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--- foam_newsletter_winter_2013 [2013-12-12 11:07] – alkan
+++ foam_newsletter_winter_2013 [2013-12-12 13:04] – armormin
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 In our previous newsletter we celebrated the closure of [[http://lib.fo.am/resilients|Resilients]] and [[http://fo.am/parn|PARN]], two projects that put our work in speculative culture on the map. Since then the [[http://fo.am/parn-physical-and-alternate-reality-narratives/|PARN publication]] has been printed and distributed (if you'd like a copy email us at bxl@fo.am), and we're full swing into [[http://fo.am/future-fabulators/|Future Fabulators]], a European project that combines our work with alternate reality narratives and future preparedness and continues our fertile collaboration with [[http://timesup.org/|Time's Up]] in Linz. In Future Fabulators we're extending our research in speculative culture through scenario building, future preenactments, physical narratives and other forms that embody possible futures today. Since commencing the project in September, we've facilitated several scenario planning workshops, fine-tuning the method for different audiences. From a small team at the [[http://vooruit.be/|Vooruit]] to the partners of the European Consortium and a [[http://fo.am/human-invasive-interaction/|diverse group of experts working on exotic and invasive species]], we have applied our scenario building techniques in a wide range contexts. Although we're still tweaking and developing the methods as we go along, we're convinced that they have a lot of potential for communities and organisations in transition. We'll be designing a series of scenario workshops with the [[http://www.m-iti.org/|Madeira Institute of Technology]] in January, after which we'll take a couple of months off to research the philosophy, ethics, aesthetics and methodology of speculative culture. Keep your eyes on the [[http://libarynth.org/future_fabulators/index|Future Fabulators wiki]] to find out more as the project develops.
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 To (re)connect with audiences interested in futurology and other forms of speculative culture, we spoke about our work at the [[http://fo.am/improving-reality/|Improving Realities conference]] in Brighton. Amidst futurists like [[http://changeist.com/|Scott Smith]], [[http://justinpickard.net/|Justin Pickard]] and the people from [[http://www.arcfinity.org/|ARC]], [[http://libarynth.org/improving_realities|Maja's talk]] looked at using future preenactments and alternate realities as ways to guide us through the swarm of uncertain futures. Following this Nik and Maja headed off to the Brionian islands in Croatia for the [[http://fo.am/summit-practical-utopias/|Summit of Practical Utopias]], a four-day workshop where participants playfully designed and experimented with the seemingly paradoxical notion of creating a utopia that can be practical. We realised that FoAM might actually be an exercise of practical utopianism, balancing on the fine edges of the impractical.
 A few days afterwards, Maja and Nik welcomed the Australian artist [[http://www.sarahneville.com/about/|Sarah Neville]] and her five-month-old daughter Florence as [[http://fo.am/family-residency-sarah-neville/|family in residence]] at Castelletto Parenzana, FoAM's temporary residence in Istria, Croatia. The four of them spent an intensive week exploring the past, present and future of weather lore in a time of turbulent climate change. Our collaboration with Sarah will continue at our mobile studio in Adelaide, Australia during February 2014, and may involve Sarah's return to Europe to participate in one of Future Fabulators' events. Read more in [[http://lib.fo.am/research_report_parenzana|Sarah's research report]] and the [[http://lib.fo.am/parenzana_residency_notes|Parenzana residency notes]].
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 === Live coding and citizen science ===
-FoAM Kernow has been investigating the future of live coding, working on citizen science games and apps with a number of new collaborators. Highlights include: the release of [[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=foam.swarmhubapp|The Farm Crap App]] with Cornwall’s Duchy College, part of a scheme to highlight the value of organic fertilisers compared to costly and unsustainable synthetic ones, and [[http://nightjar.exeter.ac.uk/story/nest_game|Where Is that Nest?]] -- a citizen science game measuring egg pattern camouflage, developed in collaboration with the Sensory Ecology group at Exeter University. It is a followup to ‘Where is that Nightjar?’, which has been played over 10,000 times.
+FoAM Kernow has been investigating the future of live coding, working on citizen science games and apps with a number of new collaborators. Highlights include: the release of [[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=foam.swarmhubapp|The Farm Crap App]] with Cornwall’s Duchy College, part of a scheme to highlight the value of organic fertilisers compared to costly and unsustainable synthetic ones, and [[http://nightjar.exeter.ac.uk/story/nest_game|Where Is that Nest?]] -- a citizen science game measuring egg pattern camouflage, developed in collaboration with the Sensory Ecology group at Exeter University. It is a followup to [[http://www.pawfal.org/dave/blog/2013/08/where-is-that-nightjar/|Where is that Nightjar?]], which has been played over 10,000 times.
+<html><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/9714614709/" title="1 by _foam, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3682/9714614709_1020f46b7f_q.jpg" width="150" height="150" alt="1"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/9717846636/" title="2 by _foam, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3798/9717846636_b88d9ee833_q.jpg" width="150" height="150" alt="2"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/9717846518/" title="3 by _foam, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5341/9717846518_a8eb82d4b6_q.jpg" width="150" height="150" alt="3"></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/9717994346/" title="ss3 by _foam, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5333/9717994346_840ff07ee6_q.jpg" width="150" height="150" alt="ss3"></a></html>
 In September Dave Griffiths attended [[http://www.pawfal.org/dave/blog/2013/09/dagstuhl-collaboration-and-learning-through-live-coding/|Collaboration and learning through live coding]], a seminar in Schloss Dagstuhl that explored live coding with experts in the fields of education and software engineering, leading to some exciting new collaborations (watch this space). He has also co-authored a new publication featured in the //Ecology and Evolution Journal//: [[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.888/full|Smartphones in ecology and evolution: a guide for the app-rehensive]]. It includes discussions of the DORIS lobster mapper, [[http://fo.am/boskoi/|Boskoi]] and [[http://www.ushahidi.com/|Ushahidi]].
 And finally, [[https://www.codeclub.org.uk/|CodeClub]] at Troon Primary School broke up for the holidays last week by making lots of Christmas games. Next year we're moving on to Raspberry Pi thanks to a donation from a rather large internet company!
 === There and back again ===
 [[http://sphaerae.net|Sphaerae]] is a portable multidome performance space designed by Cocky Eek of FoAM Amsterdam. It recently travelled to Linz, where it was featured at this year's [[http://www.aec.at/totalrecall/en|Ars Electronica festival]], hosting a diverse program of performances and compositions. Subsequently, the inflatable was set up in the city hall of The Hague for the [[http://todaysart.nl/2013/|TodaysArt festival]], attracting huge crowds of Hagenezen (locals) intrigued by the strange large object emitting weird sounds. Future plans for Sphaerae include performances in South America and other continents, in association with [[http://www.synergeticalab.com/|Synergetica Lab]] and [[http://www.interfaculty.nl/|ArtScience Interfaculty]]. For more info see the [[http://li.fo.am/sphaerae/|Sphaerae blog]].
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 Meanwhile, Theun Karelse has been [[http://www.theunkarelse.net/text.html#baseLine|traversing the Iberian peninsula]] on a foldable bike for the second instalment of [[http://fo.am/splinterfields-default-1/|Default]], which is focusing on the Shifting Baseline syndrome. Some of the biotic samples taken from the expedition were transplanted to the Neringa peninsula in Lithuania during Theun's residency at the [[http://nidacolony.lt/|Nida Art Colony]], as a demonstration of [[http://fo.am/blog/2013/11/23/assisted-migration/|assisted migration]].
 Intercontinental exchanges involving FoAM Brussels focused this autumn on the [[http://euroaxaca.org/|Euroaxacan Initiative of Transformative Cultures]], in which European and Mexican artists spent two years working in urban and rural areas of Oaxaca, Mexico, as well as in Belgium, Sweden and the UK, combining traditional crafts with new technologies. The early beginnings of this project were seeded at a FoAM workshop in 2009, and this October the project 'came home' to Brussels for [[http://fo.am/eitc-wrapup/|Fiesta del EITC -- The Homecoming]], where we celebrated the project's closure. [[http://nadine.be/|nadine]] and FoAM hosted the event and the subsequent consortium meeting under the gentle co-ordinating hand of [[http://performingpictures.se/|Performing Pictures]] from Sweden. Designed and produced by [[http://apiary.be/|Christina Stadlbauer]], Loes Jacobs, [[http://www.bartaku.net/|Bart Vandeput]], Pacome Beru and others, it was an opportunity for widely dispersed collaborators to reunite and harvest insights and some of the more tangible results of project, such as Bart and Christina's agave-inspired artworks developed with the glass artist [[http://www.xaquixe.com/glass/christian-thornton.php|Christian Thornton]]. We saw old friends like [[http://dougald.co.uk/|Dougald Hine]], Geska and Robert Brecevic, as well as a few of the other project partners for the first time. Aside from the exhibition, which displayed several of the multidisciplinary artworks emerging from the project, the event featured presentations by participating artists and a screening of Dougald's movie //Memories of Development,// which featured him and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Esteva|Gustavo Esteva]] in conversation.
+<html><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/10577311165/" title="L1007363 by _foam, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3676/10577311165_dbe02ab206_z.jpg" width="640" height="449" alt="L1007363"></a></html>
 Leading up to the EITC closing event, two Mexican artists -- Daniela Porras and Luis Canseco, together with their child Dante -- spent a month at FoAM as [[http://fo.am/family-residency-porras-and-canseco/|family in residence]], working with elements of Oaxacan and European culture to create their playful pieces for the exhibition. Luis shared an old machete -- a family heirloom -- to create a piece of participatory 'action drawing', while Daniela hand-painted coasters as a memory game of things that surprised, delighted and puzzled her about her experiences in Belgium and Oaxaca. As they were departing with teary eyes, they made us promise to come to Oaxaca after the project ends, and maybe even set up a FoAM studio in their home…
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 We're delighted to let you know that the [[https://www.zotero.org/groups/foam_library/items|digital catalogue of our physical library]] is now online. Alkan has been cataloguing the publications and sorting them on the shelves, so it is now much easier to find what you're looking for in our humble but exciting collection of more than thousand books, magazines, grey literature and other ephemera informing and emerging from FoAM's activities. From 2014 we're planning to hold Open Library Days and Salons, giving not just our audiences but also ourselves a chance to enjoy reading and sharing our love of books and the written word. If you're interested to peruse the library, email us at bxl@fo.am for an appointment.
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 Soon after the library was catalogued, one of our families in residence used it in the most creative manner. [[http://fo.am/family-microresidency-declerck/|Lies Declerck and her two-year-old son Adriaan]] spent a week at FoAM cooking from recipes found in FoAM's food-related books. This was one of the most unique and generous residencies we have ever experienced. Lies experimented with the bleeding edge between work and life, art and housework and took care of FoAM and our guests for a week. In exchange we looked after Adi and involved both of them in the daily life of the lab.