ITP Professor Marina Zurkow’s Environmental Art Comments On America’s Greatest Love Affair

February 8th, 2013 by Emily Dubovoy

America should give a box of chocolates and a big bouquet of roses to its one true love: oil. We use it in more things than we’d like to believe and it’s killing us (well, slowly).

Back in 2011, NYU’s own ITP Professor, multi-disciplinary media artist, and environmental activist, Marina Zurkow set off for the southern plains of the Llano Estacado in West Texas, where she worked on a research residency to see just what goes into extracting the liquid gold.Her findings and our national infatuation set the stage for her current show, Necrocracy at bitforms gallery in Chelsea. Zurkow talked with Local about her various prolific endeavors – more after the jump.

Read more…


Damn Future, You Cray: A Hovering Drone That Follows You and Records Your Day

February 6th, 2013 by Emily Dubovoy

Is the unexamined life worth living? Startup company, Always Innovating would say “nay.” For all you social media junkies out there who like for every sandwich you eat, show you go to, and bar you frequent to be Tweeted, Youtubed, Instagramed, Facebooked, checked-in, and Tumbl’d the technological dieties have smiled upon you.

Always Innovating has worked towards their namesake and has come up with a plam-sized mini-drone to hover over your shoulder. The days of pulling out your phone out during inopportune situations to snap a photo are dwindling.

Read more…


Unlocking Your iPhone Is Now A No Go

January 31st, 2013 by Emily Dubovoy

Here’s a piece of news that’s getting bad reception (pun totally intended). As of this past Saturday, it is now illegal to unlock a mobile phone. That’s right. The U.S. Library of Congress has authoritatively knocked its gavel on the faces of all of the future American iPhone 5S owners and unlocking venders. The time to deviate from your cellphone provider has run out.

This decision to criminalize unlocking cellphones had been made back in October 2012 as an addition to a strict anti-hacking law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that was first implemented in 1998. The Librarian of Congress provided a 90-day grace period during which people could still buy a phone and unlock it, but as of January 26th, that little birdie has flown.

Read more…


Damn Future, You Cray: Constructing an Entire Building Using 3D Printing

January 30th, 2013 by Emily Dubovoy

“Make your dreams into a reality” – Every elementary school teacher ever.

We’ve all probably heard this at some point in our kiddie lives. This is totally  a whimsical and unrealistic piece of motivational jargon to live by…until modern innovation made it possible! Enter: 3D printing. If you’re interested in tech news or are majoring in something techy, this is probably old news or technology you may be familiar with. My Google Reader has been plump with 3D printing news in the past few months. If you haven’t heard of 3D printing yet, brace yourself. 2012 was a year where the new technology took off, but 2013 will be where it explodes.

Read more…