public experiments

10 12-year olds visited FoAM Brussels, where FoAM people played with them and they applied FoAM practices on them.

Field-testing the Boskoi app and mapping the terrain of the demolished Calve (peanut-butter and mayonnaise) factory, during the Anarchitecture festival. http://www.levenaanhetspoor.nl/projecten-aan-het-spoor/anarchitecture

Please join FoAM's first family in residence, Alex, Ali and Luka, for a farewell afternoon tea.

They will be presenting the prototype of their robotic au pair (Robaupair) and sharing some ideas on the creative possibilities of parenthood.

Summary of the residency findings: http://lib.fo.am/research_report_ali_alex

We are very proud to present our new site, displaying current and future missions, technical info and nice pictures. http://www.missiontothemoon.nl/

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, the Foamlab astronaut team will be re-enacting this historic event at the Space Expo centre that belongs to the ESA (European Space Agency) in Noordwijk. The event possibly will be shown by live-stream video to Museum Boerhave, Lange St. Agnietenstraat 10 in Leiden, The Netherlands.

http://www.missiontothemoon.nl/

When astronauts return into the Ionosphere of the Earth, after yet another space mission, make their way though endless layers of spacejunk and touch down on the planet, who is waiting for them?
Is anybody still interested in their adventures?

Astronauts Johannes Sterk and Elias Tieleman are expected to arrive at 'In Search of the Unknown' an exhibition at NIMk, Amsterdam around 18:00 hours. (local time)

Nik Gaffney and Maja Kuzmanovic will participate in the Real Code experiment at the Piksel Festival. As a part of FoAM's series of Future prehearsals (inspired by ex-yu "Nothing Can Surprise Us" drills), they will conduct various experiments with food, flavours and expectations, in an environment filled with machinery and software, with little access to organic ingredients. The exercise assumes a small archipelago of is-lands in a post-disaster setting (with degrees of isolation and communication), using a variety of multi-coloured, -flavoured and -textured powders, locally available and hand-carried substances, a selection of collected recipes, measuring instruments, prepared with not much more than a microwave oven and electronic equipment.

more: http://1010.co.uk/org/piksel2008.html

FoAM and the Guild for Reality Integrators and Generators invite you to a synaesthetic dinner, to jointly sample, celebrate and debate the future of food.

Food is a nutritious and delectable product of our reciprocal, sustaining relationship with the environment. It is also one of the oldest cultural expressions, rooted in hospitality and sharing. As the gastronome Brilliat-Savarin noted three centuries ago, “the discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.”

Open Sauces will unfold in a sequence of experimental courses, matched with drinks, improvised music and esteemed guests. While savouring the foods, the guests will be engaged in table conversations, sharing experiences, recipes and ingredients needed to demystify cultural, environmental, technical and ethical aspects of contemporary food systems. From molecular gastronomy to fair trade, from permaculture to food-tracking, from open source to open sauces, we will blend seemingly unrelated elements of our food chain. In an era riddled with environmental and cultural anomalies, these transdisciplinary and trans-local connections will become one of the keys to our survival, as individuals, communities and species.

With: Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, Kultivator, Sher Doruff, Maja Kuzmanovic, Alok Nandi, Sneha Solanki, Wietske Maas, Matteo Pasquinelli, Kate Rich, Femke Snelting, Andreas Strauss, Maki Ueda, Allison Zinder and other local and trans-local food experts and enthusiasts.

There are limited places for this event so please RSVP if you would like to attend.

The extended menu (in the form of a cookbook) is available online at http://opensauces.cc/open.sauces.pdf

On the longest day of the year two astronauts land in Amsterdam-West. They do a warm-up jog on the square before going into the Jerusalem Church where they get fitted into their suits.

According to palaeontologysts the first objects to be vererated were meteorites, and the metal in them. Later this was extended to monoliths, which were used as burial stones or judgementstones. In time this would also include stone statues, ivory or wooden statues, and long after that all kinds of religious relics and works of art. But it started apparently with astroliths.

On the altar a mysterious meteor-like blob of clay resides. The astronauts explore the church and inspect the clay object. Next to the altar sits a solitary figure, building a cardboard model of a church. It's Joseph Merrick, the Elephantman, half man, half comet. A strange and at times hilarious ritual unfolds involving also a group of people in animal costumes, and time-keepers.

Astronauts: Johannes Sterk, Elias Tieleman. Merrick: Theun Karelse.
Animal costumes by Alet Pilon, Merrick costume by Simone de Rooij, music by Karel Christian Schultz, Tian Rotteveel.

A re-enactment of the Apollo 11 mission of 1969. Foamlab not only recycles this icon of technological confidence, but also the materials used to build it. At the exhibition 'Kunstvlaai / Art Pie International', two brave astronauts; Elias Tieleman and Johannes Sterk, can be seen jogging around in preparation for their mission. They exit the Lander accompanied by the original sound recordings from the Moon landing in '69, for general exploration of the lunar-surface, setting-up lunar camera's, collecting stone samples and planting the flag. After comleting the mission they are released from their spacesuits by astronaut-assisitents; Cocky Eek and Theun Karelse. The capsule was made with the generous assistance of Ruben Bus.

A massive spheroid room slowly billows in one of the halls of the Westergas terrain in Amsterdam. Foamlab has joined the Kunstvlaai, a show for artist-initiatives and collectives organized by the Sandberg Institute. Within the bowels of this solitary pneumatic structure a headset is hidden. A recorded statement that is played through the headphones divides people into two groups: prickly people and gooey people. The Kunstvlaai extends over several of the Westergas buildings and into the park around them. A host of organisations show a rich variety of experiments and works there.

In the historical basements of the city of Arnhem Foamlab joins the ‘Made under Arnhem’ festival. In the deep vaults a Japanese dancer and choreographer, Kenzo Kusuda emerges from a wanton heap of fabric, the remnants of the Notsnic satellite. This space capsule plummeted back to Earth after it mysteriously liquefied into a silvery molten drop. Guided only by Notsnic sounds recovered by Theun Karelse, the performer and public discover an ever growing shape as the material is inflated. Like an unstoppable entity the white shape increases to fill the entire subterranean space, forcing the public to ever narrower ridges along the walls. By then Kenzo has found an entrance into the white shape and the audience find holes in the membrane through which to stick their heads, put in place by designer Cocky Eek at all side of the blob. Kenzo playfully guides the audience through all aspects of this foreign world, which starts to collapse again. The show comes to its natural conclusion as the dancer carries the massive bundle of fabric around the room, finally subsiding under its weight.

For the first edition of the Juni-Kunst Maand festival in the Amsterdam district ‘de Baarsjes’ a series of multi-cultural gastronomic feasts are created on a very distinct bridge in the neighbourhood. On three occasions, three teams of chefs bring pleasure to the taste buds and stomachs of ordinary Amsterdamers. With a team of helpers recruited from the community Foamlab serves a South-American meal, a Moroccan meal and a Balkan meal spread over three weekends. Due to weather conditions the latter diner is moved to a nearby location for cook Maya Kuzmanovic and Dj Lowdjo to perform their wizardry.

A large orange dome is a theater for flying performances guided by a team of stewardesses. This giant jellyfish is a construction made by the inflatable master Theo Botschuiver. A crowd is managed within the complex. Seated on the second floor of the building, unsuspecting visitors are introduced to the physical reality of flying around the circular room. The stewardesses dressed in uniforms designed by Cocky Eek, only take over in case of an emergency.