A group of artists is on the brink of sculpturing a 120-feet long slug-like structure that’ll convert trash into fuel through gasification.
The project Mechabolic – by description itself is mammoth and ambitious, it’s just big enough for any single corporation or individual to handle. Therefore, is a collective aspiration of Jim Mason, Dann Davis, Chicken John and a team of enthusiastic, environmentally driven artists – who strive towards a large-scale bio-imitative art installation of hydrocarbon based fuel production that defies easy convention.
The artists desire to build a bio-machine hybrid environment – a digestive and respiratory system – that’ll rest in a slug like structure measuring 120-feet. It will convert trash into fuel through gasification, making its way slowly across the playa searching biomass for producing fuel, and allowing participants to walk through its inwards to provide trash to feed thereupon. The participants can watch the fuel processing through the transparent process tanks, handling the food and fuel at various points through the process – enjoying the entire digestion and respiration routine from mouth to anus, with intestinal fun and unrevealing myths of implied organic chemistry.
The slug is basically a stationary creature, but the idea is to make the creature mobile – presently divided into 3 separate sections, corresponding to the head/neck, chest, and abdomen, the creature’s mobile version will probably be the same with only a slight modification in the belly, for mobility. The creature is equipped for all terrains, using different technologies for different quality biomass – i.e. gasification to covert dry biomass into fuel, anerobic digestion for wet biomass while terra preta for byproducts. The creature or rather the artists’ creation is a projected reality by Burning Man 2007.
[Source: Treehugger]
