Hundreds Of Thousands

Life Cycle Assessment

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This post comes to you from the EcoMuseum

Recently the eco-museum had the opportunity to attend a 2 day LCA course at RMIT University to learn about some of the complexities involved in the process of assessing the life cycle of materials and products.
One thing is unquestionable – you need expertise and experience to conduct LCAs, and most museum professionals would baulk at the mere suggestion they do this. Whilst it was important to find out that there are hundreds of thousands of choices and scenarios involved in finding out the true impact of a product or material, the true value of the RMIT course came with the revelation of how LCA can be applied to the development and design of exhibitions and large scale public events.
Currently I’m in the process of developing a simple exhibition eco-design tool which can give an accurate indication of materials and product impact before developed design and construction takes place. To this end I’m currently liaising with RMIT in how best individual product and material LCAs can be incorporated into the tool for quick comparisons when designers and project teams are commencing the process of moving from concept to design development.
Stay tuned for more updates soon.

the EcoMuseum, is a project of Carole Hammond, Exhibition Manager and museum professional: combining the complex ideologies of aesthetics, culture, objects, entertainment…and environment.

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EcoArtTech launches Eclipse App

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EcoArtTech has created a new web-based application for turbulence.org that mashes up Flickr photos of national parks with real-time air quality data. It’s a good effort and the air quality of national parks is something worth investigating. But as air-quality is beyond our individual control, I wonder what an effort such as this can accomplish. Yes, Ansel Adams photos led to the creation of new national parks in California’s Sierras, but what can we artists do today? Hacks of existing data seem to only corroborate what already know, or at least what those of us paying attention to the environment already know.

I’m not trying to bash EcoArtTech’s efforts, but a project such as this only makes me think of the bigger forces (i.e., government regulations) that need to be enacted to improve air quality. And personally, I’d rather see those efforts directed at the highly populated areas such as communities surrounding the Port of LA and Long Beach, where air pollution has serious, direct impact on hundreds of thousands of people.

If anything, a project such as this is a good representation of the futility I feel with so many of these issues. What can we do? At least a shout in the digital wilderness is a start.

> Experience the Eclipse project here.

> More by EcoArtTech here.

Go to Eco Art Blog