FoAM - Playing

Alternate Reality Games: tutorial

maja — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 12:52:30 +0000

Start: 2011-10-04 10:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2011-10-05 18:00 Europe/Brussels

FoAM in Brussels hosts a two-day tutorial on creating Alternate Reality Games, facilitated by Adrian Hon & Matt Wieteska of Six to Start.

Where: FoAM, Koolmijnenkaai 34, B-1080 Brussels, Belgium
When: 4th and 5th October 2011, 10:00 - 18:00
Costs: 30 EUR per person (contribution for 2 meals and materials)

As places are limited, if you'd like to participate please send a short bio and your motivation to info@fo.am by the 28th September 2011.

||||||||||||| About the tutorial:

This ARG tutorial explores the nuts and bolts of designing and running an Alternate Reality Game, with a specific focus on storytelling and real world interaction. The tutorial provides case studies of previous ARGs (including those Six to Start worked on) and includes exercises on developing story worlds, collaborative storytelling, and community formation.

"An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game

||||||||||||| About the facilitators:

Six to Start is an award-winning online games company, specialising in games that cross the boundary between the real world and the virtual world. They've worked with clients including Disney, Channel 4, Penguin Books, Warner Music, the BBC, and the National Maritime Museum to design, build and run online experiences.

Their games and experiences focus on play, storytelling, and social interaction. Six to Start believes that by combining them, they can create experiences that are more memorable, more powerful, and more accessible than anything that’s come before.

http://www.sixtostart.com/

This tutorial is part of the European project PARN:
http://x4.fo.am/parn

With the support of the Culture Programme (2007 - 2013) of the European Union and the Flemish Authorities

Sound and Taste Workshop

christina — Thu, 05 May 2011 15:24:42 +0000

Start: 2011-04-18 00:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2011-04-20 00:00 Europe/Brussels

The workshop organized by Filemon at the youth center " A place to live" in Laeken and guided by Bram (Aifoon) and Rasa (FoAM)
was introducing different tastes and sounds by association methods.
The children involved created visual expressions of different edible ingredients and sounds that surround us. They correlated tastes and sounds in order to create an imaginary edible neighborhood.

The 7 young participants kids started their first session blind folded, smelling and tasting different vegetable extracts and ingredients.
While tasting a number of questions where asked: what color do you imagine, what memories come to you, what shape and texture do you see, etc...

Still blindfolded, the children were drawing what they imagined on the table cloth using the ingredients and extracts and going by color and intensity of 5 tastes (sour, bitter, sweet,salty, umami).
Later, the children started to experiment with extracts on a piece of paper. Honey, cinnamon powder, red cabbage juice, paprika - landed on the paper creating a number of wonderfully bizarre drawings!
Then, some scented oils were prepared using mushrooms, beetroot, carrots, lavender.

The second session was guided by sound experts. The children where introduced to the basic techniques of listening, finding the sound, record, place it on the computer etc. They were also asked to match the drawings they had made to one of their sound recordings.

The third session was about edible “building materials”:
waffles, Chinese crackers, corn puffs, seeds, flowers, honey, wasabi paste, condensed milk, coconut oil and many others. The task was to build your imaginary house! Strange and beautiful buildings were erected. Some kids did not stop after one building, but kept on building until their stack of waffles was gone...

When everyone was satisfied with their results, they were invited to tell us a story about the inhabitants of the house, which country it is in, who are the neighbors. So we learned that there is a duck called Paprika who lives in the des(s)ert of Africa, or a group of students occupies a house with a wild swimming pool.

For the last session, the children split in two groups -
one went looking for sounds, that could fit well with the created houses. After recording on the streets around the youth center what they found interesting, they composed some very beautiful soundtracks.
The second group was working party treats for an imaginary street feast.

According to the food pairing principles, components were chosen to add to make chocolate. All the ingredients had to be prepared, chocolate melted, assembled together, pored into forms, cooled down.

Then it was time for the small exhibition - We hung the drawings on the walls of the terrace, the houses where displayed on the tables, the sound system installed. After a few words of reflection, we all could enjoy sweets, smelly oils , self made breads and a few compositions for the ears.

Special thanks to children for enthusiasm and energy,Aifoon for expertise and calmness,Coralie and Jura for the assistance, “A place to live” for a warm welcome, Pieter for transport, Lina and Christina for sharing ideas, Maki for introducing a wonderful world of smells!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/5669776138/in/set-72157626607731984/
http://www.aifoon.org/projecten.php?id=84
http://www.filemon.be/2011/04/taste-sound-workshop/

FOODPRINTS

lina — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 15:17:34 +0000

FOODPRINTS;
A biologically-centered toolkit for a resilient Stockholm

2010 has been declared ‘The year of International biodiversity’, and also a year in which Stockholm is ‘Europe’s green capital’. With these two celebrations, ‘Foodprints’ explores how the discipline of biomimicry can promote urban food resilience and opportunities for biodiversity to flourish in urban developments. There is an inherent relationship between the city and how food arrives on our plates. We want to investigate how to create ‘resilient’ cities that mimic nature’s ecosystems, where all the elements are interactive, abundant in feed-back loops, responsive, engaging, conducive to life, and always looking to reach the best use of resources. Our goal will be to bring forward a food culture, inspired by these ecosystems, through creation of a biologically-centered toolkit which we will apply on the urban visions for Norra Djurgarden area of Stockholm. Through creating such a tool, the project aims to be long term, continuous and inviting, applicable to other future schemes.

We will thread together both scientific, futuristic, artistic and sensory perspectives to review our urban ecology and the way we feed ourselves. Food will become our communication device, and we will present our explorations in a ‘maltid’ designed around the senses and experience. We hope that ‘reaction to the meal’ and proposals, can inspire invited guests involved in the development plans for the Norra Djurgarden scheme, to create food system resilience as part of the sustainable planning process. In turn, ‘Foodprints’ will collaborate with a variety of disciplines in a very creative process; science and biology with the built envi- ronment and experiential design, creating a multi-disciplinary cocktail of collaborations and introducing this strong ‘community’ of solutions to the city.

More information:
www.innovativkultur.se

This project is kindly made possible through Innovativ Kultur, City of Stockholm. The funding call focused on bio-inspired projects.

Contact Project Leaders:
Anna Maria Orru
Johan Zetterquist
E: info@scene-thinking.com

'The Sound of Gesture' by Stevie Wishart

lina — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:57:28 +0000

Start: 2010-12-09 19:30 Europe/Brussels

End: 2010-12-09 22:30 Europe/Brussels

Launch of CD/DVD of 'The Sound of Gesture', by Stevie Wishart.

"In everyday life we look without seeing, hear without listening: when a car passes we think “car” - we may not even notice what colour it is or pause to identify its engine from the engine sound. In life we concentrate on the basics in order to get along. As a composer and performer I want my audience to immerse themselves in the world of sounds I have carefully constructed. In the Sound of Gesture I hope that my musical gestures (those engaged in the act of playing the violin) will engage the audience, to lead them towards the various electronic transformations of the violin-sound as they emerge in the soundscape. Just as a pianist builds anticipation when lifting a hand before bringing it down onto the keyboard, so my visible gestures - themselves triggers to the sounds that accompany or follow - encourage the audience to expect what comes next and to notice when it happens. The Sound of Gesture is all about intensifying the listening experience."

“The Sound of Gesture” is part of Guild for Reality Integrators and Generators. It is a guild for European cultural and academic operators gathered around a mutual purpose; to mix separate realities, as well as bring whole new realities into existence.

More: http://grig.info/

Stevie Wishart was educated at Cambridge, Oxford and the Guildhall School of Music and is active as a composer, performer and improviser. She explores medieval & contemporary extremes, using ancient technologies such as the hurdy gurdy, as well as electronic and computer music technologies of our own time.

More: http://www.loganartsmanagement.com/artists/stevie-wishart/

Images:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/sets/72157625490768569/

__________________

CD and DVD are produced as part of gRIG (Guild for Reality Integrators and Generators), and supported by Culture 2000 Programme of the European Commission and Flemish Authorities. In collaboration with Q-O2, Belgium

Research Gathering with Alex, Ali and Luka

maja — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:38:40 +0000

Start: 2010-02-12 16:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2010-02-12 20:00 Europe/Brussels

Please join FoAM's first family in residence, Alex, Ali and Luka, for a farewell afternoon tea.

They will be presenting the prototype of their robotic au pair (Robaupair) and sharing some ideas on the creative possibilities of parenthood.

Summary of the residency findings: http://lib.fo.am/research_report_ali_alex

groworld at Postflux

maja — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:50:34 +0000

Start: 2009-11-07 00:00 Europe/Brussels

Maja Kuzmanovic presents groWorld and gRig, talks about play, storytelling and scrying at the Post Flux conference in Brussels.

http://www.post-flux.architempo.net/

Livecoding at Kings College Anatomy Museum

dave — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:36:29 +0000

Start: 2010-01-14 19:00 GMT

End: 2010-01-14 21:00 GMT

Live coding dissections by Michele Pasin, Wrongheaded, Thor Magnusson, Slub and Evan + Jag at Kings College Anatomy Museum on the 14th of January, more info at:
http://staff.cch.kcl.ac.uk/~mpasin/events/livecoding/

The Future of the Lab

nik — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:15:44 +0000

Start: 2009-11-30 13:15 GMT+2

End: 2009-12-02 13:15 GMT+2

"The Future of the Lab will provide opportunities for discussion and engagement with a diverse range of professionals on three layers: expert meetings for invited international guests from art and technology labs across Europe and beyond, as well as a number of Dutch labs; an afternoon bringing in local, regional and national participants from a diversity of sectors; and a programme for the general public on Monday, November 30. In collaboration with the participants of The Future of the Lab, BALTAN will also identify key topics for a follow-up expert meeting as well as some urgent areas of research to focus on in 2010."

http://www.baltanlaboratories.org/?p=1291

Marching Rocks Gloves & Code

dave — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:05:38 +0000

Start: 2009-10-24 19:00 GMT+1

End: 2009-10-25 00:00 GMT+1

Chip Tune Marching Band, Jamie Allen's circuitMusic, PixelH8, Jo Kazuhiro, Will Schrimshaw & Nick J Williams, Adam Parkinson, The Cane Toad Orchestra and Dave Griffiths.

I'll be doing 8bit acid assembler livecoding accompanied by audience participation gamepad robot livecoding.

http://www.spacestudios.org.uk/All_Content_Items/Media_Arts/Marching_Roc...

gRig Froesjels

maja — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:03:21 +0000

Start: 2009-10-29 18:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2009-10-31 23:59 Europe/Brussels

FoAM, nadine & gRig (the Guild for Reality Integrators and Generators) a society of people exploring the realities emerging from mixing art, science and technology, organise gRig Froesjels, a celebration of mixed realities and the Guild's annual meeting.

During the last three days of October 2009, the Guild will host a public gathering, gRig Froesjels, a chance to encounter gRig members, funders & fans, as well as experience some of the Guild's works.

The event will begin on 29 October with a series of events focusing on mixing physical and digital realities – an exhibition and a bazaar, including experimental works from esteemed European artists and artisans.

On 30 October, the Guild will hold its formal reception in the ancient halls of the Guild of Saint Georges. The reception will be accompanied by gRig’s gastronomic refreshments, followed by a talk by Maja Kuzmanovic, gRig's co-ordinator and the premiere of Viriditas, a new musical composition by Stevie Wishart, with Penelope Turner, soprano, specially commissioned for this unique event.

31st of October will begin with the Data Ecologies seminar, about mixing real and abstracted systems. In the evening, gRig Froesjels will conclude with a costumed All Hallow's Eve. In this spirited closure of the events, gRig is summoning its past, present and future members to Toone, a quirky puppet theatre in the centre of Brussels.

gRig Froesjels will provide ample time for meeting old & new reality integrators and generators, as well as froesjeling over gRig's specially designed food & drinks.

More: http://grig.info/froesjels/