spiegelaer

This Sprinckelink event at Foamlab in Amsterdam brings together sound collectors for a session of sharing the brightest sonic diamonds from their archives of recorded sounds of landscapes, animals and music. This results in an evening of crisp, flabby or spongey sound-snippets from collectors reacting to the presented audio files. Some true gems come from a Russian collection of frog and fish sound-recordings accompanied on the LP by the comments of a Russian biologist.

For the ideal Christmas dinner, all the guest sport impressive beards. To celebrate the second Christmas-special a festive dinner is organized at Foamlab just next to the exhibition. Dress-code: Biblical, which for obscure reasons implies beards. So beards and curtains for everyone. This jolly congregation sits down at a table full of food and miniature roman soldiers that seem to have fled the arid landscape of the diorama of the show and found a true Cockaigne, a land of plenty on our table.

Sawdust on the floor, in the food and up your clothes in this show at Foamlab Amsterdam. The circus has come to Foamlab inspired by the tiny handcrafted circus by the artist Calder. Today we concentrate on the importance of play in creative practices. Designers, architects, artists and performers come together for a session of make-up and glitter.

Biologists, artists and Sanctuary supporters are among the participants in the Spiegelaer event at Foamlab. They are hurtled head-first into the rain-forest canopy during this research report by Theun Karelse on a fieldtrip to the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary. A incomplete but detailed introduction of the workings of the rain-forest, plants and parts of plants is paralleled by the hypnogotic vision of the forest in the work of cineast Werner Herzog and his work with a navigable balloon in South America.

The artist Matthew Barney comments on his rich worlds in a splendid interview on internet. This modern day Hieronimous Bosch is a great inspirer and the Foamlab team goes through the offices in Amsterdam to collect objects suitable for recreating such worlds in the lab. The interview and special food-design and suitable clothing create a full Barney experience for a night about this confident artist and his huge works.

The world of theoretical Physics was brightened-up by the charming genius of safecracker, drummer, womaniser and Nobel-prise winner Richard Feynman. In an interview with BBC Horizon Feynman explains eloquently how scientific knowledge enriches his perception of beauty and convincingly dismantles the notion of ‘Entzauberung’ as caused by science. This meeting at Foamlab concentrates on the intricacies of creative processes.

Spiegelaer is a series of meetings at FoAM Lab in Amsterdam that started in October 2005. In these events the Lab is opened for an evening of visuals, sounds, tastes and discussions around a central theme. The participants are selected and invited to form a group of mixed professions and back-grounds but with a shared interest in the topic of the event. The name Spiegelaer indicates the cross-disciplinary nature of the series and comes from the old Dutch word for an alchemist.