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A tanglebots workshop report

I've tried a lot of different ways of teaching children programming, starting a few years ago with primary school children in a classroom, then doing inset training days for teachers and finally private tutoring in homes. For the finale to the weavingcodes project we are trying a new approach, teaching families about code, robotics and thread by building "tanglebots".

Sonic Kayak open hacklab 1

This week we welcomed sound artist Kaffe Matthews and marine researcher Dr. Kirsty Kemp to FoAM Kernow to begin our exploration into Sonic Kayaks, as part of an open hacklab.The Sonic Kayak project has evolved from the Bicrophonic Research Institute (BRI), established by Kaffe Matthews and David Griffiths in 2014. Through ten years of international projects the BRI has developed the Sonic Bike whose music changes depending on where and how fast the cyclist goes, played through a pair of bike-mounted speakers and onboard GPS system. Our plan now is to evolve the Sonic Bikes to the coastal marinescape.

Artificially evolved camouflage

As the egglab camouflage experiment continues, here are some recent examples after 40 or so generations. If you want to take part in a newer experiment, we are currently seeing if a similar approach can evolving motion dazzle camouflage in Dazzle Bug. Each population of eggs is being evolved against a lot of background images, so it's interesting to see the different strategies in use - it seems like colour is one of the first things to match, often with some dazzle to break up the outline. Later as you can see in some of these examples, there is some quite accurate background matching happening.

Sonic Bikes to Sonic Kayaks - using puredata

When I first started working on the Sonic Bikes project with Kaffe Matthews in 2013 I had just moved to Cornwall, and I used the Penryn river for developing "The swamp that was" installation we made for Ghent. We've always talked about bringing this project here, but the various limitations of cycling (fast roads, stupid drivers and ridiculous hills) were always too much of a problem - so we wondered about sonic kayaks, as a distant vague idea. However now, thanks to help from the British Science Association, Feast Cornwall and the Port Eliot Festival they are fast becoming a reality!

FoAM digest - Winter 02016

As winter storms slowly begin their metamorphosis into spring blossoms around FoAM's European studios, we invite you to join us as we image the hybrids that could germinate between man-made systems and wilderness, weaving and programming, oceans and people, stillness and uncertainty.

Tanglebots workshop preparation

It's workshop time again at Foam Kernow. We're running a Sonic Kayak development open hacklab with Kaffe Matthews (more on this soon) and a series of tanglebots workshops which will be the finale to the weavingcodes project.Instead of using my cobbled together homemade interface board, we're using the pimoroni explorer hat (pro). This comes with some nice features, especially a built in breadboard but also 8 touch buttons, 4 LEDs and two motor drivers. The only downside is that it uses the same power source as the Pi for the motors, so you need to be a little careful as it can reset the Pi if the power draw is too great.

Braakliggen

Doing Nothing is FoAM's praktijkgericht onderzoek waar we tijd en ruimte scheppen om te zien wat er gebeurt als we onszelf toelaten om te stoppen en te kijken.

Recipe for Stillness (exhibition)

Several visitors to the Stillness exhibition asked us how we go about designing such a multisensory experience, so here's our 'recipe'...

Cornwall prototype #2

The 13th and 14th of November 2015 the first FieldRobotics workshop was held in Falmouth, in Cornwall in collaboration with FoAM Kernow. This post describes the design for a robotic hybrid creature by the group led by Judith van der Elst.

Cornwall prototype #1

The 13th and 14th of November 2015 the first FieldRobotics workshop was held in Falmouth, in Cornwall in collaboration with FoAM Kernow. This post describes the design for a robotic hybrid creature by the group led by Amber Griffiths.

Meandering to the Frontyard

Like peculiar migratory birds–ones that go backwards–Alex, Luka and I found ourselves at FoAM again this winter for the celebration of surviving 2015 and six years of being a little family.

How to warp a tablet loom (/neolithic digital computing device)

Tablet looms have some interesting properties. Firstly, they are very very old - our neolithic ancestors invented them. Secondly they are quite straightforward to make and weave but form an extremely complex structure that incorporates both weaving and braiding (and one I haven't managed to simulate correctly yet) - they are also the only form of weaving that has never been mechanised.

In Conversation with Stevie Wishart

Stevie Wishart was FoAM’s “composer in transience” at the Brussels studio for most of 2015. Her residency emerged as a natural consequence of a long involvement with FoAM spanning several years and numerous projects, including most recently Wheel & Time(less), Candlemas Concerto, FutureFest, Smoke & Vapour, and Inner Garden. When I had the opportunity to talk with her in the spring of 2015 she was deeply immersed in a large composition that would be performed by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in May. Our discussions therefore gravitated around the particular challenges and musical innovations she was imminently preoccupied with at the time – which made for some fascinating comparisons and contrasts between these and the very different contexts and approaches entailed in working on a musical project at FoAM.

FoAM Coaching Programme

A summary of FoAM’s coaching programme with Vali Lalioti.

Thriving in Uncertainty / Floreren in Onzekerheid

Two versions of the text "Thriving in Uncertainty" by Maja Kuzmanovic and Nik Gaffney have been published recently, one in English on Medium and another in Dutch published in Rekto:Verso. The article talks about FoAM's thoughts on work ethics, transitions, uncertainty and the importance of lying fallow. It was written in October 2015, in preparation for the "fallow year" at FoAM in Brussels.

Dancing and drawing

A report of my foam lab micro-residency, part of series of thought and drawing experiments that I call The Living Line The D&D micro-residency took place on December 2nd and was attended by Auriea, Rasa, Stevie, Nicholas, Maja (who also facilitated and took great notes.)

Red King: Host/Parasite co-evolution citizen science

A new project begins, on the subject of ecology and evolution of infectious disease. This one is a little different from a lot of Foam Kernow's citizen science projects in that the subject is theoretical research - and involves mathematical simulations of populations of co-evolving organisms, rather than the direct study of real ones in field sites etc.

Machine Wilderness Workshop

The Kernow and Amsterdam studios of FoAM hosted a collaborative 2 day workshop in Falmouth bringing together 25 participants from varied backgrounds for the first Machine Wilderness workshop to prototype jynnweythek godhviles (Cornish: mechanical wild animals). Here's a report on what happened:

FoAM digest - Autumn 02015

As the autumnal darkening beckons, it’s time to preserve the harvest and move into a more reflective phase in our European studios. We invite you to join us in reminiscing and help us imagine what could grow out of the connections between robotics and wilderness, weaving and programming, oceans and people, food and rituals, present and future.

Wild Food Foraging Thursday

In preparation for our Machine Wilderness workshop coming up in November, we spent a morning discovering edible plants around Penryn with Rachel Lambert from Wild Food Foraging. We’re hoping to cater for the workshop using foraged produce, but for now I’m enjoying eating the bits and bobs we collected, including linden, nettles, yew berries, sorrel, sea spinach and daydreaming of food.

PING @ FoAM

In the spring 2015 Charlotte Rautureau of PING in Nantes visited FoAM in Brussels alongside other "EPNs":  "Dans le cadre du travail de réflexion proposé par PiNG autour des croisements entre les dynamiques des tiers-lieux et celles des Espaces Publics Numériques (EPNs), je suis allée voir du côté du Nord les initiatives en place. Entre Bruxelles et Lille, guidée par mes contacts locaux, je suis allée à la rencontre de différents tiers-lieux, histoire de mieux décrypter cette notion à travers des exemples concrets et pourquoi pas d'y trouver des idées inspirantes pour le réseau Parcours Numériques."

FoAM @ FuckUp Night Brussels

Something happened in 2005 that made us radically change our approach to technology, experiments and interactive artworks...

Animation and Animism, a family residency

A residency investigating Japanese  animism and animation, folklore and mythology, the Shinto religion, the nature of kami spirits, festivals and rituals, contrasted with the technoscientific epistemology in the West.

Oratunga family residency

This artistic residency with my family at Oratunga sheep station in the Flinders Rangers is our third annual pilgrimage to places that speak to us about critical changes in the weather. Over three years with my husband Matthew and daughters Miranda 6 and Florence 2, we have had our ears to the ground following leads on emergent stories and sayings about the weather in times of climate change. As artists we record the stories of the community, respond to the environment and reflect on weather lore as it is evolving in these times and speculate about the stories of the future.

Mayday

Beltane ritueel met de Hosting Crafters... We lieten ons daarbij voorts inspireren door Beltane, een Keltisch ritueel dat de eerste tekenen van de lente aanspoort tot nog meer licht, nog meer warmte, nog meer (weder)geboorte.

Het verlangen te kunnen omdenken

Een brief aan het verlangen. Het verlangen te kunnen ‘omdenken’, zodat je terug kan samenvallen met jezelf, ondanks een maatschappelijke context waarin de afstand tussen ‘waar je graag wil voor staan’ en ‘waar je helaas moet in meedraaien’ soms onoverbrugbaar lijkt.

Dust Bunny's difficult decision

One day, Dust Bunny spirit was sitting around collecting dust piles, his own dust-like form hiding under an old chair, only his little green leaf hat visible atop his head, when he started smelling garlic coming from the owner of the house he was inhabiting, in his kitchen. This smell reminded Dust Bunny (or Dusty) of a time 70 years ago. (As time does not affect this particular spirit.

NightScience 2015

These are notes from the NightScience event in Paris, July 2015. This was a two day free and open event, held by the Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires, around the topic of equitable access to scientific research and education. FoAM were there to talk about our citizen science projects, but also to embed these projects within the framework of community work spaces and the open access movement.

Making science accessible – moving beyond open-access

Much of our work at FoAM Kernow occupies the interstices between science, arts, and education. We've been spending time lately thinking about what the biggest gaps and problems are that we face, and what we might be able to do to help. One issue keeps raising its head – the accessibility of research findings to broader society.

Fo[am]tones party

A sensual reminiscence of FoAM's 15th anniversary party.