workshop

NEM SANDPIT
Art, design and technology for the Digital Agenda
Co-sponsored by BBC and Technicolour
Facilitated by Maja Kuzmanovic, FoAM, Belgium

According to the Digital Agenda, “Europe must invest more in R&D and ensure that our best ideas reach the market.” In this context, how can collaboration between art, design and technology contribute to creating the best ideas, while also tackling societal challenges? What can we do together to foster open innovation and innovation eco-systems, as well as engaging ICT with pressing environmental issues?

Info: http://nem-summit.eu

Maja Kuzmanovic & Nik Gaffney participated at the meeting of Young Global Leaders (YGL) & the the Annual Meeting of the New Champions on "Driving Growth through Sustainability". Maja is involved in the design of the opening session of the YGL meeting, leads a discussion on the topic of Open Innovation: Accelerating Sustainable Growth, moderates a session on the Role of art in Asian society with Pooja Sood and leads a conversation with Chinese Designer Xiao Yong.

http://www.weforum.org/en/Communities/Young%20Global%20Leaders/index.htm

In collaboration with FoAM, Recyclart is organising a seed-bombing workshop.

Analogous to kneading of dough, the participants learn how to create a fertile paste including thousands of seeds (herbs, bushes, shrubs & ground covers), that can work together to form a self-sustaining plant guild. Recyclart invites people of all ages to discover the urban ecologists in themselves.

The workshop will be repeated on the 16th of July and 5th of August.

More information: http://www.recyclart.be/content/view/14153/1/lang,en/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/sets/72157625259865902/

Klorofil, OKNO and FoAM work together on a seedballing workshop in Brussels, as a part of the Micronomics Festival.

Since 2006, City Mine(d) devote themselves to the issue of economic paradoxes in Brussels. Under the banner Micronomics, they look for answers at the micro scale. They have brought together a wealth of micro-initiatives, who are actively building an urban micro-economy that is fair to those who take part in it and that is at the heart of the way our cities are shaped.

Luminous Green 2010 is a retreat about resilience; about a human world, that is enlightened, imaginative, electrified and most importantly – living in a fertile symbiosis with the planet. The retreat offers an exceptional occasion, a place where to learn about and from each other. In the process, the participants will attempt to jointly explore questions related to the theme of the retreat: resilience. What would a resilient human world be like? How do you experience resilience in your life? How do you encourage it in yourself and others?

Rachel Wingfield and Mathias Gmachl of Loop.ph conduct an exploratory workshop on lightweight structures and hydroponic techniques for vertical gardening.

http://www.loop.ph/bin/view/Loop/MetaboliCity

A workshop looking at various future directions of gRig & gRiggers in Europe and beyond.

Animation and Livecoding through Fluxus with Dave Griffiths and Evan Raskob

http://openlabworkshops.org/workshop-puredyne-and-fluxus-22-sept-2009/

Splinterfields is an initiative of several Brussels based organizations active within the fields of technological and media arts (Constant, FoAM, nadine and OKNO) to foster collaborative, agile and flexible learning. The programme of workshops, study-groups and field-tests is open to artists, designers, technologists and other generalists curious to explore tools and mindware for experiments in contemporary culture and daily life.

http://www.kobakant.at

To explore the possibilities of bringing electronics closer to bodies and plants we are organizing a workshop with the artists Hannah Perner-Wilson and Mika Satomi in which you will learn how to use textiles and electronics to interact with humans and plants.

The simulation-led workshop cluster presents constructive approaches to measurement, description and modelling of real world systems ranging across urban and ecological interventions. The world can be described by way of maps, diagrams, fiction, circuits and software. Desciptions, or representations, take on their own life as autopoetic systems, creating complex ecologies; describing becomes constructing (growing your own world).

Fluxus - Scheme livecoding, animation, games and plants

In this workshop you will find out about the emerging art form of livecoding and learn how to write simple scripts to create animations in 3D space. After an introduction to the scheme programming language and how to use it to build shapes and animate them, you will be let loose on prototype game code for groworld - a game still in production which takes elements from guerilla gardening, permaculture and plant growth.

Further details can be found at http://www.1010.co.uk/org/workshop.html

The gRig Research retreat in Slovenia, organised by Kibla and designed by FoAM will focus on the topic of food & environment. This retreat will be a part of the series of research retreats organised by gRig partners. About 20 artists, scientists and
researchers from different cultural and professional backgrounds will be brought together to discuss their methodologies, exchange experiences and experiments. The retreat will be facilitated by Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino (http://www.designswarm.com/)

Bart Vandeput will lead a gRig workshop on Photovoltaics for artists.

These workshops are organised by Marko Peljhan. FoAM is doing two remote presentations at the two workshops (on Saturday the 14th of February and Tuesday 17th of February).