FoAM - translocal

Feral Trade Tea Party & Raffle

maja — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:43:26 +0000

Start: 2008-11-16 17:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2008-11-16 19:00 Europe/Brussels

Kate Rich will introduce Feral Trade (http://feraltrade.org), serve ferally traded tea & coffee & conduct a raffle of the Feral Trade Hamper, a seasonal selection of goods sourced and transported over social networks.

Feral Trade is an artist-run grocery business, trading since 2003. Goods are run outside the global market, using the surplus freight potential of commuter, vacation and culturally funded travel to transport groceries intercity. Preliminary attempts to map this terrain show a constellation of complex connections - an intricate time-space system covering thousands of miles. Products assembled in the Feral Trade Hamper (Xmas 08) have been hand-freighted in from all corners of the social/cultural networks and include tea from Bangladesh, grappa from Croatia, cacao from Brazil and sweets from the world's newest nation Montenegro.

A hamper is a place where diverse grocery items can congregate. Traditionally in times of trouble, persons or community groups donate to needy people a hamper of food or other household necessities. Here, stockists from 3rd world and subsistence economies have been grouped together to provide relief for the West European food shopper, currently suffering from degraded supermarket shopping on offer.

Each product is accompanied by biographical information, recording relations with producers and couriers, transit conditions, route information and the bounteous detail of delay, seizure, communications and other failures which present a persistent challenge to the assumed smooth transit of goods.

If you would like to join us for this event, please RSVP by the 10th of November 2008 to bxl[at]fo[dot]am

Translucent futures visual

maja — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:02:53 +0000

Angelo Vermeulen: Translucent Futures

maja — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:51:01 +0000

Ubiquitous technology and the attrition of civil rights and privacy

Translucent Futures is an artistic/activist platform initiated by Angelo Vermeulen that deals with the increasing abrasion of civil liberties through ubiquitous, networked, miniaturized technology. Far-reaching use of techniques such as data mining, audiovisual surveillance, automated behavioural analysis, see-through body scanning, DNA profiling etc. is being legislated at a disturbing rate. While governmental and corporate use of these technologies is consistently pushed further into the realms of daily life, the opposite seems to be the case for civilians: technologies can only be used under firm restrictions, or are simply not accessible. Data mining for example is widely used by corporations, while the same activity when carried out by an individual is too easily labelled ‘hacking’.

Regardless of activist groups continuously questioning these issues, the larger public does not appear well-informed. The complexity, diversity and speed of current technological developments can be daunting. Moreover, many of these developments and techniques are applied in secrecy and can hardly be discerned by an untrained eye. This automatically raises vital questions about contemporary civil liberties and the relation between civilians and government. If most techniques only become visible after we transgress the law (e.g. introduced as evidence), should we be worried at all? Or should we rather strive for a fully transparent society based on accountability, where the ‘watchers’ can also be watched, at all times?

Translucent Futures hopes to keep the attention to the imperative problem of eroding civil liberties in modern hi-tech society. The project is set up in close collaboration with FoAM in Brussels and the support of a growing list of other cultural organisations (Nadine, Brussels; The Hub Brussels; Arteconomy etc.). The objective is to combine open collaborative research, multidisciplinary dialogue, artistic practice and activism.

See also:
In progress: http://libarynth.org/translucent_futures
[nadine] research residency: http://212.68.196.116/e/4965
Baudelaire in Cyberspace publication: http://www.angelovermeulen.net/specials.php
Artist's website and blog: http://www.angelovermeulen.net

Research Gathering 2007 06 15: Kate Rich and other RiRs

maja — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:36:42 +0000

Start: 2007-06-15 12:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2007-06-15 20:00 Europe/Brussels

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...

Kate Rich presented the plans for her Fair Trade Research, talking about food packaging and incomplete narratives, labour photography and the issues arising from Fair Trade presenting itself as the only alternative to Free Trade. People working in the artistic sector, Kate says, should watch their public diet. Come and hear from one of the few true grocery geeks around!
http://www.feraltrade.org/

Theun Karelse is aware of our uncertain future. By using his favorite tool, humorous visualisation (i.e. comics illustration), he explored an array of semi-practical solutions to extreme weather-events. The protagonist, Martin Brolin goes through a series of unfortunate events, such as a Tsunami, a bush-fire, or a speeding SUV. However, he comes prepared - with Tsunami Pants, an inflatable Hummer and a heat-loving extremophile cloak. During the gathering, the participants had the opportunity to dress their own Martin in Extreme Weather Fashion.
http://tsunamipants.blogspot.com/

Steven Pickles (Pix) talked about the beauty and strangeness of particular number spaces. In the past months, he delved into 'Aesthetic Explorations in Multivariate Polynomial Maps'. Basing his primarily aesthetic research on fractal mathematics of strange attractors, Pix worked on algorithms for visualising abstract graphical spaces and developing a tool for navigating them. Glimpse into this many dimensional data-ecology, and digital physics might not seem so strange after all!

Lina Kusaite brought news from the Avantex/TechTextil Fair about the newest and greenest materials that the industry can offer.
http://avantex.messefrankfurt.com/

Maki Ueda revealed the latest secrets from her Witch's Kitchen Lab. The participants had a chance to smell Seaweed and Cherry blossom, Maki's brand new distillates.
http://witch-lab.blogspot.com/

Finally, Bart Vandeput told us about the only solar workshop in Brussels and his discoveries of eco-tech libraries in the depths of Limburg.

Vlaamse Overheid

maja — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:24:36 +0000

Culture 2000

maja — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:19:08 +0000

Alkan Chipperfield: Field work at FoAM

maja — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:07:20 +0000

"Most of you must have been puzzled on occasion as to what i have been doing here: but I assure you that the most puzzled one has surely been myself..."

More of Alkan's research notes: http://libarynth.org/research_report_alkan

Sanjeev Shankar: WcCafe

maja — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:04:12 +0000

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.

In progress: http://libarynth.org/wccafe_report

Kate Rich: Fair Trade

maja — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:43:39 +0000

The research takes place at the intersection of several networks: art, information and food. Its express intention is to use tools of art (production/curation) to investigate how our daily grocery products are articulated, packaged, distributed and delivered.

The first aim is to take a sample grocery item or items into deeper investigation, to better understand its provenance. To explore the opposition of Commons to Commodity proposed by transatlantic historian Peter Linebaugh: that the commodity is the opposite of the commons as it conceals human relations except for the money relation, while the product of the commons is filled with human relations including possibly unpleasant ones. The second interest is with the public diet of cultural entities: to assess how food and drink is considered and served in art and cultural organisations, including their relationships with local and international food suppliers and how these relate to the other activities and core concerns of the organisation. Thirdly, the nomad/resident diet: design prescriptions for survival in the art world via nutritional suggestions for the travelling artist - to promote a continuity between knowledge work and the immediate environment it takes place in. In presenting the research in the context of art, the aim is to redraw the coordinates of the common global grocery product - normally rendered invisible in its background role on supermarket or refrigerator shelves - to restore its essential foreignness and its potential as a conduit for other experience.

Related: http://www.feraltrade.org/

Bartaku: PhoEf

maja — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:36:31 +0000

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.

In progress: http://libarynth.org/luminous/phoef

Sanjeev Shankar: RUrban Permaculture

maja — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:27:42 +0000

This project explores aspects of human environment, its relation with ecology and our attempt to encourage more sustainable growth. The relevant fields of inquiry are urban ecology, sustainability, human plant interaction and biomorphism. The research explores ways in which we can transform our cities into productive, healthy, edible and playful green visions. In recent years there has been a growing public movement to bring ecology into urban environments where many people spend most of their time. However, people are still grappling with the problem of a balance between 'growth' and conservation. This problem is not limited to emerging cities in the developing world. The thrust of this research is to explore methods to initiate collective public action in this direction.

In progress: http://libarynth.org/research_report_sanjeev-shankar

Jack Anderson: FoAM Valuator

maja — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:23:19 +0000

Valuator is a study of the contemporary art market, focusing on marketing strategies for new media art sales. The most innovative and challenging of contemporary art practices are not transacted in the mainstream market for current art. To have agency within these spheres of trade, the results of new media art disciplines require a redefinition of: what is deemed collectable; how the price mechanics in fine art are circulated and the preservation instruments used to build the heritage trust necessary for the endorsement of future beneficiaries. Valuator is a qualitative-analysis safari into the wilds of economic value construction in the arts.

In progress: http://libarynth.org/research_report_jack_anderson

Cocky Eek: Pneumatology

maja — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:04:22 +0000

When confronted with contemporary environmental questions, one thing became very clear to me: out of fear, or guilt, we can’t create anything. Therefore, as a topic of my research residency, I chose the quality of lightness. Italo Calvino underlines this quality as one of his ‘Six Memos for the Next Millennium’, where he describes a scene from Cernavantes’ novel, in which Don Quixote drives his lance through the sail of a windmill and is hoisted up into the air. I wonder whether we could begin to construct our worlds from this lightness. I'd like to imagine a life that is lighter, more mobile, flexible, portable, organic, closely related to the natural surroundings and the elements. My dream is to be able to create our homes and shelters wherever our heart is, with no fixed form, no clear beginnings or ends, neither spatially, nor temporally. The question guiding my research is: how can we construct our worlds from air, the lightest element around us?

In progress: http://libarynth.org/research_report_cocky_eek

translocal

nik — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:24:46 +0000

Art in uncertain conditions
The streams of humans, food, fuel, currency and knowledge in today's global economy are punctuated by local diversions. Even though these flows are set in motion in order to keep moving, they can be (temporarily) diverted to enrich local environments. This is where global flows move from the space of unbounded virtual exchange, to a place of uncertain physical experience, in which presence plays a crucial role. The local diversions maximise the quality of the connections themselves, rather than focusing primarily on maximising their exchange value. They increase the quality of experience within, while nurturing difference between the connections. It is this difference between the nodes that gives the places on the flows their long term resilience – becoming a densely connected trans-local societies.

As strategies for facilitating creation of presence and experience, what is the role of artistic actions in this context? Are we critiquing the situation, or attempting to hack the world? Should we operate from within the centres of market-driven consumer societies, or should we create new systems from the peripheries? Can we make the economic realities of today our experimental grounds? Whatever strategy we deploy, how are we contributing towards fundamental behavioural and cultural adaptation to turbulent flows? Moving from being creatives to becoming 'culture creatives', people who understand the complexity of global systems enough to be able to play them as artistic and cultural instruments?

Research Gathering with Angelo Vermeulen

maja — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:50:52 +0000

Start: 2008-10-31 18:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2008-10-31 21:00 Europe/Brussels

During this research gathering Angelo Vermeulen will present a round-up of Translucent Futures, a project he started at FoAM in June and continued at a residency at [nadine] in September and October, supported by the Guild for Reality Integrators and Generators. The meeting starts with a short introduction outlining the project’s main goals and research approach through mind-mapping, wiki-building and collaboration with specialists from different fields.

Apart from functioning as an activist/artistic platform, Translucent Futures also functions as a base for the creation of new art projects. During his residency at [nadine] Vermeulen started the pre-production of a live documentary dealing with issues raised in Translucent Futures. As such, his research focus shifted from the strictly theoretical to a more practical, applied context. Two specific topics are explored in more detail: representation of the digital and dystopia in cyberpunk from the late 80s/early 90s, and hacking culture. Both serve as inspirational background material to shape the documentary project.

The presentation will conclude with a personal selection of video clips of cyberpunk/dystopian movies.

http://x4.fo.am/translucent_futures

The evening will continue with gRig's All Hallow's Eve