October 2011 - September 2012

  • October

  • Digital lay-outing tools are path dependent in their way of mimicking the past processes of 600 years of moveable type (and maybe even beyond). Often practice proceeds without extensive critical reflection by practitioners themselves. Practice is spoken of in a ’living language’ that addresses (…)

  • Femke presents the Libre Graphics Research Unit, a traveling lab where new ideas for creative tools are developed. Its diverse activities range from the practical to the theoretical via writing, research meetings, experimental prototyping, conferences and workshops.
    The Research Unit is an (…)

  • At the invitation of Nuria Enguita Mayo, Nicolas Malevé, member of Constant and Rafaella Houlstan-Hasaerts participate in the Encuentro Internacional de Medellín (http://www.mde11.org/). Their proposal to animate the medialab is to organize interviews, drawing sessions and terrain observation (…)

  • For the next three years Constant runs a F/LOSS Arts Lab in the rue Gallait straat 80. This modularly conceived workspace and its makers cordially invite you to come and have a look at what they create, using free software only.
    Program: 15:00:door opens & welcome drink Guided tours: (…)

  • The Samedies will meet around the practices of installing from source (a.o. freeplane, fontmatrix, scribus....)
    Samedies is a collective of women using free software.
    The language spoken at Samedies is French. Please confirm your presence by sending a mail at samedies[atttt]collectifs.net.

  • Remix of the hits of the sound dictionary by Clémentine, Peter & An and some favourite automised sentences by Python, such as:
    Communauté pain juf keufs courgette khbizat zra3 nÇ hÇŽo prunes... Hayir atelier tesjekkur ederim daron rpg cake maison hippie pommes de terre? Raïf cage aux ours (…)

  • Femke participates in a roundtable: "Can technology be
    feminist?" which concludes the colloque "From Cyborgs to Facebook:
    Technological dreams and feminist critiques". The event is organised by the Belgian network for genderstudies, Sophia and investigates the latest developments in theory and (…)

  • November

  • Emma Hedditch is an artist from the UK who has been staying at the Constant Variable residency since early October. Emma makes performances and videos, and volunteers for Cinenova, a film and video distributor, based in London.
    Emma will present her early experience and experiments with (…)

  • Maria PtqK and Nicolas Malevé will present the GenderArtNet project - http://www.genderartnet.eu - in the seminar "Cuerpo Impropio, guia de modelos somapoliticos y de sus posibles usos desviados". During three days (2-4 of November) Beatriz Preciado and her interlocutors will try to respond to (…)

  • Sneak preview by Sarma & Constant
    Oral Site is a new open source software and website that Myriam Van Imschoot develops with a team of programmers, writers and sound specialists of Sarma, Constant and Rits. Oral Site enables users to publish online multimodal publications that merge sound, (…)

  • Tagging Matters explores the writerly work of tagging in relation to ideas behind the Semantic Web. Active Archives started on the principle of "we are no islands", looking for ways of linking on-line resources with respect for specific data practices. Open Data, Linked Data and Resource (…)

  • Tagging Matters explores the writerly work of tagging in relation to ideas behind the Semantic Web. Active Archives started on the principle of "we are no islands", looking for ways of linking on-line resources with respect for specific data practices. Open Data, Linked Data and Resource (…)

  • In the framework of the digitalisation project ’Archipel’ Constant developed the ’Active Archives Videowiki’ in collaboration with BAM. During the closure event of the Archipel project Michael Murtaugh and Femke Snelting will present their experiences.
    Archipel is based on the finding that a (…)

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  • Constant member An will give a lecture on the project La Langue Schaerbeekoise/De Schaarbeekse Taal for the students of the Master in Social Work/Cultural Studies, at UGent.

  • Ellentriek is all about audio in November. We will learn how to build small own amplifiers and microphones, during two long Wednesday afternoons. With a soldering iron, a couple of components, some creativity and a tons of good vibes we’ll happily tinker away!
    The workshops are free and (…)

  • The Samedies is a collective of women using free software, meeting up every six weeks on a Saturday. This session looks at how to make a Debian package. The language spoken at Samedies is French. Please confirm your presence by sending a mail at samedies[atttt]collectifs.net.

  • Jonctions/Verbindingen 13: Prototypes for transmission
    5 meetingdays around connection protocols, on-line networks and the Internet as public space. Prototypes for transmission looks at the protocols, rules and regulations that define the Internet. V/J13 wants to nourish and re-activate our (…)

  • December

  • Presentation of V/J12 e-publication in Constant Variable
    On the occasion of the Verbinding/Jonctions 13, Donatella Portoghese, Nicolas Malevé, Stephanie Villayphiou, Alex Leray and Gijs de Heij presented "By Data We Mean", an on-line edition of texts, images and reflections that followed from (…)

  • The first ever Research Meeting in the context of the Libre Graphics Research Unit was organised by Worm and themed Networked Graphics. 30 participants from across Europe gathered in Rotterdam for five days. We traversed "The extremes of Networked Graphics": From demo-scene classics to the (…)

  • This weekend will be an introduction into textile and electronics. We will
    look at the integration of sensors and soft buttons into sewn and knitted
    projects. We will include a small introduction to Arduino, with a set-up
    related to this kind of projects.
    It’s an open workshop, with free (…)

  • This weekend will be an introduction into textile and electronics. We will
    look at the integration of sensors and soft buttons into sewn and knitted
    projects. We will include a small introduction to Arduino, with a set-up
    related to this kind of projects.
    It’s an open workshop, with free (…)

  • An Mertens will present a statement on working with scores in the 7th Salon organised by Sarma & Workspace Brussels. Many performance artists work with scores or self-imposed constraints. Yet what do scores and constraints do precisely? How do they function and how do they effect the (…)

  • The ever evolving exhibition organized by Pttl is about to end. Ellentriek
    takes advantage of the festive atmosphere to present the Ellentrieken
    valies, a travel trunk full of tools and electronic goodies and
    microcontrollers. You can use the suitcase to start tinkering with
    interactive (…)

  • Constant will be closed from 24th December 2011 till 1st January 2012. Wishing everyone a warm ending of the year.

  • January 2012

  • Our best wishes for 2012 to everyone who reads this message, supports us, inspires us, works with us!
    Our wishes are enriched by the impressive wealth of knowledge, information and beauty that today, like every year on this day, becomes freely available to humankind. Every year on New Year’s (…)

  • The objective of the workshop is to propose a re-narration of the project "(...) Ciencia, territorio y narrativas subjetivas" and explore the scientific language from a feminist perspective.
    "(...) Ciencia, territorio y narrativas subjetivas" is a project by Lorenzo Sandoval supported by Can (…)

  • Ellentriek is a series of workshops, often collaborative, where artists can come and work together on their own artistic electronics projects, made with open hardware.
    This Ellentriek is about textile, electronics and wireless interaction. We will focus on soft sensors made with textile and on (…)

  • Digital Flux #2 is an exhibition organised by La Vènerie. The theme of the exhibition is the flow of digital data and how it infiltrates our daily life.
    Michel Cleempoel will present three projects among which the game Yoogle!
    The exhibition also presents works of Sylvain De Vreese and David (…)

  • An will present the work of !Co LAPse KoDe in 20 slides and 400 seconds.
    Please register beforehand if you would like to assist.

  • A workshop proposed by The Strickland Distribution, an artist-run group supporting the development of independent research in art-related and non-institutional practices. The workshop runs parallel to the yearly Computers, Privacy & Data Protection conference.
    Ongoing developments in IT (…)

  • ATTENTION: New Schedule:
    18:00
    Meet Screen Chat @ Rue Gallait
    20:00
    go to Nova:
    http://www.nova-cinema.org/spip.php?article9886
    The first informal ’Open Source Audio Visual’ meeting of 2012. An occasion to start the year with some fresh local input. During these meetings audio visual (…)

  • Constant is pleased to announce that the project «Yoogle!» has won the Winston Award at the occasion of the Big Brother Awards 2012 organised by La Ligue des droits de l’Homme and De Liga voor Mensenrechten.
    This award is given to a person or project defending the privacy rights of the (…)

  • OSP (Open Source Publishing) is a graphic design collective that uses only Free, Libre and Open Source Software. At the first OSP Public Meet you are invited to finally discover 9000 km of drawings, tools and stories. Interested in the libre? Curious about their practice? OSP studio welcomes you (…)

  • February

  • Constant is pleased to announce that the project «Yoogle!» has won the Winston Award at the occasion of the Big Brother Awards 2012 organised by La Ligue des droits de l’Homme and De Liga voor Mensenrechten.
    This award is given to a person or project defending the privacy rights of the (…)

  • Mélanie Godin invites the publishers Esperluète and the project of La Langue Schaerbeekoise to talk live about their work.
    Poésie à l’écoute is a live radio program on Radio Panik every Wednesday from 19h till 20h (105.4 fm or online streaming via www.radiopanik.org)

  • Radio broadcast on the sound dictionary with the crea-sounds of sound artist Daniel Martin-Borret and a conversation with Milady Renoir, writer, performer and inhabitant of Schaarbeek.

  • As part of the Artefact Festival in Stuk Leuven, organised around ’The Social Contract’, Constant will present Connection Protocols.
    Not only people but also bots, search engines and spiders abide laws and agreements. Whether we email, surf or chat ... rules and regulations are having an (…)

  • The women of Samedies will visit Constant’s project on Protocols for Transmission at Artefact in Leuven. Constant will host a special session for les Samediennes in the staircase of STUK.

  • The second ’Research meeting’ organised by the Libre Graphics Research Unit takes place in Brussels. LGRU is a collaboration between Medialab Prado (Madrid), Worm (Rotterdam), Piksel (Bergen) and Constant. Developers, designers and theoreticians from all over Europe will gather to imagine future (…)

  • During these meetings audio visual makers who are interested in Open Source, show what they are working on, exchange experiences. At these meetings we also plan future workshops, screenings, worksessions.
    The ’meet and screens’ are "Bar camp" style: there is no planning beforehand "” whoever (…)

  • An evening of performances in dialogue mode. With amongst others Alexandre Quessy (CA). Alexandre will perform Toonloop, a live stop motion animation software. It aims to show the creation process the the audience as well as the result of the creation. http://toonloop.com
    This evening is (…)

  • Are you working with children and multi-media? Toonloop is a tool to make animations on the fly. In this one day workshop you’ll be guided through possibilities offered by of the softwares. The main developer will be present so expect to be flashed with the latest features and benefit by having (…)

  • How can we re-imagine lay-out from scratch? What tools do we need to support decentralized collaboration? How can we bring together canvas editing, dynamic lay-outs, web-to-print and Print On Demand in more interesting ways? A conversation with designers and programmers about future Libre (…)

  • March

  • Radio broadcast on the sound dictionary discussing a collection of words from African origin.

  • It’s party time in a dozen neighborhoods in Brussels!
    Visit Brussels proposes a discovery week-end of neighborhoods that are usually not touched by the touristic flow. It is the people themselves, neighborhood committees, associations ... that will cook up for you a festive program.
    At this (…)

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  • During these meetings audio visual makers who are interested in Open Source, show what they are working on, exchange experiences. At these meetings we also plan future workshops, screenings, worksessions.
    The ’meet and screens’ are "Bar camp" style: there is no planning beforehand "” whoever (…)

  • April

  • In Schaarbeek you can hear heritage, litterally. Throughout the many languages that are spoken in this part of Brussels, one finds traces of various migration waves that have changed the neighbourhood. During this walk we look for stories and expressions of and about heroes of the past and the (…)

  • The project Expeditions to the Void, Science, Territory and subjective narratives, investigates the potential of subjective narratives created by a series of women artists who analyse, narrate and question the models of science and territory. The first phase of the project consisted in a (…)

  • Bodies are locations of political, cultural, scientific and technological negociations. They are objects of science and knowledge, they are flexible and vulnerable, but they are also sites of resistance and experimentation of possible futures and presents. A dialogue between Laurence Rassel and (…)

  • Radio broadcast with a selection of words of Brussels’ origin of the sound dictionary of La Langue Schaerbeekoise/De Schaarbeekse Taal.

  • (CC BY-NC 2.0) Some rights reserved, image by _kzr
    With an Arduino you can collect a lot of sensor data, from smelling gasses to measuring temperature or light and lots more. But how do you save these data? How do you actuate the outside world, transfer bits and bytes online, without using a (…)

  • May

  • The work at the Libre Graphics Research Unit (LGRU) is now almost halfway. Since June 2011, the Unit functions as a traveling lab where new ideas for creative tools are developed. LGRU is an initiative of four European media-labs actively engaged in Free/Libre and Open Source Software and Free (…)

  • The best part of May, Femke will be in residence at Medialab Prado (Madrid) to work on projects, presentations and texts in the context of the Libre Graphics Research Unit. She will report on her adventures at http://blogs.lgru.net/ft

  • On Saturday 12th May performer Delphine Auby returns to the heart of Schaerbeek to shout messages of the inhabitants at Cage aux Ours/Berenkuil. Ten days previously to the shout, she will deposit mailboxes on the square, inviting people to post their messages for the neighbourhood, as well as a (…)

  • Ten artists lead us to experience sound perceptions in the form of walks, discussions, experiments & workshops around the topic of Seeing Sound.
    Soundlab: auratory starts on May the 14th at Constant Variable.
    It’s the beginning of two weeks of lectures and walks:
    First week: 14th – 18th (…)

  • As part of the Open House event, Constant Variable will open its doors to the public from 17 to 19 May between 14 and 18h. This artistic laboratory behind the facade of a beautiful mansion in the street Gallait in Schaerbeek will surprise visitors with posters sibilants, rap’s experimental area (…)

  • Did it ever occur to you to wave at a surveillance camera? Or rather, at the person who is watching you at that moment in the control room? And how would it feel if that person would wave back and you would somehow be able to see or hear that?
    By using surveillance cameras and the free motion (…)

  • The Piet Zwart Institute Master in Media Design and Communication department launches its new publication with Mute publishing: Sniff, Scrape, Crawl"¦ on privacy, surveillance and our shadowy data-double. It includes contributions from: Birgit Bachler, Seda Guerses, Inge Hoonte, Men in Grey, (…)

  • What tools do you use in your artistic practice, where do they come from, how were they made? Are they digital or physical?
    Constant member Wendy Van Wynsberghe does a small intervention on this topic during Ladyfest Brussels. Afterwards, she will talk about why and how she uses F/Loss tools (…)

  • What would be a space that welcomes use and abuse, one that thrives on appropriation? How to make time and place for research, with life in the middle? What kind of interfaces could support collaborative work, and make different publics swap territories? Moving from the kitchen to the workshop (…)

  • June

  • The Piksel & Lines research seminar is the third international meeting in the context of LGRU. This edition is organised by Piksel and will have a particular focus on improvements, interoperability between and fringe use of F/LOSS graphic bitmap and vector softwares, as well as generative (…)

  • Radio broadcast in French with material from the performance by Delphine Auby at Cage aux Ours on Saturday 12th May, in the framework of the project of La Langue Schaerbeekoise/De Schaarbeekse Taal.
    Sound & Editing: Anthony Dupriez.
    Images of the day: (…)

  • For Documenta 13 Constantmembers Nicolas Malevé and Michael Murtaugh are developing a series of experiments in connection with the archive of Erkki Kurenniemi, the Finnish artist and technology pioneer of the 1960s. Over the years, Kurenniemi has obsessively documented his everyday activities, (…)

  • STARTING AT 15:00
    The last Samedies before summer is an occasion to get together and discuss past, current and future projects. On the table: Informal discussions, ad-hoc performances, improvised food and hands-on worksessions. Welcome!

  • Kdenlive is a complete open-source non lineair timeline edit software for Linux and OSX. This is the first of two meetings in which we will collectively discover the ins and outs of the software and how to make use of its strong points. Have a look at the software, (kdenlive.org) bring a (…)

  • July

  • Presentation of the LGRU project during the closing party of the Open Design Conference held in Barcelona, organized by the FAD. The conference brings together designers and thinkers who share an open practice of creativity.

  • Short Circuit / Short Process is the first edition of PiNG’s Summer Lab. Constant member Wendy Van Wynsberghe will host an atelier on salutations and greeting
    rituals. Make textile sensors that initiate new ways of greeting each other with Arduino, sound and conductive thread.
    This meeting is (…)

  • Kdenlive is a complete open-source non lineair timeline edit software for Linux and OSX. We will collectively discover the ins and outs of the software and how to make use of its strong points. Have a look at the software, (kdenlive.org) bring a project, preferably a machine and your curiosity (…)

  • September

  • For one month between April and June 2013 the Constant Variable residency studio will be open for artists who want to work on a F/LOSS-project. Constant Variable offers a free living & working space in exchange for a presentation of your work(-in-progress), bits and bites, artworks under (…)

  • During their residency in Variable, Ana Carvalho, Ginger Coons & Ricardo Lafuente, the editors of Libre Graphics Magazine, invite you to take part in the
    making of the upcoming issue.
    From 2pm to 6pm on Saturday, September 8, you can join them at Variable for a workshop with a focus on (…)

  • The Pure Data patching circles are free open workshops organized monthly to gather, share, learn and enjoy around the Pure Data software in a creative way. Aimed at artists and coders as well as a large public during specific events (performances and presentations), the patching circles in (…)

  • Please come & celebrate Variable’s first anniversary! Two more years of life ahead for the F/LOSS Arts Lab in the VGC building in Schaerbeek. And what better way to celebrate gathering around a barbecue to enjoy the last summer vibrations. Be welcome to spend an evening among friends (…)

  • For the past few months, Michael Murtaugh and Nicolas Malevé have been running a series of experiments with a subset of the archive of Erkki Kurenniemi, artists and technology pioneer who obsessively documented his everyday activities, collecting vast amounts of audio-visual-textual material to (…)

  • Constant member Wendy Van Wynsberghe was invited to organise a short workshop in the DSGNRMRKT in Genk. Come and learn the basics of textile and electronics, start with adding some light! For this workshop we will take an ingeniously simple design by Irene Posch and we will make our own summer (…)

  • Freedom not Fear is a yearly gathering of activists from different European countries. Subjects: Net neutrality, camera surveillance, smart meters, facial recognition, biometrics.
    The meeting is aiming to connect action groups, ngo’s, and everybody who is concerned with the ’arms race’ in (…)

  • In the context of the Libre Graphics Research Unit, Piksel is offering a collaborative research residency for one artist and one developer, to jointly explore the interoperability and expansion of functionality in self-produced and/or existing libre graphic tools, placed in a performative (…)

  • The next Research Meeting Abstracting Craft will take place in Rotterdam, The Netherlands from 26-29 September 2012. The program is being developed by WORM in collaboration with FLOSS-Manuals.