Time Inventors’ Kabinet is a project, with an interest into ecology and media art, and a collaborative experiment with time, taking an ecological approach to observing patterns in time and time control systems. It gathers some experimental artists, gardeners, engineers, bricoleurs, cultural managers, organizers, documentarists, writers, musicians, as new 21st century style inventors with a non-conventional attitude.

Time Inventors’ Kabinet is een exerimenteel project dat ecologie en mediakunst samenbrengt. Het onderzoekt het concept tijd via de observatie van ecologische tijdsprocessen. In het project komen kunstenaarrs, tuiniers, ingenieurs, bricoleurs, managers, organisators, filmmakers, schrijvers en muzikanten samen. Allemaal zijn ze als nieuwe uitvinders geinteresseerd in de niet conventienele ‘andere’ TIK-tijd. Van 5 tot 10 oktober kan je hen ontmoeten in Skopje, Macedonia, tijdens de ecoconference #04. De gesprekken en presentaties vinden plaats in Damar (Old Bazar), op 7 oktober vanaf 20u.

All sensors for the observationhive arrived and we got 4 webcams, so we’ll have a lot of toys to play with in our 2nd bee-monitoring workshop.We can start enhancing our glass observation hive! Bart Aertsen, professional designer carpenter, will make a shed to protect our new observation hive from hard sun and snow. He’ll also bring some working material and a dremel. I have an additional dremel to use.Please bring your additional electronics, your soldering iron (we have some at okno – 1 good one) and more stuff you think to be handy …

All previous research and work from the first bee monitoring workshop can be consulted here:
http://timeinventorskabinet.org/wiki/doku.php/bee_monitoring_workshops (general)
http://timeinventorskabinet.org/wiki/doku.php/beehives (beehive desings)
http://timeinventorskabinet.org/wiki/doku.php/data_harvesting (electronics)

We are in Graz to present the OpenGreens database for the first time. We will do a mapping session with the stakeholders of the OpenGreensGraz, and contextualize the OpenGreens in different levels on the city map. As a preparation, we go for a city walk, and our local guides give us background information during this nice stroll through the inner city, its hidden gardens, backyards and wastelands.
More information will follow later this week after the mapping session and the introduction to the OpenGreens database.

The Okno participation in Burning Ice #4 consists of an OpenGreens Exchange Corner. The trading basis is the Connected OpenGreen Catalog … this is a book to be written in a collaborative way. It lists all goods and services that can be exchanged between OpenGreen users.
The maquette of the book is the basis for the discussions in the OpenGreens exchange corner, and the shared information and services cover different urban topics.
You can consider the book as a manual/proposition for living in the cities in a different way …
If we want to alter our habits, we’ll have to change our ideas on what is most essential and necessary in our lives. We’ll have to break with the common rules, deviate from the norm and create dynamic structures. Therefore we’ll use temporary places as the OpenGreens.

Six tents and a car together form a temporary zone for social and economic change. A group of artists have been invited by Radical_Hope (Heike Langsdorf) to set up this out-of-the-ordinary “camp”. On Monday January 17 everyone is welcome to come and learn to erect the hexayurts. A hexayurt is a special kind of tent, designed by Vinay Gupta as incredibly cheap shelter for those in need. You can then stay and get involved in the week-long process of action that aims to generate ideas: ideas about new ways of organising work, urban food production, alternative energy management, innovative financing schemes and so on. As from 5 January you can programme your own activities as part of Changing Tents by adding them to the Changing Agenda: www.changingagenda.be.

creative writing on collective basis, korcula seen in slow motion:
Location: croatia, korcula, grey area
Keywords: windclock, workshop, time inventors’ kabinet, TIK, screwing

Closeup of a hand making a bolt spin along a rod of metal. Glimpses of the transparent construction it is a part of. Hand screwing a nut on a tige, inside studio/workshop.
A black screen is followed by some compression errors in the video. Then we see a hand screwing down a nut on a rod, first with the index and middel fingers, then with support of the thumb. In the background we see a piece of clothing on a chair. Light falls in from the left. The nut descends into a clear plastic object, a WindClock in construction. The hand secures the nut. We hear people in a room, objects being moved.
We hear a dialogue:
Guy:“Great idea ????”
Barb:“Who had this great idea?”
Guy:“Alexandra”
Barb laughs.
pause
Guy: “I know it sounds radical, to ?? data from the server”.
Barb laughs.
Ralf talks, unintelligible, a metal object falls.
Nut is screwing down.

Continue reading →

Open Greens : marginal zones where culture and nature overlap and enter into a symbiotic relationship. The Kabinet : a collection of city gardens, abandoned agricultural and industrial spaces or miniature parcs on your balconies and window sills. Discover how you can expand your creative space by participating in an ecological network, studying the interactions between organisms and their environment.

[flashvideo filename=http://opengreens.archive.okno.be/wp-content/plugins/flash-video-player/OpenGreens_research.xml width=448 height=635 displayheight=248 overstretch=false thumbsinplaylist=true /]

Research on the ecology of urban habitats, guided by the observation of city honeybees.
The range of habitats in urban areas is surprising. Most of the major terrestrial habitat types are represented in towns and cities, either as remnants of previously rural environments, or as artificial analogues of semi-natural habitats.
The Open Green project focuses on two rooftopgardens located in Brussels’ city center on 400 m from one another : an edible forest rooftop garden on top of a parking lot and a wild flower rooftop garden on top of an old warehouse.
The Open Green project blends organic and technological matter into one and the same nature. Through analogue and digital means we do long term observations on the growth, blossoming and decay of plants and insects submitted to natural elements such as wind, sun, rain and pollution in an urban context.
We monitor and extract data from natural processes both on micro garden level as on macro city level and make these data in realtime available online via open wireless citynetworks.
Continue reading →

Plexiglass windclock, based on a Da Vinci anemometer model. The clock has a gradient range from black to white and a photosensor reads out the temporary values generated by the wind.
Location 1: grey)(area gallery in Korcula, Croatia – presentation of the windclocks-workshop of TIK/ time inventors’ kabinet.
Location 2: so-on’s OpenGreen rooftop, Brussels – measuring windtime and describing the OpenGreen.

[flashvideo filename=http://opengreens.archive.okno.be/wp-content/plugins/flash-video-player/textual-gardens.xml width=448 height=440 displayheight=248 overstretch=false thumbsinplaylist=true /]
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 …

Open Greens research on Korcula Island, Croatia. First we identified the most common species of wild edible plants in the area. Secondly we made an overview of the ones that are overlapping with the edible wild plants in Brussels and surroundings. Thirdly, we went in search for specific plant-linked stories, traditional knowledge and traditional heritage. Sani Sardelic of the local museum accompanied us on a private walk through the inlands, telling us about recipies of local wild plants, linked to the food served on the Last Supper of the Christ – an habit that is annually revived by some of the Korcula fraternities. Medicinal qualities of plants were discussed, and furtheron we visited a local beekeeper with 80 hives, Carnica bees and wonderful salvia/sauge honey.
On the island are lots of melliferous mediterrenean plants, as erica arborea (tree heath), erica lusitania (portuguese heath), wild mentha (mint), echium plantagineum (purple viper’s bugloss), salvia officinalis (sauge), rosmarinus officinalis (rosemary), thymus officinalis (common thyme) and more … Especially the hedera helix (ivy), subspecies poetarum Nyman (balkans) is fully blossoming these days and is an important provider of winterpollen for the bees.
For now, all this information is archived in our mental database, and we are spinning on some experimental setups to link clocks, wind and time with longterm monitoring of several Open Greens.

[flashvideo filename=https://so-on.annemariemaes.net/SO-ON/OpenGreen/macro/fly02.flv height=336 width=448 image=https://so-on.annemariemaes.net/SO-ON/OpenGreen/macro/macro-fly-.jpg /]
A fly in Kravin …

… TIK is a project, an interest into ecology and media art, a collaborative experiment with time … taking an ecological approach to observing patterns in time and time control systems … the creative tools we build to generate new audio and visual artworks … a ‘horloge a vent’, an imaginary time keeping device regulated by the irregular movement of the wind …

Build your own Wind Clock in our fresh air and connected Open Green testing grounds!

*Wind Clocks* or the Time Inventors
A new ecological time concept for enjoying creativity, brought by an international group of experimental artists, gardeners, engineers, bricoleurs, managers, organizers, documentarists, writers, musicians, but mostly new 21st century style inventors with non-conventional minds. United they bring you manuals and advice, experience and ideas, about how to make your own windclock and share your data over the networks for the benefit of everyone.

*Connected Open Greens* or the Kabinet
The Kabinet, which stands for all-weather-conditioned city gardens, abandoned agricultural and industrial spaces, or miniature parks on your balconies and window sills. Come and see how you can expand your creative space by participating in an artistic network and playground for letting your creativity run wild. Ecologies are interactions between organisms and their environment.

*Development Labs and Local Distributors*
Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Slovakia, etc…
Call us for distributors outside Europe!

Soon coming near to you:
Free conferences, publications, talks, workshops, performances, installations, new and subversive aesthetics.
Check the program and agenda at http://timeinventorskabinet.org/
Collect the logos and win a free Wind Clock or Foldable Open Green!

TIK launch days Brussels at Ateliers Claus
Rue Crickxstraat 10
1060 Brussels
wednesday 14, thursday 15, friday 16th of july 2010.
You can check the final program here.