This year starts very special: Today a delegation from Platform4 is in Copenhagen, where we are one of 4 nominees for the new ArtBeat Award initiated this year by Have Kommunikation. The other nominees are Spotify, the "Kulturen På News" program on TV2 News - and finally "Ananassen". Wish us luck!
As a pleasant surprise Platform4 starts the new year with a nomination for the ArtBeat Award: An award given to a project, person or group within the cultural scene, who has managed to combine something artistically new with forward thinking communication.
During November, Platform4 held a 3-week 3D-printer festival to invite the city to explore all the new technologies in the 3D-printing movement. Workshops were held, discussions were ignited and a whole bunch of printers were built by festival participants. All in all the attention for the festival was overwhelming! See photos and video here.
Information and instructions on how to do basic things at Platform4 is on the way! It can be a great help to new or forgetful Platformers when the people who knows are not there.
With co-founders and current executive directors Christian Villum and Kristian Ravn-Ellestad leaving to seek new challenges, PLATFORM4 is excited to announce the new executive director who will take over; Bo Nicolaisen.
Morten Jensen is a long time Projectformer, who ao. was the idea man behind the huge success to create the Platform4 Award show back in 2011. Recently he has been a key player in the collaboration between Platform4 and Aalborg Symphony Orchestra in a series of performances. Here he is interviewed by the Business Department of Aalborg Municipality for the recent newsletter.
This past weekend the PlayForm mobile art and technology exhibition was moved to Brønderslev in Nordjylland to be part of the Kulturweekend exhibition at the old Ginge Factory in the middle of the city. See pictures here.
Last weeks FARM soft circuit was a great success with 20 enthusiastic participants indulging in learning how to create a new musical interfaces with soft circuits while integrating various elements of the arts, new technologies and sensorinputs. Watch photos here.
For Kristian, developing and leading Platform4 has been a thrilling experience and a main reason to stay in Aalborg. Adventure has always been the key for Kristian – And now it's the time for a new journey.
400 partying people, frenetically loud rave music, beautiful visuals inside the big venue ball and outside on the silos (as well as a great movie screening upstairs in Rooftop) - made for a big, rough and true spirit goodbye party last weekend, when Platform4, the platformers and Aalborg in general said goodbye to the old warehouse in Østre Havn where Platform4 has been born and bred for the last 4.5 years. See pictures and video here.
Last week we got the Arduino controlled plastic recycling machine to work. And it is just a
small beginning of what will be built in the next few weeks.
It is still strictly confidential, but drop by and see if you can guess what we are up to.
A bunch of the Platform4 volunteers - the 'platformers' - led by the Kitchen Krew, have taken initiative to host a weekly 'Folkekøkken' (Folks Kitchen), where cheap delicious vegetarian food is served on Wednesday nights. See this little video from the inaugural evening, made by Oscar, Zuza and Carlos from the Media4 platformer group.
When different artforms collide sweet music arises! The unpredictable collaboration between Aalborg Symphony and Platform4 gave birth to new artistic realizations and with that the experiment continues.
With an upcoming show OCT 12th the two cultural players talk about their perception of the first show, and what to imagine from the future.
Since September 1, 2012, around 20 kids have been building rockets every Tuesday at Platform4 as a part of the new Tech.stronaut initiative. The rockets are getting bigger and bigger, more colorful and are improving every week. Now national television have discovered the initiative - so DR TV's "Ramasjang" kids-show have invited some of our Tech.stronaut kids into the studio.
After five intense years being part of starting, developing and running Platform4, it is now time for one of Platform4's executive directors, Christian Villum, to seek new challenges. He will be leaving his position at Platform4 at the end of the year and will be moving to Copenhagen.
This year Platform4 on 1st of September had a kick start event for a new project – Tech.Stronaut. With help from Tech. College and Platform4 volunteers Platform4 was filled with remotely controlled cars, flying helicopters, robots, rockets and of course delicious muffins.
Two of the projects in the PlayForm Mobile Art & Technology Exhibition were also graduation projects for Louise Toft and Anne Sofie Juul Sørensen, who graduated with a BA degree in Art & Technology from Aalborg University this summer. Their pieces 'BioCult' and 'Pillow Fight 2.0' were of such quality that they were both graded 12, which is the highest grade in the Danish grading system. Congratulations!
Wednesdays in Platform4 are dedicated to doing it...ehm, doing _things_ and making stuff...together. Join to help out working on ongoing building projects or start building one of your own ideas.
Platform4 is all about art and technology, but we are also about socializing and having fun and hanging out with friends over a good brew. To serve this purpose we run our own café in the heart of the city - so why not create our own brand of beer? The Platform4 Eco Pilsner is here, tadaa.
Danish street and contemporary artist Morten Andersen, who now lives in Berlin, has been visiting his hometown this summer to paint the facade of the Wolfsen gallery in Aalborg - and the Platform4 Shop was happy to supply the cans.
Bedtime Gaming, one of the resident groups in the FormuLab co-working space, has received some nice media coverage on their work on "Back-to-bed", an interactive game produced in collaboration with KUNSTEN art museum in Aalborg.
Danish art portal kunsten.nu has been kind enough to pay our PlayForm Art & Technology Mobile Exhibition a visit - and write a little review of their experience doing so. To our great joy the review is highly positive - read it here.
Promotion is everything if you want people to enjoy your event, workshop etc. Read this small guide and you'll come a long way in promoting your event at Platform4. Media4 at Platform4 is providing help for you, but you are the driving force. Let's get started...
Come and join the creative play in the container at platform4!
Build4 is finally about to have a home after the move. Our work space is almost ready for action, and we are very excited about it.
Currently I am a final semester BA-student of Art and Technology at Aalborg University, where at the moment I am working on my BA-project (in collaboration with Sandro Masai), which can be placed in the fields of user experience design and multimodal – embodied interaction. Beside this I am preparing a new piece involving e-textiles and new musical interface design and a related workshop series held for youngsters with various backgrounds.
Volunteer Lina Bergstrom ran around with a camera for a day in the new Platform4, a co-working/hackerspace in Aalborg, Denmark, and put together at little movie from the footage.
Café4 group is proud to announce that the Platform4 Café from now on will be open 4 days a week. We look forward to welcoming users, friends and park visitors inside for refreshments - come visit us!
I should probably begin by introducing myself: I’m Julia Spicina, and I’m a visual artist. I was born and raised in Riga, Latvia and I moved to Denmark with my family as a teenager, where I have begun developing my creative abilities. I think it is great fun making something new or remaking the old with new techniques, so I’ll share some thoughts with you on the matter.
Grønner Gorillaer is Platform4's experimenting urban gardening project where people learn about how to use small patches of ground in the city to grow wonderful things - and eat them! Check out our little video.
Last behind-the-scene blog post from the PlayForm project is "Granny's Backyard" by Tim Garbos and Martin Fasterholdt. Seven groups of creatives are currently working on building each their project for the PLAYFORM Mobile Art & Technology Exhibition to be unveiled in early May. In this blogging series the participants give some small glimpses into their current project work.
Now that we have an amazing spot in city centre with a beautiful park it would be great that Platform4’s café would be open way more than ever. For that Platform4 needs more dedicated volunteers. Therefore new concept of volunteering in Café will be launched this Wednesday
One week left until opening of New Platorm4 at Tivoli. For past 3-4 weeks around 20 people have been working very hard to prepare our new place. We've been fixing, polishing, cleaning, making tables, painting, planting flowers, making swings and so on. It seems that with such a huge force of volunteers we will succeed to make New Platorm4 an awesome place for all of us. Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.
We are happy to be able to bring forth the news news that there is a new legal graffiti wall (publicly accessible street gallery) in Østre Havn; the big gray concrete wall by the main road next to the old Platform4. Owner of the area, contractor A. Engaard, has announced that it is allowed to paint on this big wall - which, as bonus, is also seen by more than 20,000 passing cars every day!
Fifth in the PlayForm blogging series - here looking at "Pillow Fight 2.0" as conceptualized and built by Anne Sofie Juul Sørensen. Seven groups of creatives are currently working on building each their project for the PLAYFORM Mobile Art & Technology Exhibition to be unveiled in early May.
This is the third blog post from behind the stage of the PlayForm project - by Morten Jensen, who is producing 'Starlights'. He is one of the seven groups of creatives who are currently working on building each their project for the PLAYFORM Mobile Art & Technology Exhibition to be unveiled in early May.
In our blogging-behind-the-scenes from the PlayForm project, we'll now visit Andres Koczka and the building of their piece "Sound of Thoughts". A total of seven groups of creatives are currently working on building each their project for the PLAYFORM Mobile Art & Technology Exhibition to be unveiled in early May. In this blogging series the participants give some small glimpses into their current project work.
Seven groups of creatives are currently working on building each their project for the PLAYFORM Mobile Art & Technology Exhibition to be unveiled in early May. In this blogging series the participants give some small glimpses into their current project work - and start with the project "Fingerpaint" by Pernille Kofoed.
Since we last spoke a lot of things have happened. Let's see if we remember all.
A while ago a bunch of platformers went to Amsterdam on an explorational study field trip. We saw steakhouses, bagel-and coffeeshops, lightly dressed women, and we participated in an audiovisual festival where a lot of inspiration and good times was sucked in. Check the Fiber-Festival out right here: http://www.fiberfestival.nl/
In the dark winter nights we have been working on a Platform4 Webshop - where a broad range of works and products will be sold. From spray paint and vinyl records to Platform4 merchandise and design/art pieces by local artists. Now the shop is finally ready to se the light of day!
The raw post-industrial surroundings of the ‘Eastern Harbor’ (Østre Havn) have for the last four years been our home, our source of inspiration and our scene for the exploration of art and technology.
Platform4’s café is run by a bunch of the volunteers - the Café4 group. Awesomely dedicated people who work without pay and are driven simply by good intentions and dire passion to make Platform4's social spot the most awesome place for themselves and people in Aalborg to hang out in, dance, party and have fun.
Build4, Cafe4, Bizz4 and Media4 are Platform4's communities-in-the-community that specialize in learning and having fun with specific areas of creativity. They are all open for anyone - wanna join?
Submit your interactive art & technology project idea, get funding and take part in The PlayForm Mobile Exhibit! Platform4 hereby sends out an open call for projects to be included in The PlayForm Mobile Exhibit project in the summer of 2012. An exhibit that will be featured in Platform4 as well as a minimum of 4 cities across Nordjylland.
With Platform4 in winter hibernation, the administration staff and the community is working tirelessly - not only to prepare the coming season, but also on condensing and visualizing the ideological bedrock that the Platform4 project is based on. Ironically, this has never been done before, because we've been to busy inviting people inside, creating projects and building robots!
During the first weeks of January, we've been working on a vision statement. Come peak inside the churning machine to get a glimpse of this process.
With more than 30 submitted projects, about 200 people visiting the exhibition in two days, more than 400 attending the Award Show and coverage in local television, radio and newspapers the Platform4 Awards showed it's relevance, opened Platform4 and the creative environment surrounding it to a lot people and created a fundament for network and inspiration.
At the grand Platform4 Awards show the prizes and honor went to two magnificent projects; the People's Choice-award, selected via SMS-vote among the audience, went to the TS Collective for the 'Wolfram'-installation - and the Platform4 Award of 10,000 Danish Kroner, as chosen by the official award jury, to Edit Vizer's 'InsideOut Vol. II'. Big congrats to the talents creators! And a big thanks to all the participating projects.
FAT Labs activist Jerry Juarez came back to Platform4 to host the soft-circuit workshop 'FAT CRIER', where participants learned how to have open hard- and software interact with audio units through the use of conductive thread.
PLATFORM4-IN-A-BOX was Platform4's first fully self-curated exhibition featuring 7 art/tech installations made by local talents, who worked over the course of the last year to build an art piece to be exhibited at the official showcase in August 2011. See/read documentation and afterthought here.
Platform4 and a handful of graffiti painters did a fun experiment painting an old 1994 Ford Escort on October 8, 2011. It was a live performance art piece in conjunction with the P4 Cafe. Beers, music, friends and art made for a super hyggelig night. Check out the results in the short video here.
Right outside the building is the beautiful Platform4 street art gallery, curated entirely and autonomously by the various street communities. Alrune Rødder has done an awesome little video featuring artist themselves (Smelt Mig & Hands Off) & Lars Pank.
This last weekend FormuLab was full of talented aspiring computer game creators during the Indie9000 Game Jam 2011 session that was held by the Indie9000 crew in collaboration with Shareplay and DreamGames. Lots of great gaming ideas took shape and friendships were made. Check out the video summary and photo galleries here.
The video artist C-Men aka. Julian van Aalderan held an inspiring talk about how he makes live visuals using two decrepit Amiga 1200's and other lo-fi gear. The talk was recorded and is now available for viewing online.
On September 8-11 Platform4 hosted the big hacker-conference Platform4.0.Future Meeting Hub #1 where 7 backspaces and creative groups - as well as a list of individual tinkerers and speakers - congregated with the Platform4 community to discuss, talk, make, build, hack and tinker for four straight days in a meet-up that was part conference, part maker lab, part think tank and part anarchic craze. Here's a little afterthought/summary, some videos, a series of photo galleries and some feedback.
On September 8-11 Platform4 hosted the big hacker-conference Platform4.0.Future Meeting Hub #1 where 7 backspaces and creative groups - as well as a list of individual tinkerers and speakers - congregated with the Platform4 community to discuss, talk, make, build, hack and tinker for four straight days in a meet-up that was part conference, part maker lab, part think tank and part anarchic craze. Here's a little afterthought/summary, some videos, a series of photo galleries and some feedback.
This weekend the monitors surveying Aalborg's Østra Havn at the regional powerplants must've looked really weird. The reason being that we hosted one of the most extreme voltage-meets-music experiments of all time on Danish (and European) soil: The so-called Tesla Coil Concert Experiment, also known as Tesla In Concert.
MadeByWho - as part of the BUILD4-group - has made this funny furniture project that builds on the idea of a place for people to meet, share ideas, create art and design, have fun and drink beers. The stools are made to fit into this environment.
It is with great joy that we can announce that a new fundraiser has joined the Platform4 family; namely Mads Bang, who comes from a varied background of cultural entrepreneurship. Mads will be helping fundraise for Platform4 in general, but also act as a councellor for all the ProjectFormers working on developing projects in Platform4 and FormuLab.
More than 100 people showed up to discuss the future of Platform4 and creative hubs in general - and to hear inspiring words from Eva De Klerk, Elske Hazenberg and Anna Porse.
The 17 people who signed up for the free 3-day Mz. Baltazar's Laboratory workshop had a seemingly awesome time. Not only did they learn the basics of soldering and using open hardware microboard platform Arduino, but also how to have the hardware interact with software such as Processing and PureData - as well as take apart old electronics to create something new.
One of our platformers, Lina Bergstrøm, did a videoblog thing from yesterdays Wet Art workshop - check it out and learn about what's going on down here this week.
As a new initiative, our revamped and re-energized café will be open every weekend over the summer - check this site every week for opening hours.
So drop by for a cup of hot coffee, a chill beer or a sweet soda and enjoy the Platform4 vibe - either inside the café or outside in our outdoor environment.
Er du for ord og kreativitet – og vil du gerne supplere din indkomst? Bliv en del af Platform4s ildsjæleri og vær med til at skabe et bedre kunst-tech univers på Østrehavnen.
We have made a list of Platform4's biggest wishes, which we unfortunately cannot afford to buy. But maybe the cool network around Platform4 can help us get in touch with people or organizations that would like to donate things like these to our community? We hope you will help spread this message in your network!
Onsdag mødtes vi et par stykker fra Tossestreger for at tilbringe de næste tre dage med hygge, rode med elektronik halløj og software og begynde kreationen af Tossestregers helt egne Tagtool-mini.
Black Box-projektet er centreret omkring en ca. 2,5 meter bred, 2 meter høj og 2 meter dyb træboks, hovedsageligt konstrueret af materialer, der blev til overs efter sidste sæsons eksperimenterende kunstproduktioner på Platform4.
En gruppe Platformere fik forleden adgang til nogle af de gamle bygninger/ siloer på Østre Havn, med det formål at samle anvendeligt skrot ind til den nye café – og sikke en dejlig portion skrammel!
Snart kan du finde en masse blå pile i byen – som allesammen vil føre dig ud til Østre Havn, så du kan opleve stedet og forestille dig hvad der kan ske derude. Bl.a. ved et nærmere kig på Platform4.
APART er en festival for live elektronisk musik og live visuals, med nogle af de dygtigste kunstnere fra DK og omegn.
APART strækker sig over tre dage og byder på alt fra afslappende og melodiøse atmosfærer til rave-nætter og blytung bas.
Så oprandt dagen, hvor Platform4’s Strandbar kunne slå dørene op for publikum. Omend vejret ikke var os gunstige, var der alligevel pænt besøgt hele dagen og aftenen – det bliver en god sommer!
Fem af de syv projekter til workshoppen er i fuld gang med tyvstarten inden workshopugen. Dette sker fordi flere af projekterne kræver en del forarbejde – foruden dagene i selve ugen.
