This is an old revision of the document!


[note from maja: i know i've expanded this too much, so it needs re-compacting and probably renaming. i also wonder how much of it needs to be a part of the pitch, and whether we could just include a link to the descriptions of the worlds?]

As a way of structuring the publication, we organise its themes and content into several “worlds” that broadly represent our foci of interest and serve, loosely, as the book’s “chapters”. These might be:

  • On Reality Generation, where we talk about FoAM's experiments with immersive, responsive, transmedia environments, and our explorations of the edges between the digital and the physical worlds (e.g. The *t-series: http://fo.am/t-series/)
  • On Human-Plant Interaction, where we investigate the many possible relationships between plants and humans, including urban gardening, citizen science plant games, speculative experiments with human-plant communication and a reintroduction of seasonal rituals (e.g. http://fo.am/groworld/)
  • Affordable Mysticism is the small niche of all things meta and pata, the esoteric, mystical and spiritual dimensions that though often occulted, are like dark matter interspersed as background radiation behind everything we do.
  • Alternate Realities and Possible Futures, balancing on the edges of fiction and reality, futurology and fortunetelling, delving deep into FoAM's explorations of speculative culture, looking at what emerges when we dare ask “what if?” and prototype the answers as artistic experiments and daily rituals; here we also explore several perspectives on surviving and thriving in turbulent times, and ask what cultural resilience might be like, today and in the future (e.g. http://fo.am/future-fabulators/, http://fo.am/borrowed-scenery/, http://fo.am/resilients/)
  • Grow your own. Aside from being a well-known creed in the countercultural movement, Grow Your Own is a philosophy that we apply across different disciplines, through hands-on workshops and co-creation sessions. In the book we look back at the people, stories and methods we developed to encourage participatory learning and open knowledge sharing (e.g. http://fo.am/splinterfields/ and http://fo.am/xmedk/)
  • FoAM Food is one of the pillars of our transdisciplinary culture. In this chapter we reveal the secrets of FoAM's experimental kitchen and include recipes and menus from some of our most beloved meals (e.g. http://fo.am/open_sauces/ and http://fo.am/froth/)
  • Hosting Craft, where we talk about the foundation of a FoAM culture, based on hosting and nurturing its collaborators and participants, in intergenerational residencies and transiencies, coaching, mentoring and even matchmaking (e.g. http://fo.am/residencies/ and http://fo.am/services/)
  • Institutional Hacking, where we talk about the nuts and bolts of experimenting with an organisation as an artform, about FoAM as an extended clan blurring the boundaries between life and work, and discuss the many pros and cons that we experienced in the flesh during this process (e.g. http://lib.fo.am/future_of_the_lab, FoAM Manual)
  • f15/overview.1422869318.txt.gz
  • Last modified: 2015-02-02 09:28
  • by nik