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The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
Mine Kafon
Massoud Hassani
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Massoud Hassani has designed and hand-built a wind-powered device heavy enough to trip landmines as it rolls over the ground. Massoud drew his inspiration from his childhood. Growing up on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, he and his younger brother Mahmud would play with their homemade wind-powered toys.
Today, living in the Netherlands almost 20 years later, they designed the *Mine Kafon*, a device that could mean the end of the landmine, in a quicker way than we know with current technology.
The *Mine Kafon* is approximately the height of a man. Its core is a 17kg iron casing surrounded by dozens of radiating bamboo legs, each with a round plastic “foot” at the end. Inside the ball is a GPS unit to map the route it has taken—in theory, land cleared of mines. The data will be accessible online in real time. The feet act as a suspension mechanism, which allows the entire Kafon to roll over bumps, holes and so forth.
In all it weighs a little over 80kg. About as heavy as a person, and mimicking human footsteps, it is designed to produce enough pressure to trigger a landmine. With each detonation the *Mine Kafon* loses just one or two legs, so it could potentially destroy three or four landmines in one journey. The total cost of the *Kafon* is about $60. It is faster, safer and up to 120 times cheaper then traditional techniques.
In countries with war-ravaged pasts, concealed landmines pose a silent, hidden threat. Lurking underground for years, they risk blowing open fresh wounds in communities that are just beginning to heal. Using *Mine Kafon* we can get rid of landmines very quickly. Even if it hits only one percent of landmines worldwide, we are still talking about millions of landmines. In this way we can also save billions of dollars and invest that money in affected countries, to build schools, hospitals, agriculture and industry. The *Mine Kafon* project could help to rebuild economies and give the inhabitants hope and a bright future without fear.
Links: http://vimeo.com/51887079, http://minekafon.blogspot.nl
Today, living in the Netherlands almost 20 years later, they designed the *Mine Kafon*, a device that could mean the end of the landmine, in a quicker way than we know with current technology.
The *Mine Kafon* is approximately the height of a man. Its core is a 17kg iron casing surrounded by dozens of radiating bamboo legs, each with a round plastic “foot” at the end. Inside the ball is a GPS unit to map the route it has taken—in theory, land cleared of mines. The data will be accessible online in real time. The feet act as a suspension mechanism, which allows the entire Kafon to roll over bumps, holes and so forth.
In all it weighs a little over 80kg. About as heavy as a person, and mimicking human footsteps, it is designed to produce enough pressure to trigger a landmine. With each detonation the *Mine Kafon* loses just one or two legs, so it could potentially destroy three or four landmines in one journey. The total cost of the *Kafon* is about $60. It is faster, safer and up to 120 times cheaper then traditional techniques.
In countries with war-ravaged pasts, concealed landmines pose a silent, hidden threat. Lurking underground for years, they risk blowing open fresh wounds in communities that are just beginning to heal. Using *Mine Kafon* we can get rid of landmines very quickly. Even if it hits only one percent of landmines worldwide, we are still talking about millions of landmines. In this way we can also save billions of dollars and invest that money in affected countries, to build schools, hospitals, agriculture and industry. The *Mine Kafon* project could help to rebuild economies and give the inhabitants hope and a bright future without fear.
Links: http://vimeo.com/51887079, http://minekafon.blogspot.nl
Massoud Hassani (AF/NL), born in Afghanistan in 1983, moved the Netherlands in 1998 in search of a new life. As a child in Kabul, he would make all kinds of toys, sculptures and paintings. By the age of nine he had learnt to weld and worked as a car mechanic. So it was an enlightening moment when he arrived in the Netherlands and discovered that there was a profession called “product designer”. As soon as he could, he enrolled to study at the Eindhoven Design Academy. Having adopted a new lifestyle and cultural habits, he focused his study on research into building a bridge between the two cultures. He graduated in 2011 and now works from his own studio in Eindhoven with his brother Mahmud Hassani.