Reference Page

One House at a Time
The ruins of Detroit seem to be inspiring a lot of art these days. Most recently, the photographer Gregory Holm, of the artists group 2:1, launched the Firehouse Detroit Project (www.firehousedetroit.com), which transformed the facade of the city’s abandoned Engine 4 station into an architectural pyrophone. The sound installation uses a precisely controlled flame projected into glass tubes to produce mathematically derived tones, which have been accompanied by the Detroit Children’s Choir, as well as other musicians. The next performance is scheduled for November 11.

Scan This!
QR codes are everywhere. And we mean everywhere. Tokyo’s N Building (www.teradadesign.com) has a facade completely covered in them. When scanned, the codes lead to store information and real-time tweets from shoppers. In Europe, the artist Sweza (www.sweza.com) has been posting QRadios around Berlin. Scan the graffiti image of a boom box, and you get a rolling-tape graphic and music by Deniz Kahn. And then there are the tombstones. For a mere pittance, RosettaStone (www.personalrosettastone.com) will provide you with a QR tag, which can store over a thousand words and one photograph, to attach to your dearly departed’s memorial.

Bedside Manner 101
Simulators are fast becoming the norm in medical schools all over the world. Let’s meet the Laerdal (www.laerdal.com) family, and get to know them by name. There’s SimMan, the comprehensive simulator, and his wife, SimMom, who teaches midwifery and obstetrics. SimJunior helps medical students hone their pediatric skills. And of course, we can’t forget Resusci Anne, for CPR education, and Harvey, the cardiopulmonary patient simulator—perhaps someday they’ll get together and have a family of their own.