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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.

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.

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.

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.

FoAM's trans-local lab is prepared to continue 'business-as-usual' wherever they go. Their members are trained in the art of 'Nista Nas Ne moze Iznenaditi', that enables them to make art in uncertain conditions, variable situations and heavy weather (as well as operating as extreme programmers, growing their own food and guiding the masses into shelters in case of unexpected war). This month, they are ready to set up a survey camp for the expedition to Altitude 1000.

Phase II of the Fabbing workshop. During the workshop we continued building the RepRap desktop fabricator. (Also see Fabbing I)

FoAM, Nadine and OKNO concluded the .x-med-k. series with a workshop exploring media and media technologies as an ecosystem, deeply networked.

In a five day long hands-on workshop, we began building a 3D printer, based on the open source RepRap specifications, adapted to suit the needs of the participants. The week will consist of putting together a complex puzzle of several thousand components, calibrating the hardware and the software and towards the end of the week, hopefully experimenting with printing with different materials - from plastics, to sugar, to whatever else we can lay our hands on.

In a time when energy use and electronic waste production should be rapidly decreasing, can media artists comfortably use arsenals of computers and their peripherals in the name of art?

This free-form master class was designed to encourage discussions and experiments for a group of artists-developers, to find strengths and weaknesses of their approaches to procedural media.

This workshop introduced 'fluxus' as a programming and performing
environment for real-time animation. We covered a range of animation techniques, from basic geometry, motion, texturing and compositing to more advanced topics including simulations of physical systems [real or imagined], interfacing with sensors and actuators, along with using audio and network data. The participants learned how to make inanimate bits become animated and potentially life-like, able to mutate and grow through continuous successions of change...

The Soft-wear symposium, workshop and open lab offered a glimpse into the world of active materials, that form the foundation of novel design paradigms. Soft-wear is a place where electronics meets the traditional crafts of weaving, dyeing and knitting fibres and threads, to produce materials that can respond to touch, temperature, light and other external stimuli. They are used as tangible interfaces and displays, where the edge between materials and media rapidly dissolves.

Learning what it means to make a dynamic and immersive responsive environment was the goal that this workshop attempted to achieve. The workshop took place in a lab setting, working with small groups of artists. The participants learned how to use and modify FoAM's responsive media systems (built with Max/MSP and PD), thereby developing their own responsive objects or environments. Particular attention was devoted to the translation between real-world input (acquired through sensing technologies) and the audiovisual media output.

Working on a remote location in the Belgian Ardennes, the workshop participants and FoAM collaborators formed a heterogeneous group of artists and technologists working together towards a common goal: designing a compelling, responsive experience by fusing the digital with the physical worlds. During the workshop, interactive media worlds were designed, using a mixture of open source tools including Blender, Audacity, PD and several gaming engines. The worlds were connected to the 'physical reality' through electronic interfaces.