thoughtsandtalks

During 1 of tipping point’s Open Space Sessions, Maarten Roels and myself propose the topic: urban agriculture and urban walking. In following document you can read an overview of the points we discussed in our group : points of interest, obstacles, food as basis for change, walking the city and solutions. Conclusion : What will YOU do (the coming 6 months) to tacle climate change?

Download group O’s pdf and add your own solutions.
some more suggestions: download here
DAAD : Do And Act Differently

Above a selection of the tipping point Open Space topics.
Under: the award-winning BEE HOUSE by James Ennis.

The Bee House is a micro habitat encouraging daily interaction to promote and help the survival of diverse insects that are essential to our food production cycles. The flower puppets are ornamental seed-totems, providing ornamentation for a flower bed while awaiting germination.
The bee house, the seeds and their flowers are certified organic and have been studied and selected by a group of entomology researchers from the university of Bologna. Info: positiveflow.net.

Summary of an interview I conducted with Vandana Shiva during the workshop and seminar ‘The Future of Food’ on the Navdanya-farm in Dehradun, India - early october 2008.

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You can view this info also on PADMA (public access digital media archive).
click here for the excerpt :Vandana Shiva on Diverse Women for Diversity
Press ‘P’ to start the video excerpt.
click here for the transcript of this section.

MMKamp is an international ‘artist residency’ project based on collaboration between non-profit organizations, artists, tactical media activists and ones who don’t know yet what they are and don’t care much. MMKamp concept is an art and new media laboratory, platform for researching, new media experimenting and developing new artistic and communication forms, through self-initiated collaboration among international artists and new media workers.

Everything in Multimedia camp (Multimedijalni kamp - MMKamp) is about freedom. Its about research how to become free through hacking, manipulating, communicating, living, networking, creating, developing… Sometimes its nice to research alone, sometimes you share your ideas, feelings and results with other. In a way, it is a lookout for anarchy, a pirate-ism in the best meaning of a term. Its about making friends, being brave and bald, funny and wacky.

http://mmkamp.gentlejunk.net/about/
http://mmkamp.gentlejunk.net/sudioniciparticipants/

At the left hand a snapshot of the so-on_hive, populated with Buckfast bees. At the right hand, a snapshot of the okno_hive, populated with European Black bees.

The Buckfast bee is popular among beekeepers and is available from bee breeders in several parts of the world. Most of their qualities are very favorable. They are extremely gentle. Their main drawback is that they are very liberal in their application of propolis to inner surfaces of their hives, thus acting to defeat one of the main purposes of the modern beehive — that combs should be easily removable for inspection.
The European dark bee can be distinguished from other subspecies by their stocky body, abundant thoracal and sparse abdominal hair which is brown, and overall dark coloration; in nigra, there is also heavy dark pigmentation of the wings. Overall, when viewed from a distance, they should appear blackish, or in mellifera, rich dark brown. For breeding pure dark bees according to the standard, details of the wing veins are nowadays considered to be the only reliable distinguishing character.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckfast_bee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_dark_bee

CONCEPT
The Bee Observatory project transforms 2 roof top gardens located in the center of Brussels at about half a kilometer
distance from each other into communicating vessels. The approach is to install hives in both of the gardens,with black honeybees (apis mellifera mellifera), a type endemic to Belgium.

It is expected that the bees will manage to bridge the spatial distance and to associate the locations by going about their business and natural processes within their individual yet overlapping territories. The presence and activities of the bee colonies makes the gardens interconnect and interfere. The emerging inter-space can be perceived as place of encounters and neighborhood.

Observing and monitoring the activities of the hives makes bee information directly available. A translation of this data into more symbolic signals can be accessed through online streaming and public moments.

THE PROJECT
In a first stage, the project idea suggests the transformation of 2 urban roof top gardens into interfering, communicating (synchroniced) entities by installing bees into both spaces. The two roof top gardens are located at about 400 metes of distance from each other at Koolmijnenkai 30 (OKNO) and Vlaamsesteenweg 60, respectively and offer convenient locations for beehives. The “technical” necessity of air channels for free entrance and exit flight trajectories and sunny location for at least parts of the day are met. The inter-visibility between the two places is given and hence emphasizes the “symmunicative” and encountering nature of the installation.

The distance between the locations can be metaphorically bridged by the bee’s presence and their natural activities. Since each colony will be active in a radius of at least a few kilometers from their housing hive, the respective trajectories, areas of floral visits and individual territories will be overlapping and an interference of the hives/gardens takes place. A new space of encounter, the mutual area of existence, can be defined, a new perception of neighborhood can be realized.

OBSERVATORY - DOCUMENTATION
Observing and monitoring the activities of the hives coupled with ongoing documentation of each individual hive as well as the interaction between the different colonies will be performed. Information can be obtained from bee hives through visually observing, by listening or smelling. Changes of the hives can be monitored in terms of weight, size or outside/inside temperature of the habitation/colony and via the honey amount or quality. This data has abundant information value, but can also be used and made available in a more indirect/symbolic way. A translation of the signals/data into something publicly accessible is intended. Direct “public moments” on the roof top gardens in the vicinity of the hives add an interactive facet.

Move for a Day is taking place during the Micronomics Festival in Brussels. Therefore some non-profit organiations, buisnesses and micro-initiatives will swap their work places with each other.

5 minutes movie made by Indymedia on the move1day-activities:

(click the image to link to the indymedia site).

More information can be downloaded on David Helbich’s blog.
A slideshow of the event we be presented at Micronomics festival.
More pictures about the Movie1Day-project:
http://thoughtsandtalks.so-on.be/photo-albums/, select move1day-album.

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Winter Camp is an event, organized by the Institute of Network Cultures and will take place 3-7 March ‘09 in Amsterdam. Network Cultures Winter Camp will be a mix of presentations and work spaces with an emphasis on getting things done. It will be a four-day program of work spaces and plenary presentations, in which a dozen networks can work on their specific current topics. (more…)

Politics of Change is a research project in which artists, theorists and activists reflect on innovative ideas, contributions and solutions which support distributed and grassroot structures. This reflection takes place through a program of free discussion and dialogue and is documented in a multimedia archive-installation.

The focus is on the role of women at the core of these communities.
Drawing on a wide range of artistic and theoretical approaches, the aim is to imagine new and sustainable relationships between humans, their environments and (appropriate) technologies.

(more…)