foam

Food, culture and the environment – the three pillars of this book – have an intricate relationship that extends back to the origin of humans as a social species. To survive, we eat; to eat, we feed the environment that feeds us – food is a product of the reciprocal connection to our ecological habitats.

This publication represents the distillation of one intensive year’s work on the Transient Reality Generators project, a distillation built of several angled slices through the events, projects and inspirations that made this project possible. From philosophical underpinnings to anthropological analysis, from recipes for good food through to abstracted ponderings of the fundamental structure of the universe, all these aspects and many more can be found here.

The review originated from a series of technically and artistically diverse workshops, organised by four independent technological arts initiatives in Brussels: FoAM, nadine, okno, and iMAL. The workshops responded to the need for a place where continuous learning and dialogue between peers is encouraged, with the objective of sharing of experience, skills and knowledge among diverse groups interested in emerging ideas, media and technologies.

Multimodal design can be applied in manifold interdisciplinary fields, from developing Web sites to planning dinner parties. This part of the book focuses on applying multimodal design within the context of “new” media education and practice, from the perspectives of both the design process and the users’ engagement with the works.

Mongrels spawn from the amalgamation of “things that are grown” with “things that are built,” resulting in “things that are built that grow things that are grown.” Growth underlies both biological life and economic progress, being a focus of many emerging sciences, technologies and art forms.

Open space events enable the participants themselves to shape the agenda, allowing everyone involved to present and discuss issues that are most important to them. There is no passive consumption of knowledge, only proactive participation, learning and sharing. Open space events may not be suitable for all workshops, but its principles can be applied in a broad range of situations, regardless of topic or teaching method.

Mixed Reality design at FoAM is motivated by the conviction that living spaces (including materials, clothing, built or grown artifacts, and architectures) should not be designed as static or predefined structures. Rather, we approach them as malleable, alive entities able to be influenced and shaped by the activities occurring within and around them.

This paper describes the situations that have given rise to the formation of FoAM, a cultural laboratory based in Brussels and Amsterdam, and looks at the issues around public perception and reflection on multidisciplinary projects. Since the challenges and successes of collaborative projects can be best illustrated through case studies, due to a lack of conclusive “how to” manuals, I will discuss TGarden, a research and production project for responsive environments in mixed reality.

luminous green in mediated environments

As a botanical parallel to the oft misunderstood field of HCI – Human Computer Interaction, HPI – Human Plant Interaction, explores the nature of surfaces and processes required to facilitate mutually beneficial interaction between humans and plants.

With the understanding that we are a part of an interconnected and interdependent planetary eco-system, contemporary human culture moves slowly from a culture of consumption and segregation to a culture of participation, integration and generation.

Grid independence, silent electrical energy generation without emissions, harmless low-DC power, mobility and new materials with new aesthetics are key characteristics of photovoltaic technologies. Together with new scientific tropes that are emerging in this highly vibrant multidisciplinary field, they have attracted a first generation of “early adapters” in the arts.

Anything living or growing – from spore, to fruit, to soil, to compost – experiences constant pressure to transform. Similarly, the will to improve our living conditions, extend our lives, or even create a piece of music, involves coercing certain changes in the environment. Technology currently meets this pressure through a pattern of obsolescence and incremental upgrades, guided by a logic of novelty and reinvention. In contrast to living systems, our technological growth rarely involves cyclical processes; new technologies don’t often feed on the detritus of the obsolete.

The process of globalization is causing a rapid decrease of diversity in the social, biological and cultural habitats, due to the dominant economic powers, such as proprietary communication technologies and transnational “life industries.” Physical public spaces, as arenas for a wide range of interaction and social change are losing their importance, as the global marketplace has shifted its locus from the accessible public markets to the dispersed and abstract global networks.

The GroWorld initiative originated in FoAM, a laboratory researching multidisciplinary models of cultural production, as a proposal for a research strategy, anchored in a one broad interest field: the Evolution and Interaction of Dynamic Systems.

Particle systems can be thought of as a general technique within the field of computer graphics for creating a wide range of effects. To illustrate the range of effects, this paper begins by quickly reviewing the existing research on particle systems in the field of computer graphics. It then discusses in more detail two particular areas of particle systems research: first a technique for sculpting surfaces, and second a work in progress for an interactive art installation. A common goal of both projects is to provide flexible tools to aid in personal expression. The focus is to move away from the analytical and point and click style of interface, and towards a more humanistic interface which re-embodies the user in the physical world.

In the past few years, the development of digital experiences increasingly stumbles across rigid paradigms used in industry and academia to describe the processes and products of digital art and design. The distinction between the “container” and the “contained” might in some cases be an obstacle for true interaction of different media.

The world behind the screen is suffocating under the burden of the interface. And the interface has nested itself on the surface of the screen, and appears to be paralysed in that position, not allowing the general user to discover the layers behind it. The interface must be violated. Scratched and cracked or pulled out of the screen into the physical space so that its borders become elastic and transparent, revealing the world behind.

T-Garden is a responsive environment where visitors can put on sound, dance with images and play with media together in a tangible way, constructing musical and visual worlds 'on the fly'. The performance dissolves the lines between performer and spectator by creating a social, computational and media architecture that allows the visitor-players to sculpt and shape the overall environment. All media (clothing, image, sound) in the T-Garden environment follow one central theme: transmutation. 

This paper focuses on the potential applications of hybrid reality in the cultural sphere, where media and technologies can be used for multisensory stimulation and interaction. We investigate the capacity of hybrid spaces to incite alternative states of consciousness, similar to what mystics, alchemists and shamans describe as a journey towards rapture (a state of overwhelming emotion).

grig container

FoAM’s work in responsive environments focuses on how human movement can influence and shape media environments. In a sense, we “recycle” the residual energy of a body’s motion into a resource for media generation and output. We’re particularly interested in participants’ untrained, habitual movements such as touching, caressing, grabbing, bending, walking, and jumping, and how responsive media might raise participants’ awareness of their effect on the surroundings.

Working on fashion with the potential to keep changing its appearance and behaviour years after it has been wrapped up and carried home by “end users” demands an algorithmic approach to clothing design. Garment makers will need to take into account a whole ecosystem in which their garments will be worn, and accept the fact that their responsibility stretches across and through the “four human skins” (biological skin, clothing, and indoor and outdoor “membranes”).