production

The central focus of the PARN project is dealing with the possibilities and problems of creating, presenting and representing narratives in physical space. Storytelling is a fundamental human capacity and is widespread in a variety of cultural forms as well as being one of the ways in which, according to many researchers of learning and awareness, we make sense of the world as we experience and reflect it. As the acclaimed poet Simon Ortiz puts it: „there are no truths, only stories.“

During 2008 and 2009 a small group of groworlders including members of FoAM and invited participants Tale of Tales and Six to Start worked on designs and prototypes for games that would strengthen the connection between plants and people.

Computer games allow us to take on other lives, and see the world from new perspectives. 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.

Germination X is a project to experiment with technology and research from the lirec project and use it in an online multiplayer game.

The game
Source code
Concept art
Development blog

FoAM promotes human-plant interaction. One such tool is Boskoi, a mobile phone application that helps you map and navigate
the edible landscape. It offers detailed information on wild food sources, their location, edible parts, medicinal
and culinary uses. It is a database of ethnoculinary and ethnobotanic knowledge. Based on Ushahidi, the app is also open to mail, sms, tweet and uploaded pictures.

The environments of the t*series are immersive hybrid realities, or responsive 'play spaces'. They are designed for full-body interaction of human participants with ‘irreal’ responsive worlds.

TGarden is a responsive environment, inspired by calligraphy and scrying. In TGarden, the players' gestures are being transformed into generative computer graphics and digital soundscapes, leaving marks and traces in much the same way as a calligrapher would with brushes and ink.

The word txOom is an amalgam of ‘texture’ and ‘bloom’. As a part of txOom, we produced two environments which were thick, malleable and layered as a texture, elegant and responsive as a bloom.

Lyt_A is an installation, an instrument and a translation medium in one. It is a mechatronic, semi-flexible structure that can transmit haptic information on a distance: when the structure is touched on one site, the touch will be visible and touchable on another.

At FoAM, we produce interactive, engaging social experiences. A production involves an iterative process of design, development and facilitation of these experiences. They are produced in transdisciplinary teams, where every member of the team is considered creative person, whether they are software developers, physicists, gardeners, psychologists, or artists. Productions are acts of collaborative creation. Taking this a step further, our productions are designed to involve their visitors, users and players as pro-active participants able to shape their own experience.

trg is a responsive environment shaped by four fundamental forces, made apparent on the human scale; the fictional equivalent of gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear interaction. It unfolds, expands and curls based on the energy levels within its perimeters.

groWorld's 'sym' trajectory is looking at plants as organisational principles for the culture of the 21st century. It is about transforming cultural experiences, informed and inspired by biological and ecological systems.

sym projects: groworld game, germination x

The groWorld initiative brings together three ‘forces’ capable of transforming the world on human and ecological scales: culture, gardening and technology. These three strands of inquiry inform and support each other, aiming to forge new symbiotic relationships between the post-industrial human societies and the rest of the Earth.