Circul'arts OS
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Project Description
Circul’arts OS is envisioned as an open-source operating-system starting as a “recipe-book” for the emerging circular arts in neighbourhoods. From cooking food-waste to growing food-forests, we create new materials and design processes to form landscapes through the arts of circular cultures. Together the Cook, the Grower and the Creator are the three Circul’arts spatial characters that foster this evolution, rooting local actors in a sense of belonging while globally sharing proven practices.
Geographical Scope
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Urban or rural issues
Physical or other transformations
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Description of the project
Summary
Circul’arts OS is envisioned as an open-source operating-system, acting as “recipe-book” for emerging circular arts at the neighborhood level. We aim to use these to trigger circular practices into a repairing and regenerating culture. The concept evolves from overlapping and embodying three spatial characters: the cook, the grower & the creator. This inclusive idea starts with our ancient connection to food, creating a sense of belonging between local actors.
The market wastes good food on a weekly basis. It can be collected for free and allow Circul’arts-Cooks to emerge as the first evolving spatial character. They process and exchange food through an active actor-network. Our zero-waste dinner test-runs show that food events help to attract and weave diverse local actors into collective action. Remaining biomass by-products in the cycle allow more character niches to emerge in synergy. Separated food-scraps of Circul’arts-Cooks provide various seeds for germination, as well as composting biomass for fertile soil(s) that Circulart-Growers use for new seedlings and existing plant clusters. Unused by-products allow new-materials and production methods of art & design to be explored by Circul’arts-Creators. Some vegetable and fruit parts can easily be boiled with water into dyes, such as banana, onion or orange peels, as well as purple cabbage and sage leaves. Others can be mixed with water into pastes such as blended eggshell-okra used for hand-crafting, moulding or even 3d-printing objects. These processes form various stages of circular production. They enable and further reproduce co-creative initiatives around circularity. All together the Circul’arts spatial characters can form an essential landscape that incubates and showcases the arts and practices building the Circul’arts Operating System.
Key objectives for sustainability
Circul’arts OS raises awareness for circular arts towards a sustainable culture. Each of the Circul’art characters embody sustainable objectives and methods. The main objective is to create and share knowledge on the separation and reuse of apparently less valuable biomass waste streams of local markets, gardens or neighborhood households.
As Circul’art-Cooks we want to increase the regularity of zero-waste-dinners to strengthen the network of actors and transfer knowledge from current separation and reuse practices. With the right and sufficient resources, types and quantities of ingredients, tools and processes forming these recipes can be documented with notes, photos and drawings (see panel 2). These could further be transferred through workshops and informative media.
A further objective is to establish synergies from by-products of Circul’art-Cooks into the gardens of Circul’art-Growers. We aim for bi-weekly urban gardening sessions to build-up soil-forming systems with mulching, closed- or vermi-composting and build a plant-nursery for seeding experiments. For this purpose we propose to organize, implement and document bi-weekly events to co-create a common garden.
For a Circul’art-Creator, a concrete objective is to test our eggshell-okra-paste as a new natural material for art & design objects in hand-crafting “pottery” workshops, to later evaluate its moulding and 3D printing manufacturing potential. We propose first to organize & document hand-crafting community workshops through practice-based research and get familiar with the new material. The next step is to buy adequate tools to test & document the additive manufacturing process with the objective of printing three different objects.
Our idea is exemplary of how a sense of belonging can be formed through different shared activities combined while stimulating separation and reuse methods of biowaste within a local actor-network.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
Circul'arts OS experiments with circular arts towards a new cultural aesthetic experience. Each of our characters aims to become an embodied example of this transition most of all the Circul’arts-Creators.
This spatial character's aim is to test new materials and design methods. We can grind okra into a powder replacing xanthan gum, which combined with eggshell powder and water can be formed into a hand-crafting, molding or 3D printing paste. We assume the mix to have similar applications and properties to gypsum or clay-3D printing. Our main objective is to share and experiment with a new material aesthetic experience locally and transfer this knowledge through workshops. Our second objective is to enable complex geometrical objects to be created through iterative and incremental experiments, from art sculptures towards furniture and object design.
As a consequence, the objects of Circul’arts-Creators aim to contribute to an artistic atmosphere and sense of wonder in the garden and the kitchen-lab, representing the synergy with Circul’arts-Cookers and Circul’arts-Growers. In the workshops we aim to create sculptures and utensils that can enhance and be involved in both spatial characters. In the short term the created objects aim to enable unique zero-waste dinners. Through the use of biomass based tools and objects, the meaning of a zero-waste dinner expands beyond food to a new aesthetic experience.
In long-term combination, as fertile soil is generated to adapt the garden landscape for rainwater management and poly-cultural flora, the created objects will further enhance the lively experience from the kitchen-lab into the gardens of Circul’arts-Growers.
Our idea is exemplary of how different shared activities create a sense of belonging and in parallel trigger new aesthetic imaginations through showcasing what can be possible with circular art & design
Key objectives for inclusion
Circul’arts OS aims to foster public participation and accessibility, enabling grassroots engagement and co-creation initiatives to incubate towards an overall sustainable culture. Each of our characters contributes to make the transition openly collaborative for civil society, yet most of all Circul’arts-Cooks and Circul’arts-Growers provide the fertile ground for the seeds of inclusion.
Circul’arts-Cooks improve food streams of market waste and seek to weave locals closer. Especially in food & art events, free-meals help to overcome social barriers. Our main objective is to increase the regularity and optimise organisation of the current volunteer based food-art events to strengthen the social network and presence in the neighbourhood.
Circul'arts-Growers aim to complement this regularity with urban-gardening sessions which is another appropriate tool to improve accessibility for those seeking community and healing. Simultaneously, these events can also act as an informal platform for the transfer of local knowledge i.e. about plants or available ecosystem services that can provide more opportunities for public engagement.
The Circul'arts-Creators workshops provide another channel for exchange. Open access to notes, photos and drawings of practices for workshops and informative media, could be enabled through sufficient resources. Finally, digital organisational tools and social media infrastructures, such as discord, coolhaven.connect, google drive, open collective and instagram already exist for public access. We envision to provide acess to physical tools and digital templates of our circular operating systems in the neighbourhood.
Among other creators, the IJzerblok artist group could use resources to develop and showcase new circular techniques in a society that otherwise prioritises linear resource use and productions. In this context our spatial characters concept is exemplary as a circular trigger of an inclusive transition.
Physical or other transformations
Innovative character
Characteristic of Circul’arts OS is that each character combines the three dimensions differently and in synergy are able to amplify each other's potential to transform the local practices and landscapes. The collective facilitates and co-creates digital commons with and for different communities in order to fulfil common needs.
The Circul’arts-Cooks and -Growers fully embody the spirit of sustainability by reusing food-waste in order to create two different yet complementary regular events of social inclusion and belonging. As platform to initiate contact, these weave and consolidate the social network through physical experiences. Together these enable circular operating systems to form new aesthetic configurations.
Complementing both of these, the Circul’arts-Creator focuses on the experimental co-creation of new aesthetic materials from biomass and their forming methods in order to design Circul’arts objects into a landscape, as involving background for wonderment.
In combination all three together can strengthen each other's positive social impact and provide a fertile ground to belong, share and cross-breed knowledge of (new) technologies & methods of organisation and production. Community resources behold co-creation. Between what is private and public, space can be common. On one side, co-designed with the community are the space layout and organisation, the program and activities, the indicators and assessment criteria, as well as the social media story-telling traces.
Our spatial characters approach is exemplary to create transition stories, as synergetic visions for civil society to collaborate and co-create initiatives following the need to experiment with and raise awareness for the circular arts as a new aesthetic experience towards a sustainable culture.
