Human Powered Home – 24 October 2009, London

Button pressing age gave rise to obesity. More and more people work in sedentary office jobs. People use artificial spaces to exercise, to step-up but not get higher, to run and not get anywhere. What are we doing with our physicality and strength?

Are we willing to sacrifice breathing clean air, balance of our ecosystem and future of our children for convenience? for luxury of pressing buttons on electrical appliances? for having it all so easy and instant because we’re just too busy? Magnificent Revolution is not ready for environmental suicide and this is our response……..

We invite you all to our Human Powered Home exhibition at The Bigger Picture: Festival of Interdependence this coming Saturday 24th of October 09 from 10:30 till 19:30 at the Bargehouse, South Bank. You know you want a ride a bicycle that chops grass….come down and have a go on a true chopper and other human powered delights that we’ve built!

The Bigger Picture: Festival of Interdependence is a free interactive, living exhibition put together by nef (the new economics foundation)
Programme attached

See you there,

Magnificent Revolution

Can You Bike Your Way To Power Small Appliances?

Great post by Green Life at http://agreenliving.net/can-you-bike-your-way-to-power-small-appliances/

Review of FutureSonic:Environment2.0 2009 by Ruth Catlow and Olga Panades

This review of the 2009 FutureSonic festival by Ruth Catlow and Olga Panades looks at artists’ and technologists’ explorations, of participation and agency in a networked society in the context of environmental crisis. It also reflects on the partial adoption of an ecological approach in a celebration of the new techno-green-enterprise soon to become FutureEverything.

http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=359

Magnificent Revolution at Le Cinema de Broadwater

Update 26 September 2008: some photos from the event!

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http://www.magnificentrevolution.org/2008/09/320/

Autumn is knocking on the door and it’s time for some good films. Over the summer we powered plenty of music, and it’s nice to see the cinema getting back on track! On the 25th of September, Magnificent Revolution is putting on a Pedal Powered Cinema in cooperation with the Haringey Independent Cinema and Broadwater Community Centre. The cinema will be outside in the 1930s shell amphitheater next to the skate park at the Lordship Recreation Ground (near Adams Rd entrance, N17) . If weather fails us, then we’ll relocate to the Broadwater Farm Community Centre. Screening will start at 8pm and we’re going to show Bellevile Randesvouz.

Poster download (PDF).

Revolutionary Cycle cinema – video by Simon Mullen

More Pedal-A-Watt

Video of the Pedal-A-Watt in action from the Econvergence website:

Click here to download the original video from the Econvergence website (.avi, 7.6MB).

Self-Propelled Cinema

Article by by Julie Hanus in the Utne Reader -

http://www.utne.com/2008-07-01/Arts/Self-Propelled-Cinema.aspx

More on the Pedal-A-Watt

From the manual, which I have received today…

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The Pedal-A-Watt, creates 200 watts of power. 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.

If I am pedaling and creating 200 watts of power and I keep pedaling for 2 hours, I create 200 Watt-Hours, or:

200 Watts x 2 Hours = 400 Watt-Hours

Now, with 400 Watt-Hours stored in the battery, I can power:

A 400 watt TV for 1 hour (400 Watts x 1 hour = 400 Watt-Hours)
A 200 Watt TV for 2 hours (200 Watts x 2 hours = 400 Watt-Hours)
A 20 Watt laptop PC for 20 hours (20 Watt x 20 hours = 400 Watt-Hours)
A 15 Watt fluorescent bulb for almost 27 hours (15 Watts x 26 hours = 400 Watt-Hours)

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
Refrigerator – 700 watts
Dishwasher – 350 watts
Dryer – 400 watts

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Projectors, I think, are in the region of 200-300 watts. So a projector, stereo and laptop might be too much for one person to generate, unless I can find a relatively low power projector.

Pedal-A-Watt

The power behind this project will come via the Pedal-A-Watt (image below).

This should allow me to place a bicycle in the stand and generate electricity from pedalling. The main stand has arrived… once I have the inverter and battery I can start testing to see how much I will actually be able to power directly from a bike. There should be enough for a laptop, but a projector and then amplified audio output might be too much for the rider to generate… we’ll see!

Grand Theft Bicycle: A Game-Installation by Steve Gibson, Justin Love and Jimmy Olson

Grand Theft Bicycle: A Game-Installation
By Steve Gibson, Justin Love and Jimmy Olson

Experience the excitement, glamour, fear, violence and mayhem of a genuine Middle Eastern battle! Better yet, get your fat shooter-playing ass off the console and onto the revolutionary Borgcycle™, a sensor equipped bike that allows / forces users to get a heart-pounding workout while hunting down some baddies.