Two FoAM & gRig presentations at the Data Ecologies workshop "On growing of worlds: whole systems in turbulent environments" by Maja Kuzmanovic and "What am I doing rendering fractals?" by Steven Pickles.

http://www.timesup.org/laboratory/DataEcologies/

This Research gathering, brought together FoAM's researchers in residence from 2006 and 2007, to discuss topics as wide ranging as Fair Trade, photovoltaics, cultural scents, extreme weather fashion, strange attractors and techno-textiles.

Everyone was welcome to join the discussions, talk about their current explorations, unsolvable problems, or amazing inventions. The gathering began at noon, with a 'guilt-free' lunch, collected and cooked by FoAM's dedicated shoppers and chefs.

More about the programme...

How do you relate to global crises in a way that is not demotivating? The discussion about our future is dominated by appeals for austerity and reduction. This is not a very inspiring message as it focuses on negative aspects of society. It is hard to see a positive revolution on a global scale, based on negative arguments. Instead we should focus on positive changes that inspire everyone. This debate should be dominated by the possibility of increasing the quality of life.

In 2001 I found a book by mathematician Julien C. Sprott called “Strange attractors: creating patterns in chaos”. The book described the mathematics behind a class of fractals called strange attractors. In the book, Sprott presents a computer program which can search for strange attractors by trying many randomly generated equations until one was discovered which met certain criteria. The results were clouds of points which formed interesting organic shapes. each set of equations created a unique set of points.

The core question of this research is: by what mechanisms can humanity become more conscious of and potentially change, it’s relationship to reality?

I research scents and the sense of smell. My challenge is to use them as a medium in art. In the exhibition context I create a spatial expressions with the scents, I give workshops pm extracting the scents (I extract the scents literary from anything: from food to the cloth, flowers to the ink), and I develop unique 'perfumes' with my extracts, not for to be worn, but to be smelled. I use basic chemistry and cooking techniques in my mini-laboratory for extracting the scents.

More information: http://scent-lab.blogspot.com/