10 Questions About…

Our best event so far was the sneak preview of the Hack the City exhibit at the Science Gallery. I love the Science Gallery and the Hack the City is my favorite exhibit there yet! Maybe the coolest things about the exhibit is the list of events they are planning throughout the summer. One highlight for me is a discussion with Susan Crawford. But clearly that’s not what we saw on Thursday.

We saw an exhibit where various photographers attempted to take pictures in public places where security cameras were clearly marked and where there were security guards present. It was interesting to see the reactions of the security guards, which ranged from following the photographers to telling the photographers that they weren’t allowed to take pictures. The underlying question being – who has permission to photograph or not photograph public spaces?

There were a couple of graffiti-related exhibits. The girls got to make graffiti sheets in one – the other showed computerized recreations of famous graffiti artists.

There was a display from 3D printers, which was kind of cool. There were whole small scale villages made from the printer – the idea promote rapid prototyping – although not for products that require any great accuracy in specification. Still cool for early process product developments. I was talking to the student presenting the project and it seems like with Google Sketchup and a 3D printer you could go pretty far.

We saw flying drone, which were cool too. They had planned to fly them outside – but shock of shocks – weather would not permit. So they flew them in the auditorium. So they were flown manually (and opposed to via satellite) but it was still cool. Apparently the artists/scientists demonstrating the drones spent a good deal of time at Heathrow explaining them when they went back to London.

Many discussions are planned on use of public data, privacy and government transparency. I’m very excited!