.x-med-k. is a series of workshops and seminars investigating the changing faces of the fleeting field of 'experimental media arts'. From 2004 to 2008, three Brussels based organisations (FoAM, nadine, OKNO) joined forces to design and implement this heterogeneous series, for artists, designers and technologists interested in the experimental use of digital media, new materials and technologies.
.x-med-k. is envisioned as an alternative educational programme, where artists, designers and technologists from all walks of life could learn from each other. We began by teaching the basics of 'making-your-own' techno-artistic materials and instruments in tutorials and hands-on workshops; gradually we introduced more advanced master classes, that introduced more participatory learning methods, to encourage sharing of knowledge and experience with diverse tools and media. Research, experimentation, production, collaboration, presentation, dissemination and reflection; all of these activities became elements of a colourful puzzle of .x-med-k. We discussed wider economic, environmental, social and political implications of our works. We forged new projects, performed and socialised together, gathering a critical mass of people around topics close to our hearts.
During this research gathering Angelo Vermeulen will present a round-up of Translucent Futures, a project he started at FoAM in June and continued at a residency at [nadine] in September and October, supported by the Guild for Reality Integrators and Generators. The meeting starts with a short introduction outlining the project’s main goals and research approach through mind-mapping, wiki-building and collaboration with specialists from different fields.
On Saturday the 5th of May 2007, at 5PM, we opened the doors of our lab to everyone who wanted to have a final taste of the first Luminous Green series.
On Saturday the 5th of May 2007, at 5PM, we opened the doors of our lab to everyone who wanted to have a final taste of the first Luminous Green series.
Working on a remote location in the Belgian Ardennes, the workshop participants and FoAM collaborators formed a heterogeneous group of artists and technologists working together towards a common goal: designing a compelling, responsive experience by fusing the digital with the physical worlds. During the workshop, interactive media worlds were designed, using a mixture of open source tools including Blender, Audacity, PD and several gaming engines. The worlds were connected to the 'physical reality' through electronic interfaces.
Learning what it means to make a dynamic and immersive responsive environment was the goal that this workshop attempted to achieve. The workshop took place in a lab setting, working with small groups of artists. The participants learned how to use and modify FoAM's responsive media systems (built with Max/MSP and PD), thereby developing their own responsive objects or environments. Particular attention was devoted to the translation between real-world input (acquired through sensing technologies) and the audiovisual media output.
The Soft-wear symposium, workshop and open lab offered a glimpse into the world of active materials, that form the foundation of novel design paradigms. Soft-wear is a place where electronics meets the traditional crafts of weaving, dyeing and knitting fibres and threads, to produce materials that can respond to touch, temperature, light and other external stimuli. They are used as tangible interfaces and displays, where the edge between materials and media rapidly dissolves.
This workshop introduced 'fluxus' as a programming and performing
environment for real-time animation. We covered a range of animation techniques, from basic geometry, motion, texturing and compositing to more advanced topics including simulations of physical systems [real or imagined], interfacing with sensors and actuators, along with using audio and network data. The participants learned how to make inanimate bits become animated and potentially life-like, able to mutate and grow through continuous successions of change...
This free-form master class was designed to encourage discussions and experiments for a group of artists-developers, to find strengths and weaknesses of their approaches to procedural media.
In a time when energy use and electronic waste production should be rapidly decreasing, can media artists comfortably use arsenals of computers and their peripherals in the name of art?
In a five day long hands-on workshop, we began building a 3D printer, based on the open source RepRap specifications, adapted to suit the needs of the participants. The week will consist of putting together a complex puzzle of several thousand components, calibrating the hardware and the software and towards the end of the week, hopefully experimenting with printing with different materials - from plastics, to sugar, to whatever else we can lay our hands on.
In a five day long hands-on workshop, we began building a 3D printer, based on the open source RepRap specifications, adapted to suit the needs of the participants. The week will consist of putting together a complex puzzle of several thousand components, calibrating the hardware and the software and towards the end of the week, hopefully experimenting with printing with different materials - from plastics, to sugar, to whatever else we can lay our hands on.
On the Mutamorphosis conference, FoAM presented the paper "groWorld HPI" and participated in the debates on "Synaesthesia", "Smart Materials" and "Art and Science in Media Education".
FoAM and the Guild for Reality Integrators and Generators organised a talk by Adrian Hon, on Alternate Reality Games (ARG), collaborative fiction, puppetmasters, backstories and other tools for playful reality generation.
Two FoAM & gRig presentations at the Data Ecologies workshop "On growing of worlds: whole systems in turbulent environments" by Maja Kuzmanovic and "What am I doing rendering fractals?" by Steven Pickles.
A Luminous Green satellite event, organised by Time's Up and the Guild for Reality Integrators and Generators:
Dates: 23rd | 24th | 25th October 2008
Luminous Green is an attempt to become more aware of our own ecological and human responsibilities. A moment’s pause, deceleration and self-reflection are a common core.
Semiotics of the Kitchen Radio (Verbindingen/Jonctions 11.4)
by Constant
Saturday November 15, 15:00 (doors open: 14:30)
FoAM, Koolmijnenkaai 30-34 Brussels and on-line
With Martha Rosler’s classic performative alphabet 'Semiotics of the Kitchen' as a point of departure, Constants' design collective Open Source Publishing (OSP) presents a live radio broadcast from the FoAM kitchen. Experimenting with the displacement of multi sensory experiences, they reflect on the preparation and distribution of food as metaphor, structure, vocabulary and rhythm.
A natural smell is often extracted from a material using chemistry techniques for retrieving essential oils, such as distillation, ethanol extraction, or oil maceration. In the Edible Perfume workshop, these techniques will be adopted in the kitchen.
Kate Rich will introduce Feral Trade (http://feraltrade.org), serve ferally traded tea & coffee & conduct a raffle of the Feral Trade Hamper, a seasonal selection of goods sourced and transported over social networks.
Bart Vandeput is representing FoAM as the Provocateur of the City Space and The Every Day session of 48 degrees Celsius, Symposium on public space, art and ecology:
Nik Gaffney and Maja Kuzmanovic will participate in the Real Code experiment at the Piksel Festival. As a part of FoAM's series of Future prehearsals (inspired by ex-yu "Nothing Can Surprise Us" drills), they will conduct various experiments with food, flavours and expectations, in an environment filled with machinery and software, with little access to organic ingredients.
FoAM, a cross-disciplinary, trans-local laboratory and the artist Kate Rich complicate the equation of food miles. This meal is prepared with products and ingredients freighted in from around the globe, in the spare luggage space of social and cultural travellers.
Feral Trade is a grocery business trading outside commercial systems. Goods hitchhike on other sources of movement, often using the art world as an energy source, harnessing the surplus freight potential of the many journeys logged by artists, curators and audiences to move grocery items intercity.
Panel conversation with Elke Van Kampenhout, Constant & FoAM, about the connection between a certain vision on the future, and the conceptualization of a contemporary artistic practice, as a part of the Performatik Festival:
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).
Dave Griffiths is presenting groWorld at Futuresonic, Environment 2.0 - Art, Ecology and Social Media alongside data visualisation artist Aaron Koblin, Usman Haque talking about creating systems for connecting and sharing realtime environmental sensor data and Tapio Makela talking about art, ecology and information Design.
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/)
FoAM and The guild for Reality Integrators and Generators (gRig) invite you to a frothy evening dedicated to the culture, science and sensory experimentation with beer. This f0amfr0th promises to become an adventure through zymurgy and beerology, lost and found traditions, techniques and ingredients.
EcoArt, lecture in cooperation with artist and scientist Boo Chapple, environmental artist / ecological researcher Brandon Ballengée and artist, bioartist Andy Gracie from England and FoAM member Theun Karelse.
Tuesday 26 May, at 8 pm in the Theatrum Anatomicum of the Waag. Entrance is free.
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.
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).
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.
* "I'm going to put you back in your box" - Sarah Angliss
The 30s voder and ventriloquism revisited
* Tim Hunkin
Electricity Sex and Death
* Alex McLean
Acid sketching
* Circuits for a sordid SatNav - James Larsson
A characterless SatNav unit is made a bit more human...
* Dave Griffiths
groWorld - gardening, permaculture and games
A group of 6 representatives from FoAM and nadine present the Guild for Reality Integrators and Generators, its people & activities and announces the birth of Resilients.
Rachel Wingfield and Mathias Gmachl of Loop.ph conduct an exploratory workshop on lightweight structures and hydroponic techniques for vertical gardening.
As a part of the Spring Lecture Series of the American Institute of Architects, Maja Kuzmanovic is invited by Anna-Maria Orru to give a lecture about FoAM's work in the field of sustainability and ecologically inspired creative practices.
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.
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.
FoAM presents groWorld at the 7th edition of SEAFair “The apparatus of life and death”. The fastival creatively responds to the evolution of society in the sphere of bio-politics, thereby visualizing of our possible futures. SEAFair 2010 conveys the story of artists, critics and theorists attempting to navigate through the maze of the newly constructed global bio-political apparatus, in a changing social matrix, in which the rules are just being set.
As autumn ripens, nature and its resources are slowly turning inwards, preparing for the seasonal rest.
This is a good time for various works in the city gardens - preparing plants and soil for the winter, harvesting the yield of the year and planning next steps for the coming spring.
First Meetup on Augmented Ecology
FoAM Amsterdam is initiating the Institute for Augmented Ecology (IforAE). This is a continuation of the work on Boskoi (an Android mobile foraging application, which is in development).
IforAE aims to function as a platform for discussion about media hooking onto the ecosphere and to find out what Augmented Ecology actually could be before it actually gets to be defined and/or narrowed down by convention.
The corporate battle over SmartCities has shifted last December to a race to dominance over monitoring our ecosytems.
This second meetup of Augmented Ecology will be focussing on these recent developments with an overview of the fast changing whirlpool of artistic, scientific and corporate projects that collect data on our environment en ecosystems. Johannes will be showing his LAYAR based air quality network called MIMAQ.
Dave will talk about FoAM, who are bringing their Groworld Bazaar to Pixelache in March. He will give more context and background to this project as well as revealing other related and not so related work that FoAM has been developing in recent years. As well as explaining FoAM’s work in connecting plants and people, the talk will include cooking recipes, livecoding, robot cats playing chess, and demos of prototype computer games.
Be part of mapping the energetic value of the Dutch urban landscape; how much energy does it take for semi-skilled contemporary foragers to gather wild foods and what energetic value is contained in nearby urban environments? On May 8th the Middle Kingdom of Weeds festival features a forage psychogeographic expedition that will starts at 10.30 from Station Sloterdijk, Amsterdam. Using .walk algorithms this foraging expedition will map and explore the caloric potential of the area.
Team members include:
- a geographer, who maps the edibles on Boskoi
A co-creation worklab with research based experimentations on the relation between light, food, body and electric energy. Fusing cooking- and solar technology and designs, the participants can improvise and play with edible materials to create ‘e-tapas’ of different aesthetics, smells and tastes. To be ta(e)sted on the heliotropic tongue for the tickle. Lead by Bartaku / FoAM.
TpED #5 was part of FoAM's groWorld, presented at Pixelache Helsinki. At DMY the TpED-worklab is part of 'Makerlab Finland'.
Immanentia, an interactive application, story and artwork by FoAM and Performing Pictures, is shown at the Japan Media Arts Festival in Dortmund. In Immanentia, the viewers are drawn into a world of Lina Kusaite’s patabotanical drawings of phantasmagoric trees and plants. The drawings describe a place for day-dreams of a little girl, found at the doorstep of the children's house in Rose Cottage Home in Dickleburgh around 1890. The artwork is created for a i3DG, an interface for iPhones/Pods/Pads, able to turn 2D imagery into 3D - creating a minuscule theatre-stage in the palm of your hand.
Radio Mycelium tutorial includes the construction of a series of experimental situations examining a new networked imaginary, the single organism of the fungal mycelium, in relation to pathogenic, electromagnetic communications.
"A mycelial network has no organs to move the world, no hands; but higher animals with manipulative abilities can become partners with the star knowledge within me and if they act in good faith, return both themselves and their humble mushroom teacher to the million worlds all citizens of our starswarm are heir to." -Terence McKenna. The Mushroom Speaks
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.
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