Much as “spime” and “blogject” sound like pretty out there concepts, I think it is more a matter of application of technology to some already established concepts which report data in real time and broadcast to a wider audience. Some of us created a list of blogjects to add to the choking pigeons. We found tweeting plants, texting plants, tweeting flies, tweeting birds. 

I’m fascinated by the idea of blogjects. I can think of some really apocalyptic visions where blogjects sing about our demise as it happens. (I don’t think the world will come quite to this)

One really interesting project is “Time and Tide Bells” a permanent installation of 12 bells positioned at strategic locations around the UK, from urban centres to open stretches of coastline. “The rise of the water at high tide moves the clapper to strike the bell. Played by the movement of the waves, the bell creates a varying, gentle, musical pattern. As the effect of global warming increases and sea levels rise, the periods of bell strikes will become more and more frequent, and as the bell becomes submerged in the rising water the pitch will vary.”

One of the bells is in Aberdyfi, Wales. This is partly to commemorate the legend of the Bells of Aberdyfi which tells of the submerged kingdom of Cantre’r Gwaelod. It is said that the bells of this lost kingdom can sometimes be heard ringing from beneath the estuary waters on still nights.

This is where art, science, mythology and environmentalism intersect. I think the bells would make great blogjects. I can think of some interesting ways the music could be broadcast online by the bells themselves, they could tweet and I’m sure they could post images and mp3 files to fb sites to their own facebook site.

edcMOOC is really reinforcing for me the idea that technology must serve a useful purpose in all aspects of life, especially education. For me, it’s about the getting of wisdom and using the tools to that end.