May 2017 - April 2018

  • March

  • "This is a book of translations - because translation permits dissemination - of certain selected texts which seem ti us to pose important questions, and which enable us to conceptualise our actions and our position in the future, in technology, in society, and in the network. Questions such as: (…)

  • ESPACE AUTOUR is an invitation for you to map out your personal perception of space. Those tangible spaces show the relationship to what is around you. The classic codes of communication are thrown overboard and make way for a nonverbal, physical encounter.
    Katrien shares her practice with (…)

  • May

  • Every year Constant commissions another designer or design collective using Free, Libre and Open Source tools, to work on the two-monthly flyers for Constant_V.
    In 2016, we invited Antoine Gelgon. He decided to use the flyers to develop and experiment with the typeface Ocr-PBI that he designed (…)

  • Possible Bodies interrogates corpo-realities and their orientation through parametric interfaces and looks at anatomies that are computationally constrained by the requirements of mesh-modeling.
    From 6 until 14 May, Femke Snelting and Jara Rocha gather a transdisciplinary group of researchers (…)

  • In the maker movement, information and sharing - primary library territory - are under scrutiny. During this session, (part of the CultuurConnect "Inspiratiedag: Focus op Makerspaces") you will get an introduction on the basic ideas and concepts behind creative commons, licenses, repositories (…)

  • Algolit explores neural networks to see how their process can be made legible, visible, understandable. We follow up on the Deep Learning and Natural Language Processing course from Stanford University, by Richard Socher (https://cs224d.stanford.edu/syllabus.html). Please make sure you watch the (…)

  • The Festival Mondial des Cinémas Sauvages (World Festival of Wild Cinema) is an open space and an open event traversed by contradictory currents. It aims to bring together films and practices that defy notions of property, authorship or copyright. Sometimes consciously through free licence; (…)

  • Every year on January 1, copyright expires on thousands of works that subsequently enter the public domain. In Belgium, copyright protection lasts 70 years after the death of the author and so in 2017, the works of authors who died in 1946 will be liberated. This year we welcome the creations of (…)

  • Let’s Build a Library Together invites designers, artists, theoreticians, hackers, librarians and activists to join forces during an intense week of discussion, collective prototyping and exchange on the future of Public Libraries in the digital age.
    Femke Snelting contributes to the workshop (…)

  • June

  • In 1945 the fifteen year old girl Anne Frank died in the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. Her diary would have entered the public domain on 1 January 2016, but the arrival of this event caused a lot of commotion. The Anne Frank Foundation, an organisation that was set up by Anne’s father, (…)

  • In a world where digital practices are omnipresent, everything is measurable, including the number of steps we make, the amount of water we drink daily or even one’s level of happiness. Self-quantification inhabits everyday practices. It becomes a game in which our body is envisioned as a set of (…)

  • Do you suffer from the disappearance of your software into the cloud, feel oppressed by unequal user privilege, or experience the torment of software-ransom of any sort? Bring your devices and interfaces to the World Trade Center! With the help of a clear and in-depth session, at the (…)

  • How to defend the access to knowledge in the current intellectual property regime? Interfacing the law is an attempt to experiment with and to openly discuss shadow libraries, piratical text collections and other forms of disobedient sharing. Interfacing each in their own way with legal and (…)

  • Masterclass with Adva Zakai (Thursday) and presentation (Saturday) on the BioVision Hierarchy file format.
    BioVision Hierarchy (.bvh) is an ASCII file format used to import data from various motion capture systems into 3D-animation software. It was developed in the mid-nineties and remains one (…)

  • Algolit explores neural networks to see how their process can be made legible, visible, understandable. We follow up on the Deep Learning and Natural Language Processing course from Stanford University, by Richard Socher (https://cs224d.stanford.edu/syllabus.html). Please make sure you watch the (…)

  • Masterclass with Adva Zakai (Thursday) and presentation (Saturday) on the BioVision Hierarchy file format.
    BioVision Hierarchy (.bvh) is an ASCII file format used to import data from various motion capture systems into 3D-animation software. It was developed in the mid-nineties and remains one (…)

  • July

  • In the frame of the installation QUANTIFY WHOLEHEARTEDLY in the window of Constant, Natacha Roussel and the Samedies organise a feminist workshop of design of environments of personal quantification tools.
    This workshop proposes a reflection on the measurement of bodies. This pervasive (…)

  • An Mertens and Sarah Garcin will take part in .ORG, a 5 days / 5 nights residency of a collective work time that has been proposed to 50 persons, with discussions, creations, writing, hybridations, making , destroying"¦ 1 open space of potentialities, 1 space-time, 1 isolated mountain place.
    50 (…)

  • This summer, the Possible Bodies inventory travels to Hangar (Barcelona) to mutate with local affinity networks and communities of concern. During a two-week residency, the collective research will focus on biomedical 3D imaging and how it models, scans and renders "real bodies". Possible Bodies (…)

  • THIS CALL IS CLOSED The participants to the Transmarcations session are: Arkadi Zaides, Jonathan Chaim Reus, Mia Melvaer, Jerome Giller, Elvira Korman, Rajwa Tohme, Femke Snelting, Pacôme Beru /Pierre Marchand, Gabi Sobliye, Pierre Tandille, Samuel Rivers-Moore, Anne Goldenberg, Benjamin de (…)

  • August

  • During the Summer Books with an Attitude, a series of Constant’s books, will be on display. You can also find an overview on the website: http://www.books.constantvzw.org/
    Books with an Attitude are published by Constant, made with 100% Free and Open Source Software and published under open (…)

  • This summer Relearn is travelling to Rotterdam. After the organisers collected track proposals in the previous weeks, they are now looking for participants to make this week of relearning happen (29/08 - 02/09).
    Relearn is a collective learning experiment with as many teachers as it has (…)

  • September

  • Gijs de Heij, Manetta Berends and An Mertens will propose a workshop on the notion of public domain when it comes to machine learning practises, in the framework of ’Summerschool #2 Making Public Domain’ in Middelheim Museum in Antwerp.
    Read more about the program on (…)

  • October

  • This seminar was the first activity of the European project Iterations (2017 - 2020). It was organised and hosted by Hangar in Barcelona.
    The objective of the seminar was to create a framework of common ethics for the project Iterations. For doing so we worked together with practitioners (…)

  • November

  • In the framework of the exhibition The Materiality of the Invisible, Femke has been invited together with Eyal Weizman to dig deeper into the topic of the relationship of objects – and their devised narratives – to the body and social, political, technological or cultural power-structures, a (…)

  • In the framework of Saison Numérique the Maison du Livre opens its space for Algolit during three days in a row. The group presents lectures, workshops and a small exhibition about the narrative perspective of machine learning models. These selflearning algorithms are based on algebra and (…)

  • In the framework of Algoliterary Encounters, we will be hosting two lectures on Friday 10 November. Generative Models and the Digital Humanities: Towards Synthetic Literature, by Mike Kestemont
    Mike Kestemont is assistant professor in the department of literature at the University of Antwerp (…)

  • In the framework of Algoliterary Encounters Nicolas Malevé proposes a workshop on computer vision. Language, words, writing, descriptions and formulations are intimately linked to the way the millions of images on the internet are organised. Over the years, algorithmic techniques have evolved (…)

  • ’A Sentiment Thermometer’ is one of the installations in the exhibition of Algoliterary Encounters. It will be the starting point for the workshop.
    It asks questions to commonly used language models based on machine learning, like GloVe and word2vec. Using part of the Internet as training (…)

  • RECLAIMING THE CITY
    Redelijk Eigenzinnig / Reason and Engage (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) is an interdisciplinary course for students and a series of lectures and activities open to all. The third edition of Redelijk Eigenzinnig / Reason and Engage (VUB) with the title: RECLAIMING THE CITY (…)

  • RECLAIMING THE CITY
    Redelijk Eigenzinnig / Reason and Engage (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) is an interdisciplinary course for students and a series of lectures and activities open to all. The third edition of Redelijk Eigenzinnig / Reason and Engage (VUB) with the title: RECLAIMING THE CITY (…)

  • RECLAIMING THE CITY
    Redelijk Eigenzinnig / Reason and Engage (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) is an interdisciplinary course for students and a series of lectures and activities open to all. The third edition of Redelijk Eigenzinnig / Reason and Engage (VUB) with the title: RECLAIMING THE CITY (…)

  • What norms are shaped through 3D technologies? Who invented those three "dimensions" in the first place and why to stick with them as "true"? Can tools produce realities and presences and if so: what possible bodies do they activate?
    With Phenomenal 3D. Possible Bodies turns to the modern (…)

  • With a Model for a Politician, Gijs de Heij researches the role of language and image profiles in politics and their ability to influence our judgement. Constant will host The Weekly Address in its window, a device that employs speech recognition and machine learning to analyse patterns in a (…)

  • December

  • This evening is organised in the framework of the Constant worksession Transmarcations that takes place simultaneously in De Beursschouwburg. Speakers A. Alexander Antonopoulos and Nishat Awan approach politics of locations and bodies, representations of biological, biographical and geographic (…)

  • Meeting point: Grand Hall

  • Constant_V is a series of installations that usually take place in the window of Constant, rue du Fort 5, in Saint-Gilles. Constant_V prefers showing work in progress, highlighting the conceptual, technical and collaborative processes part of creating an artwork. The installations are made with (…)

  • Constant_V is a series of installations that usually take place in the window of Constant, rue du Fort 5, in Saint-Gilles. Constant_V prefers showing work in progress, highlighting the conceptual, technical and collaborative processes part of creating an artwork. The installations are made with (…)

  • Constant_V is a series of installations that usually take place in the window of Constant, rue du Fort 5, in Saint-Gilles. Constant_V prefers showing work in progress, highlighting the conceptual, technical and collaborative processes part of creating an artwork. The installations are made with (…)

  • OLA is the TLA for the Parisian organisation Outils Libres Alternatifs (Alternative Free Tools). They will host a workshop with An Mertens on using Python code for literary creation.
    A line of code is like an action of a recipe. One prepares an ingredient, applies the aciton and the ingredient (…)

  • January 2018

  • From January to April 2018, Femke curates the research centre at a.pass, a programme for advanced performance and scenography studies in Brussels.
    As part of this, she proposes five Monday Readings + an additional Saturday that bring habitual tool-situations apparent in a.pass in conversation (…)

  • In the context of the series Close Encounters, Nicolas Malevé, Femke Snelting and a.pass researcher Pierre Rubio will discuss the long history of Active Archives. Active Archives started in 2006 as a Constant project concerned with the digital archiving and publishing practices of cultural (…)

  • February

  • From January to April 2018, Femke curates the research centre at a.pass, a programme for advanced performance and scenography studies in Brussels.
    As part of this, she proposes five Monday Readings + an additional Saturday that bring habitual tool-situations apparent in a.pass in conversation (…)

  • The first Algolit session of 2018 welcomes Nicolas Malevé, with the second part of a workshop he organised in the framework of the Algoliterary Encounters in November 2017 in Maison du Livre in Brussels.
    The morning from 10h till 12:30h will be open for participants who were not present at the (…)

  • In this workshop we write loveletters using the material from the archive developed for the installation: the weekly video addresses by Barack Obama, cut to precise clips of words and small sentences. We start with a quick exploration of the the software, algorithms and interfaces used to (…)

  • The lifecycles of different species are linked via electronic circuits with limited lifespan: accessories that measure biorhythms or monitor the growth-rate of specimens; interactive medical implants, networked pacemakers or wireless defibrillators are an everyday reality. As minerals, plants, (…)

  • From January to April 2018, Femke curates the research centre at a.pass, a programme for advanced performance and scenography studies in Brussels.
    As part of this, she proposes five Monday Readings + an additional Saturday that bring habitual tool-situations apparent in a.pass in conversation (…)

  • Algolit, the workgroup around FLOSS literature and code, will organise a meeting on datasets. Based on the Algoliterary Encounters of November 2017, we will present one or more algorithmic recipes to explore as an algoliterary writing exercise.
    There is no need for programming knowledge, but (…)

  • What does a feminism that has adapted to technological mediation, abstraction, the virtual, and complexity look like? And what are the new forms of occupying, segregating and contesting space that automation can facilitate? Femke participates in a debate organised by the Royal Academy, London in (…)

  • TRANS // BORDER takes the work of Nathalie Magnan as its point of departure and looks at the relevance of her work through the creations and research of a number of artists, scientists, (h)acktivists and students who are continuing to cultivate the territories she was exploring.
    As a (…)

  • Algolit, the workgroup around FLOSS literature and code, organises a meeting in Rotterdam around word embeddings. Word embeddings are an algorithmic method by which a machine learns language by looking at the contexts of words in large datasets. We will start the day by going step-by-step (…)

  • From January to April 2018, Femke curates the research centre at a.pass, a programme for advanced performance and scenography studies in Brussels.
    As part of this, she proposes five Monday Readings + an additional Saturday that bring habitual tool-situations apparent in a.pass in conversation (…)

  • Catherine Lenoble and An Mertens present Algolit and their activities during this study day at La Cambre.

  • MENSES ANTIDOTE, by Isabel Burr Raty, is a Totem, whose hybrid nature intertwines an invigorating melting genital substance with an "electronic DIY nervous system", programmed to manufacture a cure-tonic that Isabel drinks. In this installation the visitors are invited to interact with the Totem (…)

  • April

  • Every year Constant commissions another designer or design collective using Free, Libre and Open Source tools, to work on the two-monthly flyers for Constant_V.
    In 2017, we invited Ecran Papier, a Brussels-based design collective.
    For every new edition of Constant_V, Florence Grosse, Ophélie (…)

  • An Mertens will give a lecture and host a workshop at l’Ecole Supérieure d’Arts et Design de St Etienne on the use of the Python programming language for literary creation.
    A line of code is like an action of a recipe. One prepares an ingredient, applies the action and the ingredient will be (…)

  • Workshop Oulipo in EADSE, St Etienne, France

  • Algolit, the workgroup around FLOSS literature and code, will organise a meeting on word embeddings. A few Algolit members will present physical scores that we try to play out, in order to fully understand one of the techniques used in machine learning to turn text into numbers and make the (…)

  • An Mertens will speak about her experience with automated processes as part of literary creation, in the framework of the workshop ’Chatbots as a poetic tool’, organised by poet Maartje Smits in collaboration with Botsquad, Perdu and Hackers & Designers. The presentation is open for public.

  • From January to April 2018, Femke curates the research centre at a.pass, a programme for advanced performance and scenography studies in Brussels.
    As part of this, she proposes five Monday Readings + an additional Saturday that bring habitual tool-situations apparent in a.pass in conversation (…)

  • Trasformatorio was a temporary laboratory that took place in Sicily between April 20th to May 1st, 2018. It was organised by Dyne.org in collaboration with the town Giampilieri in Italy.
    Trasformatorio was the first residency in the framework of the Iterations project, a collaboration between (…)

  • With an on-line presentation, Femke contributes to What is the archive?, a yearly laboratory organized by Arquivo Municipal de Lisboa, Videoteca. This three day meeting proposes to examine the current destabilization of the concept and practices of Archive namely due to deep technological (…)

  • bolwerK, combines in the project Crystelling parascientific history, anthropology, and technology to familiarize ourselves to the electromagnetic spectrum and to how radio and farming metaphors intertwine.
    Marthe van Dessel and some other artists from the bolwerK galaxy will run an open lab in (…)

  • The Menses Antidote electronic totem had its opening on the 31st of March at Constant and its running an ongoing exhibition for one moon cycle - from full moon to full moon - until the 30th of April 2018. You are welcome to pass by any time, as it stands looking into the street passers, and you (…)

  • Warp and weft are terms for the two basic components used in weaving to turn thread or yarn into fabric. Inspired by Constant’s rich history of events and their diverse on-line manifestations, Constant is reweaving its on-line presence.
    As a way to narrate in-between concerns, projects, events (…)