Egglab

Egglab is an online computer game in which players search for hidden eggs against different backgrounds to help scientists make new discoveries concerning camouflage and its evolution. The game has been featured in The Economist, The Guardian and Popular Science and has been played by over 40,000 people.

Euroaxacan Initiative of Transformative Cultures

EITC investigates how to invigorate cultural economies by combining arts, crafts and technologies from the pre- and post-industrial eras, in community workshops of the township of Zegache Sta Ana in Oaxaca, Mexico.

f0amfr0th

f0amfr0th is a series of events organised by FoAM and whoever happens to be visiting the organisation. The events have an open format that can range from a theoretical talk to chill out rooms, from improvised networked performances to orchestrated bio-chemical experiments. Spontaneity, improvisation and informality are keywords that will grant access to this programme to the public and anyone interested in the process of working in the field of art and technology.

Family in Residence

A residency programme for families of creatives, exploring the edges between transgenerational living and working environments.

Family in Residence: Adam Nocek, Stacey Moran Nocek, Ivy and Fiona Hewett

Living at FoAM for nearly two weeks in June 2015, Stacey, Adam, Fiona and Ivy will explore Japanese animism. Taking the lead from Isabelle Stengers’ claim that words like “animism,” “magic,” and “belief” have been compromised by the rationalistic split between fact and fiction, their time at foam will be spent looking for ways to reclaim animism for the technological world.

Family in residence: Ali Crosby, Alex Davies & Luka

FoAM's first family in residence returns to be the last (for a while).

Family in residence: Hans Eelens, Raquel Santana de Morais and Coralina

Saving a family of architects from freezing in their house-in-progress in Molenbeek was the beginning of a mutually inspiring family residency in the autumn of 2015.

Family Microresidency Declerck

Lies (40) and Adriaan (2) Declerck are the hosts at FoAM in Brussels for one week, from the 21st to the 27th of August 2013. They will cook for FoAM-ers and for guests. They will use the FoAM library as their cookbook and source of recipes and inspirations. Throughout their residency they will ferment, knead and bake one sourdough bread and read one book cover to cover: Michael Pollan's Cooked. Connection is the primary focus of this residency: connection between ingredients, organisms, people and generations.

Family Residency Porras and Canseco

Along with little Dante, Daniela Porras and Luis Canseco are two visual artists based in Oaxaca, Mexico, where they also run an afternoon art school for children up to ten years old. An exhibition of Luis’s work is currently on show at the Musee de los Pintores Oaxaquenos. Both Daniela and Luis actively participated and exhibited at the Fiesta del Maiz y Maguey in Oaxaca in November 2012. As family in residence at FoAM Brussels as the EITC project draws to a close, they explore the cultural impact of the meeting of two continents – Europe and the Americas – nowhere more pronounced than in the contrast between the cities of Oaxaca and Brussels, despite the ongoing process of globalisation.

Family Residency Robaupair

In 2010 FoAM expanded its residency programme to include people of all ages. The first experiment was having a “Family in Residence” (FIR), welcoming Alex Davies, Alexandra Crosby and their young son Luka Davies for a three-month residency at FoAM in Brussels. The experience was extremely positive and we concluded that it is an experiment worth continuing. FoAM’s burgeoning intergenerational residency programme, combined with Alex and Ali’s experiment in parenting, has produced some interesting results.

Family Residency Sarah Neville & Florence

Sarah Neville and family are in residence at FoAM for 3 weeks in October 2013, firstly at Castello Parenzana near the legendary town of Motovun in Istria and amidst the urban landscape of Brussels. In company with her 5 month old daughter Florence and together with Maja Kuzmanovic and Nik Gaffney, Sarah is investigating ancient and contemporary myths formed from making meaning of natural disaster. Sarah’s husband Matthew and 4 year old daughter Miranda are contributing to the project remotely from home in the Adelaide Hills in Australia. Miranda is sharing her understanding of the natural world through creative storytelling and painting and Matthew is participating by responding to the concepts emerging at Castello Parenzana through an exploration of sound.Residency report: http://lib.fo.am/research_report_parenzana

Family Residency Simpsons

FoAM’s family-in-residence for the Resilients is the Simpsons (Mark, Lea, Scarlet and Delilah), living at FoAM Brussels for two weeks in June and July 2011. A resilient culture of the future might come to include children in the working lives of adults. For the duration of the residency, we look at how are FoAM’s daily activities influenced by the continuous presence of two little girls in the studio in Brussels.

Flotsam

An exploration into screen-less programming languages for teaching children programming, explaining the complexities of weaving, and livecoding performances. Recently featured on the Adafruit blog, Flotsam is a flexible prototype made out of driftwood for figuring out what this sort of programming could be, based on a Raspberry Pi.

Foodprints

We investigate how to create “resilient” cities that mimic nature’s ecosystems, where all the elements are interactive, responsive, engaging, conducive to life, abundant in feedback loops, and making best use of resources.

Future Fabulators

Imagine, experience and investigate living in a range of possible futures, designed as artistic experiments today.

Future Thinking for Social Living

Future Thinking for Social Living is a collaboration between researchers at Falmouth University and independent research organisation Foam Kernow and residents and staff at Miners Court extra care housing scheme in Redruth, Cornwall. Using crafts, storytelling and accessible technology, this project explores ideas about how our wellbeing might be improved by making - sometimes small - changes to the ways we live. We start the pilot by engaging in making activities, conversations and presentations in order to talk about and reimagine together what home is and what makes a home.

Germination X

What would happen if a game like Farmville was occupied by permaculture? Get to know our patabotanical “plant spirits”, as you discover a world organised by companion planting.

Greenspace Voxels

Visualising greenspace in cities in 3D using minecraft and physical models, using voxel data from full-waveform LiDAR.

groWorld Bazaar at Pixelache 2011

FoAM presented a groWorld Bazaar at the Pixelache festival, using the Aronia Melanocarpa (Chokeberry) as a common connection to bring together game designers, gardeners, electronics experimenters and urban foragers with a set of hands-on-workshops, discussions and experiments.

Guild for Reality Integrators and Generators (gRig)

gRig members research and create experimental situations in mixed reality, where digital media and physical materials, objects and spaces intertwine.

HapStar

HapStar automatically lays out genetic haplotype networks for optimal visualisation, and provides the option to calculate a Minimum Spanning Network from a list of alternative connections.

Hosting Craft

A series of practice-based tutorials about the facilitation and hosting techniques, guided by Maja Kuzmanovic of FoAM Brussels. The tutorials themselves use participatory learning techniques, collected over the years through FoAM's workshops, seminars and retreats.

Human in Residence

If you'd like to spend a bit of time working at the FoAM Kernow studio, whether it's a few hours or a month, then there is some space available.

Human in Residence: Jo Garrett

Jo Garrett joins us for a residency to focus on modifying the sonic kayak system to record underwater sound via the hydrophones, and possibly incorporating on-boat data analysis. Mapping underwater sound on a fine-scale has not yet been done, as the existing technology has been limiting - the hope is that the sonic kayaks will make this new form of environmental research possible.

Human in Residence: Jo McCallum

Jo was a human in residence at FoAM Kernow in 2016. She trained as an architect, has an NVQ in Constructed Textiles (Basketry), and worked in public engagement for the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London. Jo is now doing a PhD merging biomimicry, basketry and material computation, a project that she hopes will be of interest to artists, architects and transdiciplinary thinkers.

Human in Residence: Matt Creasey

Matt Creasey was a human in residence at FoAM Kernow in 2016. His work spans behavioural ecology, theatre, science communication and customised education.

Human in Residence: Shelly Knotts

Shelly Knotts is returning for a second residency under our Humans in Residence programme. Shelly will work on Molecular Soundscapes - a Leverhulme Trust artist-in-residence project bringing together computational chemistry, structural biology, scientific programming and sound art with the aim to generate an audiovisual installation and set of musical scores, that use computational chemistry data to generate content.

Humans in Residence: Holger Ballweg and Shelly Knotts

Holger and Shelly have been sharing their expertise in data sonification for the FoAM projects red king and helping to test and improve the sonic kayaks.

Institute for Augmented Ecology

IforAE investigates how contemporary technology is interconnecting to the biosphere.

Invisible Worlds Residencies 2018

Invisible Worlds Residencies are a collaboration between the Eden Project and FoAM. Three residencies were chosen to take place throughout 2018: Disintigrated Rock by Rosanna Martin, ...and then we see if we will be friends by Katharina Hauke and Till Bovermann, and Ferment! by Hoon Kim, Sean Meaden and Elizabeth Fortnum.