Constant

Objects in Common: the publication

Wendy Van Wynsberghe — 2017-01-05T14:23:37Z

From October 2015 until December 2016 a worksession, an exhibition and lots more ran under the header of Objects in Common. The fablab and maker culture, conversion of digital objects to the physical realm, and the issues that come along (from geopolitical to licensing to infrastructure) were part of this research thread.

All of this was condensed into a publication.

You can freely download/print/distribute this booklet. Or you can get your own riso-printed physical copy sending an email to donatella@constantvzw.org [5 euro plus shipping costs].

View online : Objects in Common Publication

(New) Objects in Common: Peggy's @ Recyclart

Wendy Van Wynsberghe — 2016-11-24T14:47:21Z

On October 5th, the design collective LibreObjet published plans for a new piece of display furniture called Peggy for Fablab/Maker-Hacker-spaces. Often the lab/space is used for its infrastructure, but the objects and projects themselves stay transitory or invisible for other users. The Peggy display wants to highlight what's happening in the spaces.
A selection of Peggy's will be displayed full-size in the shop window of Recyclart.

- Objects in Common / Design, Exhibition

Peggy's @ Recyclart Opening

Wendy Van Wynsberghe — 2016-11-24T14:47:09Z

In the light of the versions of the display furniture (for fablabs/hackerspaces) called Peggy, we will have a talk about 'Objects in Common', Free/Libre/Open Design (with LibreObjet and Entropie). Also on the agenda: the deconstruction of Wally, an open source knitting machine.

Opening at 18:00
Talks at 19:00

Fab Tour - meeting Peggy

Femke Snelting — 2016-11-03T18:46:35Z

There are several fablabs/makerspaces/hackerspaces active in Brussels. Every lab is different with regards to its infrastructure, machines, resources and availability of materials. Some of these labs have made their own version of Peggy, a piece of display furniture. All Peggy's are based on the same plan, but take on different physical forms.

By bicycle, we will visit these workshops during their regular open Wednesday, to see how they function and what their version of Peggy looks like.

15:30 Meeting point: Fablab'ke @ Maison des Cultures, Molenbeek-Saint-Jean.
Next stops: iMal, Fablabbrussels and Microfactory.

Please email us of you want to join wendy attt constantvzw dottt org
(If you join later + 32 476 89 06 58)

View online : https://github.com/libreobjet/peggy...

One design - X versions of Peggy

Donatella — 2016-09-30T09:50:14Z

On the 5th of October the design collective LibreObjet publishes plans for a new piece of display furniture called Peggy for Fablab/Maker-Hacker-spaces. Take up the fabbing gauntlet and make your own version!

What is done in a fablab often stays invisible for fellow users, the infrastructure is used but the results go elsewhere. We want to show the potential of what is possible with digital fabrication in the lab itself, and this is what the display unit is made for.

Every lab is different with regards to its infrastructure, machines, resources and availability of materials. A display made in a fablab in Dakar will not be the same as one made in Brussels. This diversity is exciting and by entering the challenge you can help highlight the richness of the fabber-maker-hacker universe and celebrate the manifold possibilities of open source object design.

The files and derivatives are published under a CERN Open Hardware license and free to use, distribute and change under the same license.

Make your own version!

Download the file(s) here: http://www.libreobjet.org
Instructions are here.
Upload your images, changed design files and documentation to your favorite on-line platform and send a link to wendyattconstantvzw.org by December 5, 2016.
The most exciting variations will be displayed in the window of Constant, Brussels, from 8th of December until the 22nd of January.

Worksession

An — 2016-02-29T18:34:59Z

In collaboration with Medialab Prado Constant organises the worksession 'Objects in Common' as the final event in a series that started in 2015 with 'Funcionamientos: Objects in Common and Diverse Bodies' followed by 'Interactivos? Material Cultures in the digital age' and 'Grigri Pixel: makers and energy in African cities'.
The series 'Objetos Comunes' wants to explore "other ways of doing" such as design for functional diversity, situated digital manufacturing in for example African (…)

- Objects in Common / Design, Conditions of work, Collaborative, Intellectual property, Geometry of power , Fork friendly

Call for participants

Femke Snelting, Wendy Van Wynsberghe — 2016-02-01T12:17:33Z

When is an object 'common' and what does it mean to have it 'in common'?
Designing and making objects under Open Content licenses can produce, reproduce or block a myriad of possible relations. Your geopolitical situation, the resources you have available and your daily requirements change the connections that a 'common' object can generate. In this hands-on worksession we want to look at these aspects of creating digital and physical objects, in day to day practices.

About the Open Call

– There are 2 additional places available for this worksession. If you are interested in joining a team of interdisciplinary and international participants, please send a short motivation to wendy attt constantvzw.org by Friday February 19, 2016.
– The selection will be communicated by Tuesday 23 February 2016.
– The worksession starts on Monday 7th of March and ends on Saturday evening 12th March. The session is organised by Constant in collaboration with Medialab Prado and is hosted in Madrid, Spain.
– Participation is free. Constant and Medialab Prado will provide lodging and vegetarian lunch.
– There is a modest budget available to support your travelcosts.
– We'll primarily use Free, Libre and Open Source software because we would like to focus on tools that invite us to speak back to their social and technological construction.

The worksession is the final event in a series that started in 2015 with 'Funcionamientos: Objects in Common and Diverse Bodies' followed by 'Grigri Pixel: makers y energía en urbes africanas' and 'Interactivos? culturas materiales en la era digital'. The series 'Objetos Comunes' wants to explore "other ways of doing" such as design for functional diversity, situated digital manufacturing in for example African cities. It takes making ordinary/common objects as a point of departure.

For this thematic programme we have invited makers and thinkers to look at the potential but also at the problems of sharing practices, processes of manufacturing and the documentation of physical objects. Taking both the permission to reproduce and the availability of source files as a given, there are still many questions to ask about the actual common-ness of digital objects and their potential physical life.

If we consider the life-cycle of 'Libre objects', moving from digital files to physical presence and beyond, what networked practices do they make possible, and how do they create or hinder communities of use? How can 'Libre objects' provide bridges between diverse experiences, realities, geographies and bodies? Can we consider objects not as fixed endpoints, but as potential startingpoints, and generate sustainable practices that deal with the geo-political consequences of (re)production?

'Objects in common' is a meeting between all kinds of makers that work with and from specific physical spaces (fablabs, hackerspaces, ...), geographical locations (Belgium, Spain, France, Mali, Senegal, Togo, Morocco, ...) and methodologies. Each of these situations has consequences for the objects they produce and the communities they touch.

We will work around five areas that define material culture in the digital age and reflect on specific practices of commoning objects. Approaching the issues hands-on, participants are asked to reuse existing files, recipes and experiences in order to test out the specific characteristics of objects that function in the Libre ecology.

Mornings will be hands-on, working with files made by others, with existing materials and objects of choice. Afternoons will be dedicated to brainstorming and reflection on the different areas of work.

Invited experts will contribute with input for and comments on the prototypes in progress. The results are made available in a physical and digital repository that will be circulated internationally in hackerspaces and fablabs.

The worksession 'Objects in commons' rounds off the long running 'Objetos Comunes' programme. This session was initiated by Constant (Brussels, Belgium) in collaboration with Medialab Prado (Madrid, Spain). Developed in collaboration with Susana Moliner Delgado, Gri Gri and Afropixel.

Areas of work

– Repositories: sharing platforms, documentation (manuals, videos). Question the status of the platforms itself, and how it forms the object. Services vs selfhosting. Relations produced through/by specific platforms (licenses, terms of use ...); desired relations "” archipelago, p2p.

– Licenses: Is the current open content legal context enough? What about collective work? What about the transformation from digital to physical objects?

– Digital to physical: What is the influence of file-formats, vectors on material culture? What are its limitations, what transformations does it make possible?

– Resources: What relations do materials produce? How can we work with geopolitics, ecology, economy.

– Spaces: Fablabs, hackerspaces, makerspaces ... rules and regulations, barriers to access, ...

Interactivos? '15: Material Cultures in the Digital Age

Donatella — 2015-10-08T15:53:30Z

Interactivos? '15 is a collaborative prototyping workshop that will take place from 2 to 16 December 2015 in Madrid. Through this open call Interactivos? '15 will select 8 projects to be developed.

Interactivos? is a long term running concept: during two weeks you get inspirational & technical help to work on your projects, access to machines, focus on documentation, exposure. During the first few days there is a more theoretical framework - after that it's hands on.

This time the focus will be on "Objects in Common". "Objects in Common" are everyday objects, but they are also shared objects, objects that create a community and objects that are a confluence of many skill sets and practices. They are, therefore, objects that shape and transform our common experience. Based on the concept of the hacker culture and free culture that gave rise to projects such as Arduino and Reprap – both crucial to the understanding of the rapid expansion of digital manufacturing.

This activity is part of the Objects in Common project in collaboration with Medialab Prado in Madrid.

Workshop advisors: César García, Josian Llorente and Wendy Van Wynsberghe.

Deadline for submissions: 18 October 2015.

More information on:
http://medialab-prado.es/article/interactivos15-culturas-materiales-en-la-era-digital

View online : http://medialab-prado.es/article/in...

Objects in Common

Donatella — 2015-10-08T15:31:43Z

Objects in common was a series of different activities that ran from October 2015 to March 2016, related to current challenges of material culture in the digital age and developed in collaboration with Medialab Prado in Madrid.

Digital media channels have led to a rise in the distributed manufacture of customised objects. How is it possible to make the manufacture and design of these objects really accessible, beyond the mere publication of online plans and platforms? How does one respond to a larger scale production that is beyond the capacity of the initial community of origin? How is artisan culture able to converse with digital processes? How do we collectively create objects that are flexible in their use and are made by and for other bodies? And what about situated digital manufacturing in for example African cities?

Objects in Common made these and other questions related to current challenges of material culture in the digital age with different activities that ran from October 2015 to March 2016.
The worksession 'Objects in Common' was the final event in the series that started with 'Funcionamientos: Objects in Common and Diverse Bodies' followed by 'Interactivos? Material Cultures in the digital age' and 'Grigri Pixel: makers and energy in African cities'.
During the week of the 7th to 12th of March 2016, 25 makers and thinkers have looked at the potential but also at the problems of sharing practices, processes of manufacturing and the documentation of physical objects. Taking both the permission to reproduce and the availability of source files as a given, there are still many questions to ask about the actual common-ness of digital objects and their potential physical life.

The project was developed in collaboration with Medialab-Prado and curated by Susana Moliner and Constant member Wendy Van Wynsberghe.

Participants: Alberto Flores, An Mertens, Blanca Callén, Cesar García Saez, Danny Leen, Francisco Díaz, Francois Chasseur, Jil Theunissen, Julien Deswaef, Julien Leresteux, Kokou Elolo Amegayibo, Luc Hanneuse, Malcolm Bain, Mamadou Coulibaly, Marc Lambaerts, marthe van dessel, Mireia Juan, Modou Ngom, Paul Appert, Philippe Jadin, Sara San Gregorio, Veerle De Ridder, Wendy Van Wynsberghe, Wim Van Gool, Zineb El Fasiki.

Reports of the activities were bundled in the beautiful publication, 'Peggy, an object in common'. You can freely download/print/distribute this booklet: http://constantvzw.org/documents/oic/Peggy.publication.pdf
Or you can get your own riso-printed physical copy sending an email to donatella@constantvzw.org [5 euro plus shipping costs].

Pictures of the worksession: http://gallery3.constantvzw.org/index.php/Objetos-comunes

Recordings of the worksession: http://sound.constantvzw.org/Objects_in_common/

Notes related to the different themes of the worksession:
MONDAY 07/03
"” Spaces+ relations (fablabs, hackerspaces, makerspaces ..)
TUESDAY 08/03
"” Repositories, sharing platforms, documentation (manuals, videos).
WEDNESDAY 09/03
"” Resources, materials and relations (geopolitics, ecology, economy)
THURSDAY 10/03
"” Licenses and the relations they produce
FRIDAY 11/03
"” Digital to physical (fileformats, vectors, limitations, transformations)