groWorld Bazaar at Pixelache 2011

//Pixelache - groWorld Bazaar, Helsinki, March 10 to 13, 2011

During 4 days in March 2011(10/03 – 13/03) FoAM presented a groWorld
Bazaar at Pixelache festival, using the Aronia Melanocarpa (Chokeberry)as a common connection to bring together game designers, gardeners,electronics experimenters and urban foragers with a set of hands-on-workshops, discussions and experiments.

http://www.pawfal.org/dave/blog/2011/03/groworld-bazaar-pixelache/
http://www.pixelache.ac/helsinki/festival-2011/programme/groworld-bazaar...

March 10th
Bartaku hosted a co-creation 'Temporary photoElectric Digestopians'
worklab with research based experimentations on the transformation of
light energy into electric energy with food. Fusing cooking- and solar
tech and designs, the participants were working with edible materials to create ‘e-tapas’ of different aesthetics and tastes. A principal role is for the Aronia Melanocarpa (Choke/Apple berry), one of the most powerful, anti-oxidant rich berries both in terms of kJoules and
microWatts, entangled in a rich global historical narrative.
http://libarynth.org/luminous/phoef

March 11th
Lina Kusaite and Dave Griffiths invited the audience to join a
seedballing workshop, with the focus on local (southern Finland) edible plants and its importance for the locale or urban environments.
Participants learned how to create clay balls by using water, clay,
compost and seeds, which were preselected based on Chokeberries (Aronia Melanocarpa) companion planting.
http://lib.fo.am/aronia_guild
http://lib.fo.am/plant_guilds?s[]=permaculture&s[]=gardens

March 12th
FoAM has been working for a number of years on using games to strengthen the connection between plants and people. Our latest approach takes popular games such as FarmVille as inspiration, but explores what would happen if they were infused with aspects of permaculture, and where characters called “Plant Spirits” help or hinder you as you discover a world organised by companion planting.

Dave and Lina invited public to join them to design their own characters on paper that were rebuilt in the running game for them to play with. Visitors also had a chance to learn about what permaculture is, as an ancient art of assembling “guilds” of mutually beneficial plant species, as well as hints to a more general design strategy or philosophy.
http://www.pawfal.org/dave/blog/2011/03/germination-x-draw-your-own-plan...
http://www.pawfal.org/dave/blog/category/lirec/

March 13th
Theun Karelse member of FoAM and initiator of Boskoi was hosting
discussion on Augmented Ecology.

This discussion focused on whether there is still a private-life for
plants and animals as animals are fitted with tracking devices, web-cams and hooked up to sms services, satellites are tracking global crop development in real time, ecosystem monitoring is crowdsourced with mobile technology. This included an introduction to the local foraging scene in Helsinki by Joel Rosenberg, new developments in foraging / new media and Boskoi by Theun Karelse and Jussi Kivipuro was talking about Greenpeace's Digital Vision on a mobile media strategy for ecoactivism.
http://augmentedecology.posterous.com
http://boskoi.org

Images:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/sets/72157626278056452/

other related links:
http://tangibleauditoryinterfaces.de/index.php/category/report/
http://pixel.kulturen.fi/2011/03/09/pixel-den-9-mars/
http://www.pawfal.org/dave/blog/2011/03/groworld-bazaar-pixelache/