blog

Midimutant update

How to run an AccessLab

A comprehensive description of the AccessLab format - a workshop to decentralise research skills and encourage open access publication of scientific research.

As the crows fly...

As part of our ongoing exploration of animist-inspired practices in the shadow of climate chaos, we'll spend a month in Japan to explore our strong resonances with its landscapes and (sub)cultures.

FoAM digest - Autumn 02018

Harden up, valuable advice from our arboreal neighbours for an autumn of increasing environmental and political turbulence. In this semi-seasonal digest, we take stock of the different ways we at FoAM respond to such turbulences, including economic experiments, citizen science games, artistic explorations and speculative forays into animist territories. If you're interested, there are various opportunities to get involved, from playing with the mechanisms of viral infection, to celebrating radical administration, or contributing to one of our upcoming publications.

Open call: Dust & Shadow Reader #2. On Attunement

If you are interested in contributing to the Dust & Shadow reader on attunement, please send your propositions, questions or suggestions to us by the end of 2018. Contributions can include short texts (max 500 words), drawings, monochrome photographs, quotes or relevant references.

Open call: /nightly build - the passage/ zine #12

nightly build is a tiny A7 sized photocopied zine that fits in the palm of your hand. This is an open call for contributions to the next issue themed the passage.

Open Studio at FoAM Kernow

FoAM's first network-wide Open Studio happened during our international meeting in September 2018, this year hosted by FoAM Kernow in Falmouth, Flushing and Penryn. It brought together people from the network and facilitated connections between the FoAM members, local organisations, professionals and friends.

Making circuit boards with a CNC machine

One of the strategies we've been exploring at FoAM Kernow is using our hardware projects to research different ways of building things. For example our approach of design assuming collapse (& brexit) has resulted in much higher awareness of our supply chains, and through this - potential dependance on manufacturing in places with less environmental and health regulation.

Visible and invisible autism

Autism is on the inside. It can be invisible. It can be present in another person without you noticing it. Nevertheless it is there, manifesting itself as a different understanding of one’s surroundings and perception of the world.

Penelopean robotics part 3 - radio transmissions

On the Penelope project, our plan was to develop technologies that could be useful in constructing a swarm of robots which could be livecoded by using the pattern matrix - a general purpose tangible programming system based on the Raspberry Pi. In order to make communication possible remotely, radio is the most obvious approach to get up and running quickly (other options that are intriguing are infra-red and audible sound).

Penelopean robotics part 2 - building a robot by weaving

Penelopean robotics are about rebuilding technology in the woven cosmos. You can read more about the theory in part 1, but roughly our aims are to:Embody Penelopean technological practice - they should be easily undone (taken apart) so they can be understandable, self documenting and repairable.They are not automated looms, but must eventually be capable of weaving in some form, maybe by interacting with ancient Greek weaving technology.Capable of embodying elements of ancient Greek poetry and dance, perhaps via livecoding.Be constructed in the spirit of Simone Giertz rather than Boston dynamics.

Environmental machine learning as artistic research practice.

Environmental machine learning as artistic research practice: how does such a mix of ecology, technology and art make sense in today’s world?an article by Michelle Geraerts, who took part in the Random Forests programme as part of her graduation in anthropology at University of Utrecht.

Reply to FoAM Kernow from Sam Gyimah MP, Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation.

Our letter to Sarah Newton MP for Truro and Falmouth was forwarded to Sam Gyimah MP, the Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation.

Machine Wilderness Residencies

The Amstelpark became the setting for a series of artist residencies exploring how technology can engage with wild systems and organisms. The artists developed new robotic projects for specific ecosystems or species in the park in Amsterdam.

An open letter to Sarah Newton MP

An open letter sent to Sarah Newton, Member of Parliament for Truro and Falmouth by FoAM Kernow.

AccessLab Penzance - notes from the event

In July we ran an AccessLab in Penzance (UK), for people who work in marine and fishing sectors. This event was the first of three AccessLabs for 2018, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and in partnership with the British Science Association (BSA). This blog post is to document the format changes made, feedback received, and notes for future iterations.

Penelopean robotics theory and the woven cosmos (part 1)

The Penelope project is concerned with many things, pattern structures in ancient poetry, comparisons of Andean and Greek mathematics, and the role of liveness in thought processes - to name just a few. We can also add robotics to this list.

Stackable hexagon prototype boards

We are working on a lot of hardware projects at the moment as we are interested in how to to rebuild technology from various alternative starting points. It seems most "off the shelf" hardware has converged on increasingly inaccessible and conservative forms, but luckily (and probably not due to entirely unrelated reasons) at the same time there has been an explosion in the availability, community documentation and potential of open hardware and DIY micro controllers, modules and components.

Viruscraft: tangible interface electronics

Next up, we needed to get a working prototype of our tangible interface running for the second Viruscraft workshop, so that we could have a complete system up and running from the custom hardware to the on-screen game world for people to test and give us feedback on how it worked.A recap on how this is supposed to work - we need to plug different types of ligand (protrusions on the outside of viruses that allow them to attach to cells in order to infect them) into a large wooden model virus capsid (the body of the virus) that we are building for use in exhibitions.

Building Viruscraft planets

This blog post is about the Viruscraft world, how we came up with the idea and populated it with host species. This is a screenshot of the current 'alpha version' of viruscraft we tested with the custom tangible interface (more on that soon) during the second game testing workshop. You can read Amber's report on this workshop here. It took a while to develop this planet, we started with a more conventional system.

Memoirs from James Duffy's Sonic Kayak Secondment

James Duffy joined FoAM Kernow for a 3 month secondment to develop the Sonic Kayak project. This is his blog post describing his time and his work with us.

Cloud Pergola

Cloud Pergola / Architecture of Hospitality at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale

An Ephemeral Garden

This post accompanies FoAM’s sound installation Ephemeral Garden presented at the Croatian pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018.

FoAM digest - Spring 02018

In this aperiodic newsletter we bring together current fragments from FoAM's various (and varied) outposts. Find out how we engage with our living environments and their multifarious inhabitants. Track us through arctic forests and botanic gardens, simulated courtrooms and repurposed armouries, in bright daylight and the darkest shadows. Read on to discover what we'll be up to in the coming months, and any possible confluences with your own journeys...

Viruscraft: Notes from workshop 2

In April, we held our second Viruscraft workshop to begin testing a game and tangible interface that we are making together with evolutionary biologist Dr. Ben Longdon. This post describes the development process to date, and the outcomes of the game testing workshop.

AccessLab 2018: The launch of a new workshop series

We are launching a series of three new AccessLab events for 2018 - for those working in the fishing and marine sectors, journalism and blogging, and parliamentary, council and policy roles. The AccessLab project aims to improve access to and the judgement of scientific evidence, through pairing scientific researchers with people who are seeking reliable information. Our focus is on developing skills for finding scientific information and judging its reliability, rather than just transferring subject-specific knowledge.

Dust and shadow. Fieldnotes #2

Thanksgiving. A convivial gathering around a long wooden table, laden with food and filled with laughter. The familiar cadences of a feast, yet one with unfamiliar origins. We were temporarily adopted into our collaborators’ lives and welcomed as returning family members. Kith and kin, ken or kin. Akin. Some rootless others uprooted, weathering the end-of-term academic storm. A temporary intensification of familiarity. Threads are picked up from conversations months old. Our relationships with members of FoAM’s distributed clan have begun to follow the rhythms of nomadic journeying. Deep and involved when we briefly occupy the same spatiotemporal dimension, loose and relaxed while we travel elsewhere. An irregular pulse of welcomes and farewells, of subsuming and letting go.

FoAM 02017, in a rearview mirror

In several FoAM studios we hold seasonal observances to celebrate yearly cycles. The beginning of February is one such feast. The inception of spring in the Northern hemisphere, autumn in the south. In some cultures this is considered auspicious time to review what has been done in the past year; to remember the achievements and let go of regrets, before moving into a new season. As if looking through a rearview mirror, or walking backwards into the future. To mark the occasion, we put together a collection of photographs in review of the last 12 months across the FoAM network.

Viruscraft hardware prototyping: etching PCBs

While we experiment with new fabrication techniques in order to shorten supply chains (with a philosophy of collapse in mind), electronics is problematic. Components can be salvaged and reclaimed but a particular problem is printed circuit board manufacture.Like many we have tended to outsource this work to China, where the costs allow us to do short-run prototyping with our tiny budgets. Are these lower costs simply due to scale and the Communist support of the Maker community there? Or more worryingly, is this due to reduced regulations in the areas of employment rights and environmental protection?

Midimutant in MagPi Magazine

Here's an article on midimutant we did with Aphex Twin for MagPi Magazine, written by Sean McManus. Most of the work on this project recently has revolved around exploring custom hardware using old FM synth chips from games consoles, but there should be more evolved DX7 sounds around here soon.