Last summer, from Gutenberg to Dubuque, Iowa, my ships mates were artistic collaborators, Monica Haller and Sebastian Muellauer, whose project Open Research Buoy has a life of its own. Some of the video here was recorded by Sebastian or Monica, and some by the Buoy itself. Here you can see the shantyboat going through the locks above Dubuque.
Check out the ORB project and the interactive map on their extensive website.
Open Buoy is a modular, open source vessel which serves as a freely accessible, experimental platform for Scientists and Artists to host their technology to monitor and sense water systems, on bayous, rivers, lakes or the ocean. The vessel is an open hardware design, built low cost, using hacked consumer electronics to replace otherwise expensive research instruments. It is collaboratively developed and aims to implement the users eventual research interests, for example coastal documentation, water quality analysis, or accustic recording, to name a few. By developing it incrementally and reacting to site specific requirements, the buoy shall grow naturally and help to learn and discover different topics and potential applications of such a floating platform in particular areas.
Here another surreal video of the shantyboat on a very rainy day in the Ice Harbor of Dubuque.
Meanwhile the now defunct Santa Cruz folk-punk band The Curse is Cast plays in the background.
