May 2014 - April 2015

  • May

  • In the Dutch speaking library of Saint-Gilles you can listen to a selection of words that were recorded in the neighborhood in the framework of the project Parlez-Vous Saint-Gillois ?
    With headphones you can listen to the stories of people who live in the neighborhood and the explenations of (…)

  • The studiobuilding VARIABLE opens its doors for an informal moment for everyone who would like to meet the artists, taste the work, see the studio-spaces. This Thursday there will be presentations by a.o. the actual residents of Variable: Marcell Mars, Sebastian Luetgert and Jan Gerber. (…)

  • Workshop - Blender Game Engine
    We’ll look at what is possible or not in the blender game engine and
    show a quick overview of both ways of working with it : with python
    scripting or with the logic block editor.
    Expect some awful projects and really silly game prototypes...
    Due to limited (…)

  • Radio Bosnia is a radio broadcast made with words recorded in the neighborhood Bosnie in Sint-Gilles, Brussels. On the menu this time: hybrid word of the month and a portrait of the free market at Place Bethlehem.
    Every thursday 11:00 on Radio Alma 101.9FM (Bxl) and on stream: www.radioalma.be (…)

  • In May, Constant hosts Marcell Mars, Sebastian Luetgert and Jan Gerber in Constant Variable. They are in Brussels to work on tools and infrastructures that facilitate free access to (digital) books.
    The Public Library is one of those vital institutions that we start to notice only once they go (…)

  • In 2013, Belgium universalist, pacifist and feminist Paul Otlet was recognized as ’a founding father of the Internet’. Simultaneously, Google adopted the remains of Otlet’s archive at the Mundaneum in Mons, not only home town of prime minister Elio Di Rupo but also conveniently located next to (…)

  • What is the biography of your server/service? What gender is your server/service? How does s/he deal with the law and how does the law deal with her/him? How do you take care of your server/service and how does s/he take care of you? Femke presents the Feminist Server Summit during the meeting (…)

  • June

  • This Thursday the studiobuilding VARIABLE opens its doors for the last LOOP! A Loop is an informal moment for everyone who would like to meet the artists, taste the work, see the studio-spaces.
    VARIABLE is a ’Free Libre Open Source Software (F/LOSS) Arts Lab’ till next month (the closing party (…)

  • Belgian Homeless Cup is a sports tournement for homeless people and asylum seekers. During this year’s edition, an all female football team will design new figurines on a kicker table. Homeless, non-idealised, non standard, women, men, trans, queer. By playing together, by producing new models (…)

  • Variable, the Free Libre Open Source Software Arts Lab in Schaerbeek, presents an exhibition in the foyer of De Kriekelaar from 12th June till 12th July. This exhibition is the closure of an adventure that started in 2011. A selection of projects developed in the house will be available to the (…)

  • Radio Bosnia is a radio broadcast made with words recorded in the neighborhood Bosnie in Sint-Gilles, Brussels. On the menu: hybrid words of the month and a portrait of a person or a place in the neighbourhood.
    Every Thursday 11:00 on Radio Alma 101.9FM (Bxl) and on stream: www.radioalma.be (…)

  • July

  • This workshop explores how we parse gender and gender representation when others are divorced from our bodies. The two hour workshop is structured around a kind of Turing test, in this case called the Strategies game. Groups take on the role of either the agent trying to ascertain gender, or the (…)

  • Radio Algolit is a performance presented by Nicolas Bourbaki. On the menu: creations with code and literature written, read and pronounced by humans and scripts working in intimate collaboration with other digital tools and platforms. The performance will be recorded and rebroadcasted though an (…)

  • (inscription closed)
    Relearn is a summerschool with as many teachers as it has participants. It is about sharing and trying Free Culture practices, and is entirely done with Free, Libre and Open Source software. Relearn takes place in Variable, a collectively run F/LOSS Arts Lab in Brussels. (…)

  • After three intense and beautiful years the F/LOSS Art Studio Variable will move out of the residence of VGC in Schaerbeek. To celebrate one last time we warmly invite you to join us for the Final Finissage!
    On the program are:
    * the finissage of the Free Libre Open Source Software Art (…)

  • Radio Bosnia is a radio broadcast made with words recorded in the neighborhood Bosnie in Sint-Gilles, Brussels. On the menu: hybrid words of the month and a conversation with special guest Anna Raimondo. Anna is an artist who is working in the neighborhood on her project "Play Babel".
    Every (…)

  • September

  • During the last edition of the meetingdays Verbindingen/Jonctions in December 2013 we invited the participants to collaborate with a team of ’dedicated notetakers’ to report live on the workshops and lectures using the collective platform Etherpad. They did an enormous amount of work.
    The (…)

  • This Thursday Constant will host the first Variable Loop after moving out from Variable in July! Variable Loop is an informal moment for everyone who would like to meet F/LOSS artists, taste their work or present own work, and engage in a discussion around it.
    Variable Loop was the name of a (…)

  • A workshop that takes as a starting point the archive of the Scandinavian Institute of Comparative Vandalism (SISV) initiated by Asger Jorn in 1961 with Peter Glob and Werner Jacobsen.
    Together with special guests Teresa Østergaard Pedersen (Aarhus University / Museum Jorn) and Matthew Fuller (…)

  • In the Dutch speaking library of Saint-Gilles you can listen to a selection of words that were recorded in the neighborhood in the framework of the project Parlez-Vous Saint-Gillois ?
    With headphones you can listen to the stories of people who live in the neighborhood and the explanations of (…)

  • GenderBlending is a six day worksession taking place from 17-22 November in Beursschouwburg, Brussels.
    GenderBlending calls body hackers, 3D theorists, game activists, queer designers, and software feminists around the table to challenge typical digital representations of the body, bending (…)

  • As a contribution to The Ministry of Hacking, a project developed by esc medienlabor in Graz, Constant presents a follow-up of the Feminist Server Summit. Around and after the event in December 2013, many other international meetings took place that challenged, continued and extended our (…)

  • October

  • The workshop "Open Sound Lab" has started again! This year, the activities will take place at the Cultural Centre Jacques Franck in Saint-Gilles.
    The workshops still focus on the training of young music lovers using sound generating softwares. This year there will be an additional focus, (…)

  • F/LAT will host the next Post-Variable-Loop (aka. LOOP) in their brand new space on Thursday 9th October 2014. Post-Variable-Loop is an informal moment for everyone who would like to meet F/LOSS artists, taste their work or present own work, and engage in a discussion around it. If you’d like (…)

  • Play Babel is a soundwalk by artist Anna Raimondo, through the neighborhood Bosnie in Saint-Gilles, Brussels. The walk is organised in the framework of the Constant project "Parlez-vous Saint-Gillois ?".
    The soundwalk Play Babel investigates the languages that are spoken by inhabitants of (…)

  • An exchange about words that cross borders, words that install themselves in a new linguistic and geographic environment. This dialogue table is organised by the Dutch speaking Library of Sint-Gillis and Constant, in collaboration with ’Brussels in dialogue’.
    Bring your favorite word and (…)

  • A few years ago the residents of Vooruitgangstraat/Rue du Progrès in Schaarbeek learnt some sobering news: some 30 homes would have to make way for the GEN (Regional Express Network), an expansion of the North station. This was the result of ongoing change to which the metropolis was subjected. (…)

  • In the framework of the yearly meeting day of the Pulse Transition network Culture, Femke Snelting and An Mertens will organise a workshop about ’Digital Commons’. Participants will discover processes of digitalisation and ways to remix work that belong to the global commons, through the works (…)

  • For the seminar Public Library. über Infrastrukturen der Wissensbildung (Public Library. About infrastructures of knowledge formation), Femke prepares a new episode of Fathers of the Internet, charting the overtures between an Internet giant, local governments and a historical archive.
    "In (…)

  • November

  • Workshop for tutors at BAU design college of Barcelona. With Gijs de Heij and Eric Schrijver (OSP).
    This workshop starts from our experience with using Free, Libre and Open Source software in our (graphic) design practice. We would like to share what this means for our own work, and more (…)

  • During this lecture in the framework of Barcelona’s Free Culture Forum, Constant member Femke Snelting introduces a book-in-the-making, an extensive collection of conversations between developers and designers involved in the wider ecosystem of Libre Graphics. Speaking to each other about tools (…)

  • We invite you to discover the project "Parlez-vous Saint-Gillois?" in music! For the first time the two musicians of Odessalavie will play in the wash center Bosnilav, Aurélie Charneux (clarinet) and Silvia Guerra (accordeon).
    Or how to play not too kasher klezmer music?

  • As part of this year’s Pink Screens Festival, Canadian editor, designer and researcher ginger coons explores in this workshop how we parse gender and gender representation when others are divorced from our bodies. This three hour workshop is structured around a kind of Turing test, in this case (…)

  • The design caravan Open Source Publishing will host the next Post-Variable-Loop (aka. LOOP) in their brand new space on Thursday 13th November 2014. LOOP is an informal moment for everyone who would like to meet F/LOSS artists, taste their work or present own work, and engage in a discussion (…)

  • A collection of games, video works, documents, objects and images that was compiled as a reference library for the GenderBlending worksession. Featuring the Diversity Kickertable, a modded kicker game that reflects on issues of representation.
    Come play 12:00-18:00, daily from 17 November to (…)

  • Gender Blending gathers body hackers, 3D theorists, game activists, queer designers and software feminists around the table to challenge typical digital representations of the body, bending the rules of both gender and software.
    Using 3D animation software Blender, medical bodyscanners and (…)

  • Some Birds Are More Like Fish is an evening of screenings, presentations and discussion around bodies beyond categories. From "speculative biologies" to parameters of detection, we’ll think together about representions of the human body and its crossroads with other species.
    The evening also (…)

  • Kick%Sync%Trans is an evening on de-normalizing/gendering sport hosted by Zeljko Blace. With presentations by artists Zeljko Blace and Lola Lasurt, and screening films by Tom Weller and Dylan Williams.
    Zeljko Blace is an artist and activist working with the tensions between norms in sport and (…)

  • December

  • Radio Bosnia is a radio broadcast made with words recorded in the neighborhood Bosnie in Sint-Gilles, Brussels.
    On Thursday 11:00 on Radio Alma 101.9FM (Bxl) and on stream: www.radioalma.be
    Rebroadcasted every fourth Thursday at 16:30 on Radio Panik 105.4 FM and on the stream: (…)

  • F/LAT will host the next LOOP on Thursday 18th December 2014. LOOP is an informal moment for everyone who would like to meet F/LOSS artists, taste their work or present own work, and engage in a discussion around it. If you’d like to present something, fill in a slot on the Variable wiki: (…)

  • January 2015

  • The Libre Graphics Meeting will take place 29 April – 2 May 2015 in Toronto, Canada. The event welcomes your contribution and is looking for in-depth presentations on Libre Graphics technologies, showcases of excellent work made using Libre Graphics tools and new ideas for future approaches, (…)

  • This is a warm invitation to celebrate. Yes, we have an extra reason to start 2015 with bubbles!
    During the last edition of the meetingdays Verbindingen/Jonctions in December 2013 we invited a team of ’dedicated notetakers’ to document the workshops and lectures using the collective platform (…)

  • What sound is produced by work ? The studio of a pianobuilder, the workplace of a metal worker, the tools used by the shoemaker, the salon of a hairdresser ... How does baking bread sound in the middle of the night ?
    In several shops and enterprises in Saint-Gilles, sound artist Vincent (…)

  • During a residency of two weeks in deBuren we organise a discovery voyage into the practise of cqrrelating data. Cqrrelation is a typo-enhance notion. You can pronounce it as crummylation, crappylation, queerylation... Cqrrelation refers to the shadow zones of statistics and computing.
    During (…)

  • The group of artists, geeks, hackers, programmers, researchers that will be part of the work session in deBuren, will present a first overview of their ideas.
    With a.o. presentations by Peter Westenberg, Nicolas Malevé, Kate Rich and a performance of two algorithms prepared by Adva Zakai & (…)

  • CPDP and Constant organise an evening program in deBuren around the shadow effects of Big Data. Researchers and experts Geoffrey Bowker, Solon Barocas and Antoinette Rouvroy will present us their latest ideas, and will comment on some of the local Brussels’ experiments developed and framed by a (…)

  • Data can be analysed, correlated and cqrrelated, discussed, visualised, and sonorised.
    During a live-coding concert Alexandra Cárdenas, a Colombian composer living in Berlin, will cqrrelate some of the data the artists in deBuren experimented with. Afterwards Belgian mathematician and musician (…)

  • Peter Westenberg is invited in the basement of La Quadrature du Net in Paris, where he is asked to SYMBOLICALLY scan his book of St Exupéry’s Petit Prince using their Open and DIY Bookscanner.
    It will be quite a particular scan session. Peter does not have the right to scan his book nor to (…)

  • Apart from turning thread or yarn into a piece of fabric by forming loops that are pulled through each other by hand with needles or by machine, to knit also means to become closely and firmly joined, to grow together, to combine from various elements.
    The first Constant V starts with a (…)

  • Apart from turning thread or yarn into a piece of fabric by forming loops that are pulled through each other by hand with needles or by machine, to knit also means to become closely and firmly joined, to grow together, to combine from various elements.
    The first Constant V starts with a (…)

  • In the 80’s and 90’s electronic domestic knitting machines were popular. These machines stopped being produced in 1996. Yet they are still being used with their 1980’s and 90’s technologies in contemporary textile design & schools, they are the best semi industrial way to prototype (…)

  • Dick Reckard, An Mertens, Brendan Howell and Catherine Lenoble will present some ideas developed during ’Cqrrelations’ (pronounce crummylations, querylations...), the latest Constant work session in Brussels. The work session was inspired by their work with Algolit, the Constant workgroup which (…)

  • Come find our hacked knitting machine at our Fosdem stand we share with Libre Graphics Magazine.

  • February

  • Renseignements et réservations : 02/519.55.96 ou serveduc@kbr.be

  • Fats Waller, Nicolas Tesla, Beatrix Potter and Sergei Rachmaninov are some of the many artists who have left this world during the second world war, in 1942. Their works entered the public domain on 1st january 2014 and are now widely available on the web.
    These authors will be reanimated in (…)

  • Radio Bosnia is a radio broadcast made with words recorded in the neighborhood Bosnie in Sint-Gilles, Brussels.
    On Thursday 11:00 on Radio Alma 101.9FM (Bxl) and on stream: www.radioalma.be
    Rebroadcasted every fourth Thursday at 16:30 on Radio Panik 105.4 FM and on the stream: (…)

  • March

  • Participate to a weekend dedicated to the subject of art and feminism, learn more about wikipedia editing and help promoting diversity among the online encyclopedia’s community and articles!
    A temporary library on art+feminism will be accessible, built by the participants who are invited to (…)

  • In March the window of Constant will host the installation of The Death of the Authors, 1943. This chatbot opera features Fats Waller, Nicolas Tesla, Beatrix Potter and Sergei Rachmaninov; four artists who died in 1943, and whose works entered the public domain on 1st January 2014. These (…)

  • Play Babel is a soundwalk by artist Anna Raimondo, through the neighborhood Bosnie in Saint-Gilles, Brussels. The walk was created in the framework of the Constant project "Parlez-vous Saint-Gillois ?" and three guided walks will be organised for Saint-Gilles Ville de Mots
    The soundwalk Play (…)

  • Kask, School of Arts in Gent, is organising a project week on the topic of Open Tools. Students from 9 different ateliers will collaborate. Constant member An Mertens is invited by the Media Art group to look into different ways in which algorithms and code can transform literary practises. With (…)

  • A special live broadcast of the radioshow Radio Bosnie, made with participants of the CPAS (Public Center for Social Welfare). The show is broadcasted from a mobile studio on Place Bethlehem, on the terrace of the greek restaurant Les Petits Os, Chausseé de Forest 110. Come listen to the (…)

  • April

  • The city counts less trees than humans. Maybe that is the reason why inhabitants cultivate such strong relationships with the trees that are there. During this walk storyteller and nature guide An Mertens invites you to meet some remarkable trees in the neighbourhood Bosnia in St-Gilles.
    You (…)

  • How do supports of writing - a book or a single piece of paper, pencils, typewriters or internet pages - work on our thoughts? How do ’chance supports’ (a train ticket, the back of an envelope, the margin of a book) challenge common ideas and practices of archiving, binding, displaying, (…)

  • «From Bosnia to the world and back» is a cartographic project by Rafaella Houlstan-Hasaerts, that situates the Bosnia "neighborhood" in Saint-Gilles in the middle of its worldwide network.
    The installation in the window of Constant (Constant V), from 23rd April till 4th June, connects the (…)

  • A walk along Spanish and Portuguese places in the neighborhood Bosnië in Sint-Gillis. We visit some cafés and shops en talk about past and future of the latin cultural heritage. The walk focusses on spoken language. Dialects, prononciations, hybrid use of language and cultural luggage express (…)

  • During The Libre Graphics Meeting (LGM), the annual meeting on free and open source software for graphics, a series of Constant friends will present their latest ideas during lightning talks, workshops and meetings. On the program are a.o.: Eric Schrijver, Stéphanie Vilayphiou, Loraine Furter, (…)

  • "I think that conversations are the best, biggest thing that free software has to offer its user"

  • Histories of the Feminist Server(s) is a contribution to Exquisite Corps, a colloborative piece for Lady Justice (’Reconsidering gender and technology in the age of the distributed network’), featured in the on-line publication New Criticals (’New criticism of all that exists’).
    Looking (…)