A soundwalk in Thurn & Taxis + workshop: create your own OpenGreen and connect to the database.
In the morning Jonathan Prior guides us through the sounds of the city during a silent soundwalk on the wasteland of Thurn & Taxis. How does Brussels sound? Can sound create a space? These questions are asked and explained, while we listen to the ecological aspects of public spaces. During this guided tour Jonathan Prior lets us experience the public space in another way. Take your waterproof shoes and your camera to register the sounds as images.
In the afternoon Danielle Roberts and Annemie Maes introduce you to the OpenGreens database. With the image material of the silent soundwalk we ‘recreate’ the wasteland of Thurn & Taxis in the OpenGreens database in a collective way.
We gather at OKNO – Koolmijnenkaai 30/34 – 1080 Brussels at 9am.
An experimental and playful hands-on workshop by Ralf Schreiber and Christian Faubel.
…it is a lot of fun to build your own robotic creature. As soon as the circuit starts working the robots begin to sing and jerk – there is always a great Hello.
It’s a magic moment and the constructor’s pride is often mixed with a little fear, that continuing soldering could possibly damage the just created little robot.
Time and again it is amazing to see, that such a wimpy, handcrafted creature can arouse empathy, can even activate a certain care in the builder…. (rs)
The most simple way to create and build “life like” machines or robots is by the use of analogue oscillator circuits. Oscillations can be feed-backed and thus simple interactions will happen and simple neuronal networks behavior can be simulated.
In this workshop we will build different kinds of machines. In combination with tiny motors and loudspeakers (piezos) they will generate smallest movements and soft sounds. All these machines are based on extreme low energetic circuits designs and get powered by the electric energy from tiny solar-panels or wimpy diy batteries.
All the finished machines can be exposed / set free in the garden. Furthermore some “creatures” can be connected or integrated to botanical or fungal organism (the plants resistance/capacity will get an integral part of the oscillating circuits).
For the design and look we will recycle & reuse wimpy stuff and elements direct from the garden: leaves, thin twigs, wax from the bee hives…
honeybatteries and a soundmodule – materials of the OpenGreens
Candlelight robots, a project developed by Christian Faubel.
The project consists of tiny mobile robots based on the suneater-circuit. They can be driven with just the flame of a candlelight. The light of the candle is transformed into electric energy that is stored in a capacitor and then released to a motor, producing movement. Christian will experiment with the workshop participants to make candles that move autonomously with only the energy from the flame. The circuit and motor will be casted in beeswax, with just the motor shaft and and the solar panel sticking out.
double spread OpenGreens workshop@ okno, from 9 to 10 june 2011
http://ralfschreiber.com
27 May 2011 — 19:00
Rue de Flandre / Vlaamsesteenweg
1000 Brussels ……
Friday 27 May 2011, 7pm, Rue de Flandre, Brussels. Car traffic has reached its critical mass. As the last automobile joins in, the roads suddenly come to a standstill. Filling up the motorways, the congestion rapidly flows over into the smallest alley: the traffic jam has ceased to be a regrettable coincidence. It has become the new condition of our public spaces. In the midst of this apocalyptic landscape, the inhabitants of the city take it upon themselves to invent a new life in symbiosis with the stagnating stream of the now useless vehicles.
more info on:
http://postcardsfromthefuture.be/2010/?post_type=postcards&p=771
An experimental and playful hands-on workshop (BEAM related) by Ralf Schreiber.
[*small unspectacular autonomous electronic machines – that attract attention by minimal tiny movements, light or soft sonic output.]
…it is a lot of fun to build your own robotic creature. As soon as the circuit starts working the robots begin to sing and jerk – there is always a great Hello.
It’s a magic moment and the constructor’s pride is often mixed with a little fear, that continuing soldering could possibly damage the just created little robot.
Time and again it is amazing to see, that such a wimpy, handcrafted creature can arouse empathy, can even activate a certain care in the builder…. (rs)
The most simple way to create and build “life like” machines or robots is by the use of analogue oscillator circuits. Oscillations can be feed-backed and thus simple interactions will happen and simple neuronal networks behavior can be simulated.
In this workshop we will build different kinds of machines. In combination with tiny motors and loudspeakers (piezos) they will generate smallest movements and soft sounds. All these machines are based on extreme low energetic circuits designs and get powered by the electric energy from tiny solar-panels or wimpy diy batteries.
All the finished machines can be exposed / set free in the garden. Furthermore some “creatures” can be connected or integrated to botanical or fungal organism (the plants resistance/capacity will get an integral part of the oscillating circuits).
For the design and look we will recycle & reuse wimpy stuff and elements direct from the garden: leaves, thin twigs, wax from the bee hives…
Schreiber is building solar-powered electronic insects that sing, chirp, swing and crawl. These little creatures get their energy from the sun and will probably outlive most of the fine electronic devices surrounding us today.
During the past few years Ralf has given numerous workshops around the world, teaching people to build their own robots from cheap components.
This knowledge does not only give people the possibility to build funny little toys, it also gives people more control and understanding of their increasingly technological surroundings.
(alessandro ludovico/www.neural.it)
Version 2 of the windclock describes the OpenGreen rooftop garden in the center of Brussels. The wind-values, registrated by the photosensor, are linked to the description of the plants in the rooftop garden. The stronger the wind blows, the more present the plantnames are – expressed in fontsize.
The overall movie gets a voice-over by the bees of the garden: they comment on their foraging area and add another layer to the wind movie.
More on padma.okno.be …
a workshop about a hypothetical content, method and style for new ecological media writing today. 17-19 November 2010 @ OKNO – Brussels
In a concise 3-day program, we try to lay the foundations for a common style in treating the TIK themes and materials. Conform to the purpose of the 2-year project, and its bottom-up but collaborative strategies, we deal with the several blind spots that are still open, for thinking about a changed creative output in any media form: text, code, image, sound, word,…
The real subject of workshops is closely related to the TIK project scheme and deals with:
– the available documentation of the previous events and activities
– the representation and creative media writing throughout the project
– the outline of a common strategy for dealing with artistic research currently
– the content of the future conferences and publications
Daily we organize 5 short and to-the-point 1-hour sessions: working scheme, theoretical intro, practical exercises, evaluation/aftertalk and online reviewing. The themes of the planned days are as following:
05.11.2010 // 18h: Preliminary online preparation: a TIK chat on Guy Fawkes’ Night… (check wikipedia)
17.11.2010 // 11h: OKNO brussels : Introduction, and the TIK-methodology of writing with all-media
18.11.2010 // 11h: OKNO brussels : Aestetical, and stylistic considerations of TIK-writing with media
19.11.2010 // 11h: OKNO brussels : From papers to abstractions, or how TIK-writing can make media
Tic [pronounced: tik] = a habitual spasmodic contraction of the muscles; origin early 19th cent., from Italian “ticchio”
Just a perfect day. Indian summer. The bees bring in pollen in abundancy. I just discovered the immense ivy covering the whole wall of la Bellone. Winterfood for my bees.
Today I started to note down the inside hive t° every hour, and compared it to the outside t° and the outside humidity.
In the sun, reading Indeterminacy. Cage was a well-known mycologist. Crazy about fungi. Short stories and mesostics about mushrooms. And later in the afternoon I met Thoreau. Walden & the civil disobedience. Wild is exiting, he says. And tame is dull.
Writing the wilderness. Can a poem give expression to nature?
Later, before sunset, cleaned out the rotten tomatoes but took their seeds for next year… and sown some winter lettuce in the cold greenhouse. The olives are slowly ripening and the figues are big and sweet.
The day and night of 2010/10/10 I did some measurements inside and outside hive#01. On the document you can see that the in- and outside t° are running up- and down on a proportional basis.
The t° sensor was placed at the outer inside of the hive, not in the broodnest itself. On saturday, october 16th, I expanded the observation by adding a digital thermometer to the hive#03, which is situated next to hive#01. I put the sensor in both hives in the broodnest itself. The average outside t° is much colder yet, at night the t° often falls down towards 4°.
I noticed the immediate rise of inside-hive t°, now that the sensor is in the center of the broodnest.
In daytime (no immediate sun) the hive t° was rising till 36°, at night the t° fell down to 23°. There is a difference of ± 3° in the average inside hive t° of hive#01 (less) and hive@02 (more). I don’t know (but should find out) if this t° difference is due to the (still) high varroa contamination of hive#01, even after 2 treatments with Thymovar.
p.s.
The drawing on the rooftop is part of an art project by GOeART.
Following the Nazca lines, let’s turn the roofs of buildings and unused, abandoned spaces into works of art that can be seen from space! This is not just about being creative and artistic, but also making gestures on invisible, unknown and unused areas of our heritage. Being able to access aerial views of these areas is an unprecedented opportunity to practice a monumental art which says something about us, where we live or don’t live, how we relate to a globalised world, our intimacies, these holes, these windows which hide and reveal us … How? Let’s use the roofs of our city as something to draw on. You can’t see these drawings from terra firma, only from the sky. New works can be seen each time the satellites that take aerial views of our cities and areas pass overhead. Find our hidden guides, get up on the roofs and help create the first work of art visible from space.
Triangular Walk is een experimentele stadstocht rond de kanaalzone, waarbij kunst, wetenschap en activisme mekaar kruisen. Drie gidsen leiden drie groepen deelnemers middels een speels concept door drie stedelijke tuinprojecten en de omliggende straten. Na de 4 uur durende ‘driehoeks’wandeling ontmoeten de verschillende groepen mekaar voor het eerst voor de afsluitende presentatie in de Open Green Rooftop Garden.
Deze informatieve, interactieve en performatieve tocht draait rond de voedselsketen als symbool voor de alomtegenwoordige sub-culturele en ‘sub-natuurlijke’ processen in een stedelijke omgeving.
Triangular Walk is an experimental city walk around the canal area where art, science and activism meet. With the help of three guides participants explore three urban gardening projects and the area around them in a playful manner. After the four hour triangular walk, the groups meet for the first time at OKNO’s OpenGreen `rooftop garden, to attend a presentation that rounds up the event.
This informative, interactive and performative journey takes the food chain as a symbol for sub-cultural and sub-natural processes in an urban environment.
here is a nice report, and some overview pictures of the walks:
triangular walk
On saturday september 18th, three Brussels art labs invite you in Koolmijnenkaai 30-34. OKNO opens their rooftop garden and Open Greens-project to all. You can taste urban honey and drinks made of plants from the garden. You can nibble on FoAM’s detoxifying treats to help you fight urban afflictions, spiced up with plants from the Kanal area. Q-O2 invites the sound artist Pierre Berthet for a concert using waterdrops as an instrument.
After a day of walking between various urban gardens alongside the canal, FoAM will serve a range of detoxifying bites, especially crafted to eliminate toxins and pollutants from the human bodily ecology. The aperitif combines ingredients, methods and performance-eating techniques that can assist your body in fighting some of the most prominent urban afflictions, including allergies, stress related disorders, diabetes and cancer. In collaboration with OKNO and Irma Firma, the cooks will incorporate edible plants gathered and grown in the Brussels’ Kanal area.
More: http://www.platformkanal.be/nl/acties/22-festival-kanal
