groWorld is a long running FoAM project investigating the relationship between plants and people. In the past it has involved teaching workshops on guerrilla gardening, looking at plants as inspiration as organisational models, investigating permaculture, creating games that make you see the world from a plant’s viewpoint and designing patabotanical worlds of fantastical plant relationships.
We pick up the thread from last year’s activities by The Herbologies/Foraging Networks, and use the Aronia berry (Chokeberry) as a common connection that will bring together game designers, gardeners, electronics experimenters and urban foragers with a set of hands on workshops, discussions and experiments.
Temporary photoElectric Digestopians [TpED] Worklab
Thursday 10 March
Time: 09:30-17:30
Venue: Pajasali, Suomenlinna
A co-creation worklab with research based experimentations on the transformation of light energy into electric energy with food. Fusing cooking and solar tech and designs, the participants will work with edible materials to create ‘e-tapas’ of different aesthetics and tastes. A principal role is for the Aronia Melanocarpa (Choke/Apple berry), one of the most powerful, anti-oxidant rich berries both in terms of kJoules and microWatts, entangled in a rich global historical narrative (see also other groWorld-parts). To be tested, tasted and appreciated on heliotropic tickling tongues.
The TpED-Worklab at Pixelache 2011 is part of a series, fused by PhoEf: The Undisclosed Poésis of the Photovoltaic Effect; an artistic research project by Bartaku.
>> MORE INFORMATION / WORKSHOP REGISTRATION FORM
Seedballing workshop
Friday 11 March
Time: 14:00-17:00
Venue: Pajasali, Suomenlinna
“Think about it. A whole habitat in a tiny clay ball…” – Masanobu Fukuoka
Seed Balling – is a natural farming technique, developed by Masanobu Fukuoka, which contains plant potential for an entire ecosystem. Its easy and fun method to learn about plants and our environment. During the seedballing workshop at Pixelache, we will look at the local edible plants and its importance for the locale or urban environments. We will learn how to create clay balls by using water, clay, compost and preselected seeds, which will be based on Chokeberries (Aronia Melanocarpa) companion planting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companion_planting
More information about seed balling technique: “The clay ball” or “Seed balls” method was pioneered by Mr. Masanobu Fukuoka who was a Japanese farmer and originator of the Natural Farming agricultural system. Seedballs have use in nearly any climate region in which plants can grow, for reseeding ecosystems into areas of man-made-deserts, for avoiding seed eaters, and for protecting seeds until long-duration rains fall to soak the clay ball, stimulating the seeds with the moisture, and washing away some of the clay off the top of the ball. The seeds inside then germinate in the best possible plant establishment conditions available in each climate-region. While this method has seen positive results of farming in India, the Philippines, Tanzania and Greece, it has never been tested on a large scale.
Workshop duration: approx 3 hours
Max number of participants: approx 20
Flow of the workshop:
- Short introduction on seed balls / Fukuoka
- Explanation of the making of seed balls.
- Making the seed balls.
- In the end of the workshop participants will be able to take seed balls with them
NOTICE! IT IS *NOT* NECESSARY TO REGISTER FOR THE SEEDBALLING WORKSHOP IN ADVANCE – YOU CAN JUST SHOW UP AT THE VENUE AND PARTICIPATE!
Draw a plant spirit – game character design/permaculture workshop
Saturday 12 March
Time: 12:00-18:00
Venue: Camp Pixelache lab/exhibition at Gallery Augusta, Suomenlinna
Computer games allow us to take on other lives, and see the world from new perspectives. FoAM has been working for a number of years on using games to strengthen the connection between plants and people. Our latest approach takes popular games such as FarmVille as inspiration, but explores what would happen if they were infused with aspects of permaculture, and where characters called “Plant Spirits” help or hinder you as you discover a world organised by companion planting.
The game is in active development, and we invite you to join us by designing your own characters on paper that will rebuilt in the running game for you to play with. You will also be able to learn about what permaculture is, as an ancient art of assembling “guilds” of mutually beneficial plant species, as well as hints to a more general design strategy or philosophy.
Augmented ecology session
Sunday 13 March
Time: 11:30-13:30
Venue: MAA, Suomenlinna
Animals are fitted with tracking devices, web-cams and hooked up to sms services, satellites are tracking global crop development in real time, ecosystem monitoring is crowdsourced with mobile technology; is there still a private-life for plants and animals? Join the debate!
Since 2010 FoAM Amsterdam is developing a foraging application for Android smartphone called Boskoi. To look in a wider context at ecology and new media, the Institute for Augmented Ecology, has been launched in 2011. During a meeting with experts and stakeholders which is open to the public, we will use Boskoi as a starting place for a discussion on how the tagosphere will connect with the biosphere.
At Pixelache different stakeholders within augmented ecology can meetup such as; urban foragers, wildlife organizations, biologists, gardeners, urban planners, gamers, designers and artists.
Confirmed participants (so far):
Theun Karelse member of FoAM and initiator of Boskoi will host the meeting. Jussi Kivipuro of Greenpeace will talk about Greenpeace’s Digital Vision which includes a mobile media strategy and media activism. And Joel Rosenberg will be describing his Helsinki foraging cycle-tours. Yasser Ansari of Project Noah, which is a crowdsourced ecology-mapping app for iPhone could talk on ecomapping issues, but this depends on Skype stability.
Related links:
http://augmentedecology.posterous.com
http://boskoi.org
About Foam
FoAM is a transdisciplinary laboratory and a research group committed to developing a holistic culture, by actively propagating resilient cultural forms. FoAM’s members include artists, gardeners, cooks, technologists, designers, writers and scientists from all walks of life.
FoAM’s activities arise from the gaps between traditional disciplines, to uncover and strengthen links & interdependencies between them. They include a creative research programme, professional development and knowledge preservation & dissemination in the field of transdisciplinary culture. FoAM is dedicated to advancing and supporting a community of generalists, people who live and work in the interstitial spaces between professional & cultural boundaries, operating under the motto ‘grow your own worlds’.
http://fo.am
Foamies
About Lina
Lina Kusaite completed a European Master of Art in Fashion and Textile Design in the Netherlands and France. Her Graduation collection was nominated for the ‘Prince Bernard Prize’ in the Netherlands, and was awarded as the best conceptual fashion collection in Vilnius/Lithuania. Lina joined FoAM as experimental textile designer in 2001. Within FoAM she focuses on designing and realizing interactive environments, working on urban gardening, and concept illustrations for computer games. Aside being a core member of FoAM, Lina is a book illustrator and concept artist for several games developed by Tale of Tales.
http://www.cocooncharacters.com
About Dave
Dave was raised on an early education in weaving, bell ringing and 8bit computers, and is now a software artist and enthusiastic livecoding performer, where he attempts to make people dance to code and chaotic ambient acid gabba in a livecoding band called slub. His background is in computer graphics and R&D (past employers Moving Picture Company London, and Sony Computer Entertainment). Dave is now a full time free software developer based in Helsinki, Finland, publishing all code he writes under the GPL licence and working for FoAM, an independant art and research group.
About Theun
Theun Karelse has been a member of FoAM since 2005 and is the initiator of Boskoi and IforAE. He has been projecting (wildly and mildly) speculative ideas on paper since birth. From an early interest in theoretical physics, perception and superpowers he followed a trajectory passing through the fields of hagiography with a drawn guide to levitating christian saints, a study of proprioception in the context of geometrical physics, and research into the history palaeolithic media and of wearable safety solutions. Within FoAM Theun has been active as an illustrator, food designer, prototyper and taker of naps.
About Bartaku
Artist/Researcher/Ex-Social Scientist and Ex-Drummer
1970/1996 Bru[BE]/Kobe [JAP]
After having explored the undisclosed poésis of thread energies and intimate disturbance, since 2007 Bartaku works -micro-interventions/installations, workshops/labs, lectures and writings- are fused by the research project “PhoEf: The Undisclosed Poésis of the Photovoltaic Effect, in which he explores the relation between light energy and electrical energy, including – light repair and amplification – land use for growth of power plants used for solar cell making – the relation/tension between kiloJoules (food energy) and milliWatts (electr. energy). A thread that is developed in 2011 in a series of co-creation-based worklabs where solar cell and molecular cuisine tech merge into Temporary photoElectric Digestopians – or electric bites.
