Self-sustaining realities against the culture of mass extinction
Arts and design should play an important role in creating an abundant and thriving environment for all Earth-bound species and landscapes. Our designs should become more resilient and less damaging to our ecological habitats. Instead of pointing a critical mirror at the environmental problems, we are actively doing something about them. We begin by changing our own practices. Planning our creative processes to include sustainability as their core principle, instead of a fashionable topic. In prototyping and manufacturing, we encourage the use non-toxic materials, micro-power generation and sharing resources. Going beyond conservation and preservation, we ask ourselves what kinds of worlds do we want to create? What is the role of aesthetics in the green arts and designs of tomorrow? We imagine media installations powered by their own micro-plants, robotic orchestras able repair themselves, responsive environments as biomimetic systems, augmented reality gardening, human-plant interfaces and many more.
Lead by Bart Vandeput, the PhoEf participants explored the interdependent relationships between people, photovoltaics and light as a primary resource. Also the opportunities and limits of low levels of electricity will be investigated.
PhoEf is a research project led by Bart Vandeput, exploring the essence, use and abuse of the photovoltaic effect - the conversion of light into electrical energy - within the realms of science, industry, technology and the arts.
PhoEf aims to provide insight about aims and aesthetics of converting solar radiation into electricity. More particularly, the opportunities that photovoltaic technologies provide to artistic creations, performances, and interventions that make use of electrical energy.
Bart Vandeput is representing FoAM as the Provocateur of the City Space and The Every Day session of 48 degrees Celsius, Symposium on public space, art and ecology:
From December 2009 to February 2010, Christina Stadlbauer (Body Water) and Bartaku (A Slow Flow) were residents at the Periferry 1.0 project in Guwahati, North-East India.
They will share their findings and experiences during a Research Gathering at FoAM.
Christina Stadlbauer: BODY WATER
Every-day-medicine in every-day-life - tales from Himalaya's feet
Grid independency, silent electrical energy generation without emissions, harmless low-DC-power, mobility and new materials with new aesthetics are key characteristics of photovoltaic technologies. Together with new scientific tropes that are emerging in this highly vibrating multidisciplinary field, they have attracted a first generation of 'early adapters' in the arts. It allows for further dynamic exploration of the complex relation between light, electrical
energy and the media that can be used to represent it. In their turn, these explorations generate new artistic tropes originating from unexpected set-ups, combinations of materials and contexts of employment that might lead to new scientific questions possibly benefitting the improvement of the PV-technologies. Moreover, in the current reshaping of the organization of access to energy, the arts can and should play an active and critical role.
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.
PhoEf is a research project exploring the essence, use and abuse of the photovoltaic effect - the conversion of light in electrical energy - in the realms of science, industry, technology and the arts. PhoEf emerged from a personal, transversal flight through the interconnected worlds behind and around photovoltaics; a technology based on A.E. Becquerel's 1839 observation of the photovoltaic effect. PhoEf is embedded in a rich, multidisciplinary, historical context.
Toilets have been a source of taboo, embarrassment and humour in many cultures. This project explores the subject of toilets and defecation and aims to bring it out in the open. The intent is to create a cafe which makes toilet discussion a table discussion, thereby giving it legitimacy. ‘WcCafe’ would serve coffee and snacks in an environment which is beautiful, refreshing and purposeful.
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