Constant

Constant_V : Vertical Stories

Peter Westenberg — 2025-07-17T09:28:52Z

Installation by Alexandre Mulongo Finkelstein and Livia Cahn
Opening: Thursday 28 August 2025, 18:00 - 21:00

To build upwards, takes a lot of digging down.
Brussels is partly built on sand (SiO2, silicon dioxide). This sand was probably deposited by a tropical sea or a delta. In the Middle Ages, sand was extracted from the subsurface of Saint-Gilles, near the rue du fort. The sand was used for construction works and to level the ground. The expansion of the city, put a stop to this extraction at the end of the 19th century.

Multi story buildings and even urban agriculture, embody the upwards pull of the city. The Brussels sprout was supposedly first cultivated in St-Gilles to grow vertically as the space for growing crops also diminished with the densification of the urban fabric. These are just two soil histories that depend on the underground to take root in this neighborhood.

Bringing sand into the vertical plane of the shop window is an invitation to ask questions about the history and the composition of the underlying underground that typically lies underfoot and out of sight. The speculative archival document in the window is mineral.

The presence of sand in the window also recalls one of the ongoing applications of the mineral extraction of sand in the production of glass. It highlights the omnipresence of geological materials in the urban context.

Alexandre Mulongo Finkelstein and Livia Cahn met in Lubumbashi (DRC) in 2023 around questions related to extraction. Alexandre is an artist and writer, currently in residency in Brussels. Livia is conducting research on the underground for a PhD in social sciences.

On Wednesday 17 September we organise an informal and speculative get together, a collective reflection on what the underground holds. We're calling on neighbors with stories, local historians, amateur archaeologist, geologists, and sand enthusiasts to attempt to read the mineral document in the vitrine.

Reading the EU AI Act together

Peter Westenberg — 2025-04-30T17:04:51Z

This session invites interested people to come together and read the EU AI Act collectively which was approved, after years of deliberation, in the summer of 2024.

It is worth looking at the AI Act as it shapes an imagination of AI and how it can and cannot be regulated. Companies and governments are now preparing for the enforcement and compliance of the act. The EU Commission is building its legislative infrastructure around it. The AI Act is a horizontal product law taking a risk-based approach to the application of AI in the EU single market. Companies are required to mitigate certain risks depending on the risk level. In parallel, technical standards for AI are currently being developed.

The session will be divided into two parts. The first part will set the scene. We will present the logic of the AI Act, its history, and building blocks to orientate the reading. The second part will be a collective reading and analysis of the legal text. We will read together and discuss our associations, confusions, questions, interpretations.

Questions that could guide the collective reading are:

What is the underlying objective of the EU AI Act?
How is AI defined? How can it be interpreted?
Who is included in the regulation? Who is left out?
How is risk defined? How are different actors understood?
What are the limits of the law? How do we reckon with some of the underlying tensions of the law?

We are open to adjusting the collective reading to the specific interests and motivations of the group. Please share with us beforehand if there is something that you would really like to cover in the session. Feedback, thoughts, responses will be deeply welcomed!

About the facilitator:
Gwendolin Barnard is a PhD researcher in Sociology at University of Graz. By mobilizing approaches from Critical Data Studies and Science and Technology Studies, they have been researching the establishment and current implementation of the EU AI Act. Their specific interest in the EU AI Act builds on their research looking at the impact of datafication on workers in the way labour is accessed, managed, and organized. They are interested in how the law opens or forecloses political possibilities to collectively express interests and needs – especially when it comes to the intense deployment of AI in workplaces and beyond. They are part of the research team at the US-based organisation ‘Our Data Bodies – Justice and Human rights' where they are currently working on a project identifying the policy vacuums that legitimated practices of managerial-led surveillance at U.S. Amazon Warehouses with the aim identifying routes forward.

Practical info

Participation: free

Language: English-spoken

Food: we'll provide for basic soup and snacks, so it would be great if you can bring some extra food to the shared.

Registration: please confirm your presence by sending an e-mail to: peter@constantvzw.org

Accessibility:
Constant Studio is wheelchair accessible: including the entrance, (but narrow 75 cm corridor door), toilet, main space, kitchen and garden.
You can find more info here
If you have any special needs please contact us.

Zine launch: A Cane, Sticky-notes, Another Body

Peter Westenberg — 2025-03-28T14:22:08Z

Constant is very happy to invite you to the launch of its yearly Zine!

In 2024 accessibility was central to our program. This Zine gives an impression of different perspectives and reflections on accessibility that were developed during our activities.

The Zine was compiled during a three day sprint by Constant's team, graphically guided by Sarah Garcin, and printed at Chez Rosi in Brussels.

You can have a look at the Zine in web format here or download and/or order a copy on Constant Calibre library.

During the event, we'll have live contributions by artists Kamo ( Francesco Luzzana ) and Gülce Padem, as well as a remote insert by Sarah Garcin*.

Join us for this festive launch. Snacks and drinks will be provided on this early evening hour.

*Bios
Francesco Luzzana (kamo, sumo, tofu, maya, and all the other aliases) develop custom pieces of software that address digital complexity, often with a visual and performative output. They like to work on collaborative projects as a way of facing contemporary issues from multiple perspectives.
(https://monoskop.org/Francesco_Luzzana)

Gülce Padem is a performance and sound artist.

Sarah Garcin is a graphic designer who develops, cooks, make radio shows and draws. She is interested in collaborative writing practices, knowledge sharing, pedagogy, alternative publishing systems, free software, wild gathering, multi-streaming and layering.
(https://sarahgarcin.com/)

ChezRosi is a Brussels-based risographic workspace initiated by the organisation Plus tôt te Laat.
(https://chezrosi.wordpress.com)

In collaboration with iMAL.

ACCESSIBILITY INFO
You can find them here: https://www.imal.org/en/visit
Persons with reduced mobility: The building does not provide ideal access to all floors. Please do not hesitate to contact iMAL for any specific request: info@imal.org

B * L * O * B study day

Peter Westenberg — 2025-02-27T12:38:34Z

Join us for a study day of the "Physarum polycephalum", a slime mold, or myxomycete, popularly known as the Blob, in the context of the yearly trajectory called Otherworldly communications.

Otherworldly communications is framed by researching interspecies cohabitation and communication which, we hope, will tell us about ways of relating to and engaging with technological regimes and apparatus different from those that are damaging worlds.

This study day is meant to critically engage with different conceptions of the 'other' (as in: other than human, otherworldly and otherings) and their myriad of entanglements as conditions for life. We have invited contributors committed to practices and theories which will help us thinking about/ with the blob through resistance/refusal, queerness, solidarity and opacity.

We have invited these contributors using one prompt: a small note written by the science-fiction author Octavia Butler on the blob. The contributors will respond to this note through their own practice, medium et sensitivities. The contributors have carte blanche but the day might be made of talks and exchanges, sound piece listening and/or a small workshop.

Participation + Reservation
Participation is free.
Reservation is required as places are limited; first come, first served.
Reserve by sending an email to: peter@constantvzw.org
The day will be from 10:00 till 17:00 with several breaks throughout the day
A small lunch will be provided but please don't hesitate to bring some of your own delicacies to fill the collective table.

Accessibility
Wheelchair accessible entrance + toilet + meeting space
Parking in the street is usually available, we can block a parking if let us know

Language
Main communication language is English
Whisper translation to French and Dutch can be organised on the spot.

Bio's
Helen Pritchard
Helen V. Pritchard is an artist-designer, geographer, activist and queer love theorist. Their work considers how computational infrastructures and digital media impact social and environmental practice. Helen works with participatory and creative practice methods for co-research, drawing on trans*feminist and queer approaches.
(https://criticalmedialab.ch/people/helen-pritchard/)

Luz de Amor
Works as a non-binary latinx artist currently living in Brussels, writing fiction and theorizing about feelings.
(https://issuu.com/xoxodelight)

Anne Laure Buisson
Feminist activist, statistician and data scientist, working on mobility and environmental data, finding information hidden in data, quality assessment, predictive analytics, descriptive analytics. Loves feminist queer Science-fiction and film. Anne Laure is a board member of Interface3, promoting women's access to IT.

Nathalie Clausse
Biologist by training and responsable for public events at SPARKOH, a science centre near Mons in Wallonia.
(https://sparkoh.be/)

Image: Bernard Spragg. Creative Commons Public Domain Mark.

Public presentation: A Cane, Sticky notes, Another Body

Peter Westenberg — 2024-10-31T09:35:38Z

This year Constant focused on the critical topic of accessibility and its many intersections in the physical and virtual spaces. During the worksession A Cane, Sticky notes, Another body, a group of 30 people from different backgrounds collaborated and experimented with playful ways to 'go online', while working with the beauty of dysfluency, the unusual routine, and going off-track. The worksession was held in Museum Dr Guislain in Gent from 2 to 7 December 2024.

In the afternoon of Saturday 7th of December we shared this research publicly through a spatial set up, a playing field that functioned as a way to make the digital physical and multi sensorial. What can, could or should be considered through thinking with an 'accessibility interface' ?

Open call Worksession: a Cane, Sticky notes, Another body

Peter Westenberg — 2024-07-03T10:32:42Z

This was an open call to participate to the worksession that took place in Museum Dr. Guislain in December 2024.

INDEX
▩ INTRODUCTION
✦ WORKSESSION
▇ WHAT ARE WE DOING THIS SESSION?
▲ WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT
◪ WHY MUSEUM DR. GUISLAIN
⫸ PRACTICAL INFO
Ⓐ ACCESSIBILITY
◉ HOW TO REACT TO THIS CALL

▩ INTRODUCTION
In the context of Constant's 1-year research on accessibility, titled "A cane, Sticky-notes, Another body", we are launching an early bird open call for a week of work on accessibility, at the intersection of art, activism, technology and research. This early call is going out before our program for the week is fully set, is open to anyone but will prioritise people with lived experience with disability, neurodivergence, or other mental and/or physical conditions.

People from any discipline are welcome to apply to participate to a week of working and thinking together with a focus on 'digital accessibilities'.

Among other things, we aim to work around voice recognition, audio interfaces and screen stimulation. Therefore, we consider for example, the point of view of vision impairment, neuro-diversity and hearing impairment as angles to share from and combine in this session. The title of the session is a reflection of incorporating ideas around physical tools, mental tools and how we live in relation to each other with our various human bodies.

If this speaks to you and you would like to participate, either with a proposal for a contribution to the program or just to join us thinking together around this topic, please contact us latest by 15th of August.

✦ WORKSESSION
Constant is an artistic organisation based in Brussels. We use artistic formats to critically engage with technology. A 'worksession' organised by Constant is a form of collective artistic residency. We bring together people with different backgrounds to do open-ended research. We invite people who want to rethink and experiment with concepts, phenomena, tools and infrastructures related to digital culture and digital life. As a collective of artists, designers and researchers concerned with and about technology, we wonder how digital tools can foster togetherness and inclusivity, how we can collectively share responsibilities and knowledge so that the digital works with us, not against us. We bring curiosity and solidarity and mutual support, making it a welcoming working environment for all who participate. Brainstorms are alternated with hands-on workshops or lectures and collective study moments. No pressure is placed on the creation of a finished product, but there is space to think together about ideas and prototypes for future development. An informal sharing moment open to the public takes place at the end of the week.

▇ WHAT ARE WE DOING THIS SESSION?
Together, we will look at experimental or playful ways to 'go online', while working with the beauty of dysfluency, the unusual routine, and going off-track. We don't believe in expertise, but we value exchange of experience. We aim to mix the digital and non digital. We do like art and weird stuff. We warmly invite you to bring something to share, something banal, extra-ordinary, something frustrating or intriguing, something appealing that could trigger the imagination or curiosity.

▲ WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT
During one week, you will be part of a group of about 30 people who are disabled and non-disabled.
We try things with electronics, we read together, study and exchange. Together we make proposals that stimulate the imagination, that question norms, that critically explore the sensory possibilities of digital means.
This work-session is 'experimental' in style: this means that we will try things out, which are allowed to fail. We do not aim for easy, universal solutions, but mainly want to engage in collective modes of finding out.
Oh, and Tuesday 3 December is International Day for Persons with Disabilities. We will spend that day together. 5 December is museum night, which is a special moment in Museum Dr. Guislain.

◪ WHY MUSEUM DR. GUISLAIN
We work at the Museum Dr. Guislain in Ghent. The museum develops a "contrarian, utopian, bold, creative and playful" vision of accessibility and mental well-being. (https://www.museumdrguislain.be/en/ourmission)
"Museum Dr Guislain is a welcoming place for young people, immediate or distant neighbours and dreamers. A visit is much more than a look at a medical collection or local history, but an unforgettable experience. In an ever-changing narrative, past and present intertwine and science and history connect effortlessly with the great and lesser-known arts. It pushes illusions and stereotypes about illness, health and the arts to the limit. Mental health is not the pursuit of specialised hospitals, not the work of psychologists and psychiatrists alone, but of artists and our entire culture."

⫸ PRACTICAL INFO
Where:
Museum Dr Guislain
Jozef Guislainstraat 43 b
Ghent
Belgium

When:
Monday 2 December - Saturday 7 December 2024

Conditions:
Travel costs, accommodation and lunches are covered.

Ⓐ ACCESSIBILITY

* The museum as well as the lodging venues are wheelchair accessible.
* A quiet, low-sensory room to rest will be available during the week. Movement, stimming, taking breaks etc. are welcome there, but no chatting or louder noises.
* Parking spaces are available in front of the museum and near the hostel.
* Gender neutral and wheelchair accessible bathrooms
* Guide and assistant dogs are welcome
* We provide masks, hand-gel and will air out the spaces regularly. We trust people to inform us and stay at home if they have contagious viral infections.

Please communicate your accessibility needs to us, and feel free to go in detail (for example: audio describers, sign language interpretation, childcare ... ) and we will let you know exactly what we can accommodate before you commit to participating in the worksession.

◉ HOW TO REACT TO THIS CALL
Last day to apply to this round: August 15.
Confirmations of this round: 15 September

Send an email to: info@constantvzw.org
Your email contains:

A short proposal and/or a short letter of motivation: why are you interested ? (maximum 1 A4)
Something about yourself, interests, challenges, life experience, CV, ... ?
What are your access needs?
Feel free to drift of from the above.

This worksession is organised by Constant, in collaboration with Museum Dr Guislain and Kaaitheater.

Constant Office

Peter Westenberg — 2023-12-04T10:41:33Z

Constant office is located in the Saint-Gilles | Sint-Gillis neighborhood, in the south-west area of Brussels, very close to the well-known Parvis | Voorplein square, bustling with life and cafés.

Constant occupied the ground floor of a typical Brussels mansion since 1997. It is small, but cosy, and it is where the daily life of the organisation takes place; where we take care of the administration, where we have internal brainstorms and meetings and where we organise occasional small public events.

The office space is shared with Le P'tit Ciné, an association for programming film, opening up documentaries to various audiences through festivals, screenings and other activities.

Our basement is partly used by Labobis, a group of independent film makers who use it as a lab for experimental film development.

Even if our office is mainly a working space, you can drop by to grab a flyer or to have a look at our library. We have a small collection of vintage science fiction books and we also publish our own books that you can purchase at very small democratic prices. Most of these publications are also freely accessible through our online library. If we have time, we will be happy to offer you a cup of coffee or tea and have a small chat.

Most of the time the window of Constant office is activated by an installation of an artist or a collective that you can look at or interact with from the street. These installations take place within the project Constant_V and usually are accompanied by a public moment, such as a an opening, an activation or a workshop (or all of them at the same time). You are very welcome to join us during these events. You can follow our activities through our monthly newsletter, so don't hesitate to subscribe.

Next to the office Constant has also a collective studio that we share with other artists and organisations and that we use for workshops and other wider activities.

Sharing Techno-Disobedient stories

Peter Westenberg — 2023-10-10T11:51:50Z

Constant invited its public to a moment of sharing and thinking together. We discussed practices that arose during the two collective research worksession of 2023 around Techno-disobedience

The Brussels based artists who joined, brought back a number of 'talking pieces' that helped us think of disobedience as a generative attitude allowing for more community driven, in solidarity, techno- imaginaries and realities.

Through recalling and sharing their stories, anecdotes of situations we went through, reflections on the experiments with reclaiming tech that took place, we tried to constitute relations to larger questions about agency, control and the intersections between technology, labour, care, anti-racism, queer life and trans*feminist techno-politics.

It was an afternoon of collective exchange of stories, images, objects in a convivial setting with snacks, drinks, and a relaxed company.

The worksessions were organised in collaboration with esc medien kunst labor.

Age of Dust activation

Peter Westenberg — 2023-10-03T16:19:28Z

In the framework of the installation in the window of Constant, The Age of Dust, we organised a sharing moment in which some of the tools and strategies that were developed during its inspirational workshop were re-activated. We felt, with some sensors, sound, proximity, wetness, flame, light .. and recalled their ritual functions.

At 18:30 we had a collective listening session.

In the installation the collective Hackers & Designers showed traces of the workshop which took place in Brussels on 15,16 and 17 September. During the workshop, the collective invited the participants to play out social and somatic dynamics to resist conventional narrative stereotypes and think beyond humans while experimenting with collaborative storytelling.

View online : https://constantvzw.org/site/Consta...

Techno-Disobedience: an afternoon of exchange

Peter Westenberg — 2023-05-22T10:21:34Z

A collective jamming jammers* session!

This afternoon we opened our doors to the public to give the opportunity to discuss, discover, enjoy exchanges with the group of participants at the worksession Techno-Disobedience, which took place during the previous week. In the garden of our studio, we informally shared stories, findings, experiments and delicious food. Everybody was welcome !

Techno-Disobedience looked at techniques of disobedience as a means to question and resist the paradigm of an all-controlling and regulating technology. If civil disobedience illustrated how one can and should disobey a law they consider unjust, technological disobedience was posed here as a question: what obligations do we feel are put forward by Big Tech and what it could mean to disagree, refuse, disobey them?

* A jamming device, existing or imaginary, is normally used to interfere with and disrupt communication systems such as mobile phones or GPS tracking, but we think of it as an analogy or metaphor for other type of disturbances, so a 'jammer' can also be a hand-tool, a body-movement, a text, a language, a building, a cloth, a verb, etc.

More info:
https://constantvzw.org/site/Open-call-Techno-disobedience-worksession.html