//the idea of wilderness
the idea of wilderness having intrinsic values has been rising in the 19th century.
the threatening power and the recreating value of nature were a central theme in romanticism.
in the 20th century human begang to think about preserving nature. “wilderness preserves” began to be designated (us).
there are different approaches that define wild places. wildlife conservation society estimates that 26% of earth’s land mass falls into the category “last of the wild”. in fact many protected areas have some degree oft human modification.
National Geographic estimates that only 17% of the icefree area of the world are not human modified (even the rainforest ist actually a giant garden affected by the indigene population).
//biodiversity and bees
biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet.
it was in the mid-20th century that national parks started to protect biodiversity, not simply “attractive scenery”. protection of wilderness is nowadays done in ether a segregative (uncontrolled protected area) or an integrative (human controlled protected area: evaluate natural processes and control them to protect certain animal species / avoid monocultures... - a kind of artificial biodiversity) way.
global climatical changes effect biodiverse systems all over the world. global warming is considered to be a major threat to global biodiversity.
going into biodiverse correlations i was reading an extremely interesting article about the the shrinking bee population caused by global warming. climate changes causes flowers to bloom either earlier or later than usual, so when the bees come out of hibernation, the flowers that would have served as their food to start off the season has already bloomed.
Albert Einstein once said : "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."
while the bees are not yet extinct, the ones that are still around and about have to do twice the work to make up for their great decrease in number. this is probably why you might be seeing a lot of bees crawling on your patio or porch or garden. they’re too tired to fly as they should to get somewhere and instead walk.
“a sugary drink could boost the bees’ energy levels and a simple sugar and water combination will be a welcome treat.”
//biodiverse platform
//wiesendisco
actually my project is about biodiverse systems, bees (and other hungry insects) shall be my triggers...
a bee platform is providing sugar water for fallen bees. analyzed by a webcam the platform data is converted into sound (by the way a grasshopper would produce different sounds than a bee or a fly - actually it's color depending). each time an exhausted bee is resting / drinking sound is produced and directly sent to a bee helmet. using the helmet means entering the bees nest. the sound reminds of the bee dance - but is actually not indicating fields of flowers but the number of fallen bees...
parts of the helmet are covered with bees wax - which is melting when the helmet ist active. in this way bees fill the combs of the helmet and change its appearance...
wiesendisco function scheme
possible site
bee helmet / wax covered combs
//helmet story
actually the helmet is consisting of hexagonal combs that i'd like to produce with laser cutter...
having unrolled all hexagons i discovered that it might be a little to much material. for this version of the helmet i would need at least 50 cartons (70x40)...
i decided to design a new helmet - 2.0 is currently being created...
http://www2.hu-berlin.de/bienenkunde/biene_honig/biologie.html
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/vanishing-bee-colonies-doomsday-scenarios-sunspots.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiversity
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildnis
