘When Davinci did this sketch it was the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, the dawn of this innovative age that continues to this day, but our use of fossil fuels is threatening that.’