thoughtsandtalks

recipies by Various Artists

cours de jardinnage écologique aux Ateliers des Tanneurs
David (début des haricots) vous enseigne une fois par mois ce qu’il y a à faire au jardin en fonction des saisons, les légumes à cultiver, comment s’y prendre, trucs et astuces. Transmission de savoir-faire inspiré des enseignements de Gilbert Cardon (Fraternités Ouvrières asbl, Mouscron) et des techniques de permaculture.
Ouverts à toutes et tous, gratuit.
Lieu: 58, rue des Tanneurs - 1000 Bxl, dans les Marolles.

Un Belge qui ne râle pas, n’est pas un Belge. C’est bon pour la santé!
Who is Gilbert Cardon and what is the Fraternité Ouvrière? Click here!
Check out pictures of Gilbert’s permaculture garden in Mouscron. Click here.
Check out Gilbert’s permaculture advise for your garden in october/november. Click here.

Een workshop in 9 voordrachtreeksen van de Imkersbond Brussel. Alle facetten van het beheer van een bijenvolk worden uitgelegd, vanaf de zwerm over de koningin, haar eileg, het broed , de werksters en de mannelijke bijen -de darren-, tot terug naar de zwerm.
adres : CC De Meent, Gemeenveld 34 Alsemberg 1652.

17/10/09 : bestuiving in open lucht (Dr. Michel Asperges)
21/11/09 : de evolutie van de bijenkast (Aloys van den Akker)
19/12/09 : bijenrassen (Roland Vaes)
16/01/10 : bijenwas, een architecturaal verhaal (Roland Vaes)
20/02/10 : evolutie van varroa - inzicht in bijenziekten (Leo Van Malderen)
20/03/10 : imkeren het hele jaar door (Frans Daems)
17/04/10 : moerteelt en zwermcel (Gaston van de Vloet)
15/05/10 : koninginnebrij (Gaston van de Vloet)
19/06/10 : zwermen - kunstzwerm (Aloys van den Akker)

Download here the interview with Aloys van den Akker, lifelong beekeeper and organizer of the workshops.

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Timelapse movie of okno’s open_green during the connected domes workshop.

The idea is to detect bio feedback of plants from the okno open_green, send these data from the garden (over a radio frequency connection) into okno_inside, transform them into generative music and stream them over the okno_radio.
After a collective brainstorm, different parts of the project are setup and worked out by different people. At the end everything fits into one project.
We discussed possibilities to measure subtle activities of plants and create a human/plant interaction. We discovered that all plants in the open_green are showing a highly complex biodynamic response to their environment.
We conducted experiments to try and find out how plants react to wind, air pressure, touch, light, movement, sound etc.

1. sensors:
We were experimenting with different sensors on stems, flowers and leaves observing data and biodynamic responses. First we looked into measuring the bio resistance of the plants. We tried to build a galvanometer based on the Backster experiments.
Simultaneously we were working with stretch sensors: long thin pieces of stretch fabric were attached to the sunflower stems. When the flowers move in the wind, the fabric becomes more or less resistive and generates different data.
We worked with all kinds of conductive and natural materials used for measuring variable resistance: stretch fabric / conductive thread / graphite / metal wool / foil / wire / and the plants themselves.
We decided to work with 2 data types: the Slow Input where plants are growing and moving, changing absorbation of light and temperature (plant as actor); and the Fast Input: drumming, touching, knocking, talking, rubbing and pressing the plants (using plant as interface).

2. alternative powering:
We put small 4.5V solarpanels in serie to power arduino’s and sensors.

3. wireless connections:
The data are send via an internal radio network. We configured Xbee Radios with Xbee Shield via Serial connection (USB). Each Xbee is given an address/name/destination via AT commands. The arduinos are programmed to handle the data.

4. sonification and streaming:
The numbers we are getting in from the garden are becoming parameters and generators of our open_green sound. The data coming out of the 14 analog input streams are sonified via Supercollider create a nice ‘zen-sound’.

music from sunflowers
# Artist: Isjtar
# Title: Music for Sunflowers
# Length: 4:46 minutes (10.59 MB)
# Format: MP3 Stereo 44kHz 311Kbps (VBR)

Part 1 of the Connected Domes-workshops, the building of Geodesic Domes out of recycled materials, will be held at OKNO from august 10th till august 14th.
The workshop will be facilitated by Dirk Hendrickx, co-founder of the artist collective Maquette.
Part 2 of the Connected Domes-workshops will be led by the media artists Audrey Samson (Rotterdam) and Stefanie Wuschitz (Vienna) and takes place from august 17 till august 21st.

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During the month of august, so-on will organize for okno 2 workshops dealing with the topics of media ecology, mobile- and networked architecture.
Connected Domes #01 consists of building greenhouse geodesic domes out of recycled materials as there are: newspapers, scrap metal, twigs, bamboo …
Connected Domes #02 will populate the greenhouses with wild plants, sprouts shooting up out of homemade compost. The plants will act as a print, a mirror of the greenlife of so-on’s garden over the last year.

The plants will be powered and stuffed with sensors (touch, humidity, UV) and the 3 domes will be connected in a wireless network by arduino’s and xbees.
On the dome-structure recycled computer ventilators will be added to provide a gentle breeze to the leaves, as well as small solar panels and led lights to light up the domes at night.
A sonification of the gathered data via Maxmsp and PD will turn the connected domes into musical instruments.

Screenings at HUMlab, the Conference room
Annemie Maes and Goedele Verleysen

Starting with the screening of the movie ‘MAHILA’ (about the women solar engineers of Barefoot College India) followed by the screening of the film of Goedele Verleysen (on the role of the women in the political situation in Bolivia). A more detailed presentation on the projects will follow the screenings.

This will be followed by a more detailed presentation on the projects, and a discussion starting from a list of questions. These questions will be modified collectively, during the workshop. New list will serve as a starting point to do audio interviews with the participants, and will be added to a collective (open source) audio database.