Margarita Osipian

Growing Mediamatic

Art, design and bioculture

Growing Mediamatic looks to new techniques for the responsible management of resource use, experimentation with new forms of energy, and the exploration of biotechnology and eco-culture. Our goal is to show sustainable projects that bring out new, innovative, and unconventional ideas through art, community and design.

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Samen werken aan een aquaponicssysteem - Tijdens de Aquaponics Workshop van 26 mei. We want to share our knowledge with you and enable you to build your own aquaponics system at home.

Met: Ellen Heijdra, Goos V., Joachim Bongers, Bas Husslage, João Evangelista, Jans Possel, Tanja den Broeder, berber van beek, Jules Marshall, Andrew Walker, Sander van der Woude, boudewijn overvliet

Mediamatic is growing, and we are moving from new media towards the direction of biotechnology, which is art and design with organisms. We will focus on redeveloping ourselves as a hyper-local open house for art, new technology and fresh stuff. In this growing stage there is much to discover and learn. We are experimenting with new ecosystems, bio-diesel and a whole lot of fungus. All of our knowledge is collected and shared in our blog, Growing Mediamatic.

Aquaponics

In light of understanding the city as a complex phenomenon, we are trying to react to the present situation of the urban environment. Mediamatic is experimenting with Aquaponics, a new method of urban farming where we are learning how to create a sustainable system to grow our own fish and vegetables. The first fish and vegetables are growing and a new triple decker aquaponics tower is currently being finished. We'll present this system at The Day of the Architecture and Premsela.

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High Density 4-storey Aquaponics Edifice - Shown here at Mediamatic Fabriek. At the Mediamatic FABRIEK. Simone Schoutens

Paddestoelen Paradijs

At Mediamatic Bank, the exhibition Paddestoelen Paradijs explores the world of mushrooms, fungus, and bacteria through art works, lectures, slime mold workshops and other events which investigate the potential use of mycelium, fungus, and mold. In collaboration with artists and designers we are also exploring the use of a mycelium based packaging and building material as an alternative to plastics.

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Mycelium-based packaging material - Made from seed husks and mycelium (fungi roots). Similar to foams (for instance Styrofoam), but eco-friendly and made of natural materials. Fungi are the new plastic! Govert de Jong

Inspiring Projects

This blog also extends beyond Mediamatic projects, to other projects which are inspiring us. One of these is the Aquaculture project by Open Sailing, which is an international community trying to develop sustainable projects, hardware and software to enable intelligent human activities at sea. In the realm of urban farming, Urban Buds is dedicated to the transformation of unused spaces in the city into spaces dedicated to the local growth of fruits and vegetables.

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Where are you gonna grow your vegetables? - What kind of vegetables would you like to grow on your neighborhood? Share it with your friends, and have a nice time moving your new suitcase. Image found on Gianata Gatto's website.

Fresh Ideas for the Future

Growing Mediamatic also functions as a platform to update fresh ideas related to living organisms, such as the Moss Table project where energy is created from the photosynthesis processes of moss. The blog also looks ahead in order to reflect on new possibilities of alternative potential energy like the Portable Harvesters’ project, which looks at alternative, decentralized, energy supply within an urban environment.

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Prototype Biophotovoltaic - Prototype Biophotovoltaic devices have recently been constructed and tested in the laboratory, but a great deal of research is required in order to develop BPV into a commercially viable technology. Low cost BPV devices may become competitive alternatives to conventional renewable technologies such as bio-fuels in the next 10 years. Image found on Designboom's website by Alex Driver and Carlos Peralta, together with scientist Paolo Bombelli, all of them from Cambridge University.

Please check out our blog and feel free to contribute in any way so that we can keep on growing.