Day 5: Tuesday, July 14

Artists: Britta Riley & Rebecca Bray (Eyebeam Residents): working to create crowdsourced R&D solutions for environmental issues. Current project: http://www.windowfarms.org

Workshop: DDC students will team up with students from the Whitney’s Teen program to learn about Rebecca & Britta’s Window Farms project (currently installed at Eyebeam), and then join their design team to help them with their goal of starting a window farming craze.

Critical Frameworks: Social networks, audience development & participation, DIY, public / private space

Resources:

• Edible Estates
• Michael Pollan text: Why Bother? (On the impact of gardening, and benefits of craze-making)
• Intersection of: GRL’s LED Throwies (example of fast spread of high visibility tech DIY objects in urban spaces) – DIY urban gardening – manifesting as Seed Bombing
• RTmark (collaborative art hack community where people posted fantasy projects and other people contributed money or skills – resulted in Barbie Liberation Army among other things).,
• Highlighting design: Energy Generating Revolving Doors

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Today was a very interesting experience that made us think that as New Yorkers we have to change the way we live and become more eco-friendly. We worked with another program which was very fun because we got to meet new people and interact with them. The window farms is something very interesting creative. This is a very affordable and nutritious way to grow your own food in the comfort of your home. With this idea everyone in New York City could have their own farm in their own apartment without taking much space. This is very cool because we could see what takes to grow something and were you get your food unlike going to the food market and just wonder where it comes from. This is something we would love to do in the future and the best part is that anyone could customize it to build your personal touch into your window farm.

Working with Britta Riley & Rebecca Bray for today’s Eyebeam project  was a very eyeopening experience. It allowed us to see that preserving the  environment can be very simple and doesn’t always take large actions to do it. By creating our very own Window farm we would not only be able to grow and produce our own fruits and vegetables but we would be able to start a new healthier life style while helping the environment at the same time. Working with Britta and Rebecca gave us the chance to give our ideas on how to get the word out about the Window Farms through a group activity and also allowed us the chance to openly express our ideas to a large group of people which helps me to build confidence of speaking in large groups and voicing our opinions at the same time.

Learning about window farms and how they could help the way New Yorkers live. Britta and Rebecca are the creator of Window Farms.

Bloggers: Brittany and Mayte