Grow your own magic mushrooms
As part of the exhibition Mushroom Paradise, Mediamatic organizes a series of Grow Your Own Magic Mushrooms workshops, in which participants learn the art of growing mushrooms: from magic mushrooms to shiitake.
Schommelclub Party
On February 18 we celebrate the end of our Schommelclub at the Schommelclub Party: Push me tender. Two live bands, a veejay and deejay perform for romantics, lonely swingers or grabby pushers. You can also enjoy oysters and participate in a dating game.
Children celebrate the end of the Schommelclub during Children's Carnaval, including facial painting, cotton candy and music by deejay Barbapapa (OCCII).
Zembla at Over Datum Eetclub
On february 20 Zembla, a Dutch tv program, reports on our Over Datum Eetclub 21 to stress expiring dates and waste in the food industry. This was the last edition of the Over Datum Eetclub.. The evening is sold out: we prepared a meal out of products that were expired together with sixty people.
Social Media Marketing training
On March 2 Mediamatic organizes a Social Media Marketing training. The rise of social networks (Facebook, Twitter), self-publishing platforms (YouTube, Flickr, Tumblr) and other 'web 2.0' technologies (RSS, Wikipedia) have lead to a larger interaction between users and the web. Mediamatic helps employees of (cultural) institutions to become aware of how they can make the best use of their social media.
New Order
A new series of exhibitions New Order opens on February 24. The underlying idea of these exhibitions is that we live in a world where energy has become a fundamental principle of our society. In a post carbon world energy is no longer seen as just an electrical force. In the exhibition, energy is approached in different stages and forms: mineral, organic, cultural etc. The first solo show is Radiant Beach by Martti Kalliala. He investigates how nucleair waste can be used for leisure purposes. Fascinated by the warm afterglow of nucleair waste, Kalliala creates an artificial beach in the big exhibition space of Mediamatic.
Meet Your Energy Avatar, the second installation of the New Order exhibition is designed by architect Rory Hyde (AUS/NL) and artist Katja Novitskova (EE/NL). By answering some questions in the exhibition space, you can discover what animal matches your personal energy consumption.
The third exhibition in the New Order series is by graphic designers Femke Herregraven and Chris Lee, who developed the life-size, real-time board game Energy Battlefield. In this game, participants have to make political and economic decisions in a world that has an overload of energy. What will the future look like afterwards?
Mind Igloo is the fourth installation that opens in the New Order exhibition. The Mind Igloo by DUS Architecten recycles two hot air balloons into a sort of huge igloo. Breathing like a liveable long, this installation showcases adaptive architecture.
The fifth and last installation of the New Order exhibition is created by architect Liam Young from London. He researches a future scenario in which birds monitor the air. Once, mine workers worked together with chirping kanaries. A change in their singing warned for a dangerous gas leak. Birds are living in the Mediamatic Factory, functioning as an ecological warning system. They provide audible feedback on the state of the atmosphere.
Onion Party
The Netherlands face a surplus of onions. To prevent them from rotting or being thrown away, Mediamatic saved a quarter million onions from farmer Jo Flans (Texel). During the Onion Party from March 30 till April 1 people can get as many onions as they want, for free!
Aquaponics
From April 2012 onwards, Mediamatic starts experimenting with sustainable urban agriculture in the Mediamatic Factory. For whoever was interested, we organised weekly building sessions, in which the first aquaponics towers were build. In this way we will gain more and more knowledge about the aquaponics system and we can start teaching other people how to build them.
In the first aquaponics weekend on April 14 and 15 we build a small system and a bigger 4-bed system.
Mediamatic's Aquaponics High Density Edifice is exhibited during the Food & Architecture Fair on June 22, organised by Arcam at Architecture day. It is also part of the Premsela exhibition "De Etende Mens", in Designhuis Eindhoven.
In the Diesel Canteen of the exhibition De Etende Mens in Designhuis Eindhoven João Negro processes old frying oil into soap and biodiesel. The soap gets perfumed with herbs from the aquaponics farm. You wash your hands with it before cooking and eating and after you take a shit. The biodiesel is used to warm up the kitchen where we prepare snacks from our aquaponics fish and vegetables. The Diesel Canteen is an eatery that is about recycling in your neighborhood.
Ignite Amsterdam
Scientists, designers and artists get on stage during Ignite Amsterdam 17 in April 2012. From intimate subjects, illustrations and a new hacking space in Amsterdam to scientific research into a new generation of solar cells.
Visitors chat at Ignite Amsterdam 17 - This picture was made during a break at Ignite Amsterdam 17.
Freedom Dinner
Maarten Baas designed a tablecloth with 780.559 names on it for our Freedom Dinner. People could try to find their own name on the tablecloth that was 60 meters long, presented in the Mediamatic Factory. On mei 5 we celebrate our freedom to eat together and enjoy a performance by The Don't Touch My Croque-Monsieurs in the Mind Igloo.
WatSpinoza? in Turkey
WatSpinoza encourages public discussion by asking questions, based on the ideas of the Dutch philosopher Spinoza. The sixteen questions, translated into Turkish, are distributed around the university campus of Kocaeli in Turkey and in Amsterdam. You can respond to the questions online.
This year the subject for the international philosophy conference (May 21 - 23)) at the University of Spinoza is the Dutch philosopher Spinoza. During the conference, mayor van der Laan will give a speech about Spinoza's role in the social development of Amsterdam. WatSpinoza is a project of Mediamatic.
WatSpinoza? in Turkije - Posters van het WatSpinoza? project in Turkije. 21 - 23 mei, Kocaeli
