FoAM - residency

Resilients Family in Residence

maja — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 16:22:46 +0000

FoAM's first Resilients family in residence are the Simpsons (Mark, Lea, Scarlet & Delilah), occupying FoAM in Brussels for two weeks in June and July 2011.

A resilient culture of the future could include children in the working lives of adults. For the duration of the residency, we look at how are FoAM’s daily activities influenced by the continuous presence of two little girls in the studio in Brussels.

Their mother, Lea is investigating diverse cultural libraries around the world and will descend on FoAM’s library as well. With Lea's guidance, FoAM's library should become more resilient as well as more open and shareable.

The pater familias, Mark Simpson, explores a possible post-space-age cultural mobility, where artists (as the societal lab-rats) could be transported in rocked-powered vehicles. We will begin by having the artists design prototype rocket boats & unleash them on the Kanal in front of FoAM’s studio.

The family will go out with a bang, concluding their residency with the Rocket Boat Day: http://x4.fo.am/rbd

This residency is a part of the Resilients Project: http://x4.fo.am/resilients/

Residency Kiran Ganghadaran

christina — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 09:47:02 +0000

For the months of January and February 2011, Kiran is in residency with his ongoing research - the Project Decode.

The research is on looking at the prospects of an existence of geometrical structures in living and non-living beings and its potential application using new technologies and materials.

To re-look, the geometrical state of art which can bring new dimensions to surfaces/spaces in its physical well being of living and non-living existence.

Decoding the various elements in nature to its various geometrical relations and reflecting to a question why beauty is there.

The tree, for example, has its geometrical rule on how it grows and how it maintains certain proportions or a flower has a certain number of petals. These questions led me to the world of geometry with certain mathematical expressions/equations or generative algorithms, which the almighty has created and brought to life.

As the world is constantly changing, the role as an individual is shifting and responding to some innovative methodologies which could offer a paradigm shift that alters the development of novel processes - based on strategies that could bring more efficient connections between living and non-living spaces.

The potential of my research is to find and explore a new generation of interactive systems within science, art and architecture that could bring new relationships or interconnections between nature and human beings.

The research has started with understanding the various growth and decay processes in plants and the discovery of Phyllotaxis - the relationship of plants and mathematical expressions.
Growth is appreciated/respected but not seen. Decay is disrespected but not seen. In relation with growth of plants there is an unseen mystery of movement. The movement is performance in itself. Comparing the complex situations from static/dynamic, organic/inorganic, form/function, observer/observed, self/other and reflecting in a space, which would allow a new aesthetic to movements and also transform the space in itself.

Movement Never Lies
It is a barometer telling the state of soul weather to all who can read it
Martha Graham

Kiran gave an intermediary report on Friday, 28th of January 2011. Vinay took some footage which can be viewed here: http://youtu.be/9MihyiJko6U

Residency Maria Lucia Cruz Correia

christina — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 11:29:39 +0000

Everything that lives and cohabits on earth is composed by mechanisms of living processes- animist encounter on reading the traces of life, growth and infiltration. The research addresses the space as a living organism, a body. It suspends, a poetic and symbolic interference that proposes the illness of the space as a metaphor, a reveal of spatial malfunctions, disabilities, and failures of its metabolism. The transformation on the space involves a methodology, trying to understand how organisms grow in common grounds of invasion, infiltration, catastrophe and collapse. The relation between humanity and nature is presentend as a parasitism and a collective change in any direction it grows. The human being is etended as a active absorber, a spreading cancer while the environment is entended as the empowerd patient, host.

The construction of a habitat, is presented as a iconic symbol of home and common ground for familiar happenings in society. It reveals an organic appropriation of the space: a scenario of changes within the ultimate revenge from nature towards humanity. The interfearance of termites is essential for the degradation process of the house: by eating the wood the structure will collapse. The presence, participation and performance of human, is presentend by its daily life and the adaptation along the changes that might happen until the end of the collapsing process. The surrounding reality is presented as the main entrance for a social sculpture. Through an ontological system, based on rethinking the immanent world of living beings, that invade alter and affect its own trajectory. A survival, a reconstruction of what is lost, in order to recover what is present. A given tool, an ideological filter of reality, defined by the natural cicle of nature processes. A socio-political re-construction of “nature to nature”.

AEGIS Residency Programme

maja — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:13:51 +0000

AEGIS: Asia-Europe Generalists in Sojourn
- A trans-local residency programme

The residency programme focuses on encouraging collaborations between creative practitioners and cultural organisations from Asia & Europe, who address global cultural issues (such as adapting to climate change, loss of biodiversity, energy security, etc.) from a transdisciplinary perspective. We particularly focus on supporting young generalists (people able to connect disciplines, such as art & science, ecology & technology) working on creating a holistic and resilient global culture.

The emergence of an open and diverse trans-local culture requires meaningful contacts and collaborations between creative practitioners across the globe. The collaborative process of researching and creating a cultural work together with people from different regions and disciplines exposes our overlapping & complementary world-views.

Asians & Europeans share a respect for deeply rooted cultural traditions, while being at the forefront of technological and social innovations. These shared values can provide a common ground, from which we can explore our similarities & differences. This process is valuable for revealing both strengths and weaknesses of ingrained beliefs & habits, making all parties better equipped to address today's global challenges.

The primary outcome of the residencies are transdisciplinary experiments, such as design probes, documentation of performances, creative prototypes and interactive demonstrators. The results will be presented at FoAM's research gatherings and workshops.

Family in Residence: Davies - Crosby - Davies

maja — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:40:44 +0000

In 2010 FoAM expanded the residency programme to include people of all ages. The first experiment was having a "Family in Residence" (FIR), welcoming Alex Davies, Alexandra Crosby and their young son Luka Davies for a three month long residency at FoAM in Brussels. The experience was extremely positive and we concluded that it is an experiment worth continuing.

FoAM's burgeoning intergenerational residency programme, combined with Alex and Ali's experiment in parenting has produced some interesting results. Alex investigates mixed reality artworks, that have lately included combining physical mechanisms with digital content. This technique lead to the construction of a 'Robotic Au Pair' for Luka as one of the outcomes of the residency. 'Robaupair' is a bricolage experiment in hands-free parenting. It has also been a way to reconsider the challenges of family as a creative adventure, as much as a set of duties.

The residency ended in a research gathering where the family demonstrated their Robotic Au-Pair, shared their experiences with other creative parents, and included the 'Dumpling Hour', now nearly a tradition instituted by Alex, that is likely to continue for the years to come.

http://x4.fo.am/robaupair

Alex Davies is a Sydney artist, until recently based in Austria working with Time’s Up (http://www.timesup.org). Alex was awarded a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours from the College of Fine Arts, University of N.S.W (2001), where he is now a PhD Candidate. His current practice is based around the development of evolving audio-visual installations in which individuals and dynamic environmental factors shift the conditions of a controlled space. http://schizophonia.com/

Alexandra Crosby is a writer, researcher and designer. She recently edited an anthology, /re:Publik, Indonesia-Australia Creative Adventures/, and is a founding member of feminist noise bands Sok Bakso and Total Ibu. She is now completing a phD on creative approaches to environmental issues in Java. She also works for EngageMedia. http://www.alimander.com/ http://www.engagemedia.org/

Luka Davies came to FoAM when he was three weeks old. Despite much encouragement and practice on the FoAM kitchen bench, by the time he left in February 2010, he couldn't quite crawl yet. He did, however, dribble and babble prolifically.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alimander/sets/72157622615947811/

Corrupted C#n#m#

maja — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:25:09 +0000

Start: 2009-11-20 00:00 US/Eastern

End: 2009-12-20 00:00 US/Eastern

Corrupted C#n#m# is Angelo Vermeulen's new solo exhibition in the US after his Biomodd [ATH1] project at the Aesthetic Technologies Lab in Athens, Ohio in 2007. Corrupted C#n#m# is an experimental cinema project that explores the physicality of digital media, and draws upon the phenomena of data corruption and data forensics. It's an artistic inquiry into the notion of the material 'body’ in both the digital and the biological realm. Video images stored on different types of digital media are manipulated and disrupted through various biological processes. In a series of highly aggressive setups, storage media such as hard drives, memory cards and digital tape are exposed to bacteria, fungi, algae, insects etc. The damaged video data are then meticulously recovered by data forensic techniques, and by transplanting affected components such as hard drive platters into ‘uninfected’ hardware units. In an iterative process, the retrieved data are exposed over and over again to the disruptive biological processes. During this 'degradation' process, data errors emerge as faulty lines and pixels, broken images, color shifts and other artefacts.

Source material is surgical footage stored on former generation media such as VHS, Betamax and CD-ROM. Using and (re-)digitizing found footage is integral to the project and draws upon notions of instability and conservation. The use of surgical video creates a layered narrative of shifting embodiments and translations: the dissected human body ‘contained’ on older and analog media is digitized on magnetic hard drive platters, and subsequently reworked by other biological bodies in a non-linear, dialectic process. The end result is a reconfigured and mutated body.

The exhibition consists of an ongoing installation setup surrounded by projections and video screens. In the installation, work benches with sequential series of hacked hard drives are the central focus. Biological experimentation takes place in the same installation, and is an ongoing process during the exhibit. In essence, the project debunks the myth of the so-called immaterial nature of digital art production.

Corrupted C#n#m# is a co-production of FLUXspace (Philadelphia), Sound Image Culture (Brussels), and FoAM (Brussels).

More information:
FLUXspace
3000 North Hope Street
Philadelphia, PA 19133, US
November 20 – December 20, 2009
Official opening: November 20, 2009
http://www.thefluxspace.org

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

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

Tale of Tales: Visual programming for artists

maja — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:01:36 +0000

How do artists want to create software? What environments already exist? What new directions are needed?

Tale of Tales will explore these questions in a dedicated workshop.
http://tale-of-tales.com/

Maki Ueda: Scentology

maja — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:49:50 +0000

I research scents and the sense of smell. My challenge is to use them as a medium in art. In the exhibition context I create a spatial expressions with the scents, I give workshops pm extracting the scents (I extract the scents literary from anything: from food to the cloth, flowers to the ink), and I develop unique 'perfumes' with my extracts, not for to be worn, but to be smelled. I use basic chemistry and cooking techniques in my mini-laboratory for extracting the scents.

More information: http://scent-lab.blogspot.com/

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

Maggie Buxton: Hybrid Story-Ing, Un-Genreable Engagements and Transformative Learning

maja — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:32:43 +0000

The core question of this research is: by what mechanisms can humanity become more conscious of and potentially change, it’s relationship to reality? This question potentially connects numerous disciplines including neuro-science, quantum physics, art, developmental psychology, adult education theory, political science, philosophy, to name just a few. Some of these areas will be touched on to provide further theoretical context to the research and recent discourse on Orders of Consciousness and Transformative Learning will be explored in more depth. I particularly focus on Un-Genreable Engagement and Hybrid Story-ing, aiming show how the various activities that fall under these headings (which I have coined in this research) have the potential to subvert consensus reality and illustrate the fragility of the dominant epistemology.

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

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