sofa to sofia flyer

The message is: More bicycles, more space for people..less cars! Bringing our living room into town

And showing solidarity between the two cities – Sofia and Brussels. This has tremendous impact in Sofia already where the municipality included the project in the official programme for the mobility week.

The programme

On Friday 17th we meet at Rogier round 17:30-18:00 -, we cycle with our “living room” attached to us towards Bourse where we meet with the critical mass - the local Brussels activitist and bycicle organisations who will be with fanfare music on bikes. We then spend -/+ 30 mins at Bourse, placing our sofas on the parking spaces serving drinks,  dancing and smiling.

What we need:

- you !!

- bicycle trailers, if you have one, can we borrow it?

- arranging who can attach a little table/sofa, chair, or cushions to their bicycles, so we look impressive

- to prepare drinks and think of some smart cups to serve during the action

- colourful people to serve the drinks, maybe clowns

- some brainstorming on attractive messages and we can prepare some posters to carry with us

- and you there – dressed up colourfully, making noise on the streets

You are in?

Inside you will walk around a Brussels neighbourhood (Marolles) seen under the optic of Street Art. The tour/guide is done by Julien Mourlon from the music & art multimedia collective Laid Back.

Lost in sound cafe belga

Lost in Sound events have been around for quite a while now. They are intended for those who are interested into getting a grasp on some of the finest underground electronic music made in Europe but do not want to get too much into a crowded dancefloor full of youngsters on drugs. This is more of a relaxed, open and mature atmosphere.

Organized by DJ Sensu. He is a restles researcher exploring the boundaries of the new and the old sounds. Often misunderstood, DJ Sensu is, in our opinion, the best DJ in Brussels both in terms of knowledge, taste and technique.  From here I would like to thank him for all the amazing moments he made me live in previous Lost in Sounds and I wish him the best in future projects.

Check out the website of Belga for more information about the event.

A new venture is born in Brussels to cover this line of work. An academy that will teach children the magic of making films. This Little Film Academy is powered by Sofia Caessa from Violeta Lab and in partnership with Turtle Wings. We wish them all the best in this new initiative.

Brussel’s program offers amazing side-pleasures in arty month of may.

One of the nice side effects of the pletohra of varied city festivals blossoming in Brussels this month, is that they offer great opportunities to hang out with artists,  eat with festival goers and chill with event organizers in an eclectic independent and free-spirited atmosphere.

If you dont have time nor money to spend in the amazing program offered, these are the 3 free HOT SPOTS you should not miss to get a grip on what is happening inside, gather first hand information from the freak savy next to you, wear many hats, struggle for a press pass or guest list, test crazy spring clothes, start an adventure….you name it !!

1. Stairs outside chapiteau tent at NUITS botanique (7 to 17 May).

Photo by Helene Dehon

These stairs are electric and they offer a high volume of human and creative interaction.

2. Centredufestivalcentrum (7 to 29 May)

Last year epicentrum of the KFDA festival took place at the feet of Brigittines chappel.  See picture below:

Nancy Geeroms

This year, Kunstenfestivaldesarts will take over the Historic KVS building at 146 Rue de Laeken. This place will be almost entirely reimagined by architecture collective ROTOR from materials left over from previous spectacles and renovations. Pictures available later, now only part of the installation.

KFDA

3.Brussels Short Film Festival’s Chapiteau at Place Fernand Cocq.(until 9 May)

Last but not least chapiteau tent at the Short Film festival is a nice place set up to allow a maximum of exchanges between the public and the proffessional and amateur filmakers showcasing at the festival.

Brussels Short Film Festival

I happened to stroll the back streets of Buenos Aires on a grilling summer day in January 2010. The following images peeped at me from walls and facades in two of the harbour nighbourhoods of the mega polis.

The first are in the San Telmo district of Buenos Aires. Until recently this was an unattractive dodgy neighbourhood with unattended houses and rubbish littered streets. However, in the past 3-4 years artists moved in to open ateliers, tango dancers crowded the numerous small plazas, bars and restaurants followed, funky shops popped up.

The hood is now a mixture of its former inhabitants from a poorer social background and the newly-arrived settlers with an arty affiliation. The street art is also a plethora of different cultures that express their different inspirations and ideas on the canvas of the street.

Next pictures from Boca, the poorest neighborhood at the former port of Buenos Aires. The houses you see around are mostly built from wooden pallets and iron sheets, often with windows covered with nylon only.

The houses are colorfully painted, which gives a charming look to the hood.

Lots of the wall art has religious connotations, there is also much of football themes too, since the Boca junior football team trains at a stadium in this district. Surely, the wall art also carries messages for social justice, anticorruption and empowerment of the poor.

Venturing deeper into Boca, we were stopped by a young man and advised not to progress further with a camera since we are risking to e robbed. This warning cooled off the enthusiasm of discovering the hidden treasures behind the Boca corners. So far, so good, the rest of the images are in our heads from when we returned to Boca with no technical gadgets…

More Pictures

Original photo: optimal ride.

A Symposium

A debate to advance innovative approaches to design and  business education in the evolving context of cities, services, and ecosystems. It will gather top international design thinkers from Europe and the Americas. I have checked out all the speakers one that raised my attention are from Public Works London specially their project about setting up an open and experimental platform for the development and exchange of local products across a network of rural and urban spaces: International Village Shop.

Exhibition: Place to Be

This exhibition will show the result of the call for entries to provide the festival with audivisual materials from city spaces.

Street Brunch

On Europe Day (9 of May) a public lunch will be organized with lots of fun activities around it.

Pecha Kucha

Japanese for the sound of conversation (bla bla), PK is a series of show-and-tell evenings for designers, architects, artists and creatives. In Brussels is powered by the unstoppable Alok Nandi.

Cinema

CINEMATEK will be illustrating the themes of the Human Cities Festival with four fictional works.

A festival dedicated to Urban Art

The Kosmopolite festival is an ambitious event that brings together different urban arts and graffiti events, such as the painting of fresco’s and a closing party by Laid Back.

Communities are in constant transformation. In order to avoid the erosion of the social ties that binds communities together, online platforms can do better to improve positive relation-building based on physical and real experiences.

Under specific scenarios, businesses can profit more from giving things for free than charging for them. One of them is to get their message heard by fast-path information sharing channels on the Internet.

Online video marketing is a growing instrument to diffuse innovation. Information often moves faster across Twitter (social networking website) than any other platform and also tends to bring people closer together.

What is Tweet & Troc ?

It is a facilitator of real encounters thanks to Twitter: a win-win colaboration between the Tweet & Trocker and the Advertiser to add feeling back into the tweeting.

Tweet & Trocker is a user of Twitter that gets to live a social experience for free in exchange of a Retweet (repost another user’s message on Twitter). . By a simple Retweet he can get a clear and free opportunity to get together, learn and recover simple pleasures of creating your own entertainment:

-Making your own things, or visiting people and organisations that normally do not have the chance to meet.

-Floating session in a spa.

-Cultural heritage building opens the doors for you.

-Artist invites you to the atelier and teach you his technique.

For the Advertiser, this system represents a video marketing instrument to promote their local experiences via Twitter and stand out of the crowd in a viral way. Tweet & Troc makes a video explaning their activity in a creative serious/fun kind-of-way and then places the video on its Twitter channel (@olebrussels) offering an experience in exchange of a Retweet.

This is the first video.

Each campaign varies depending on the nature of the experience offered.

Since services offered will be different sometimes only the first Tweet & Trocker will get something. Sometimes he gets access to a lottery.

Do you want to advertise your experience using Tweet & Troc? Let’s discuss and create a fun video together to promote your concept.

The main objectives is to keep some degree of coherency on the topic while practicing and improving the way I do this kind of “video reportage”.

I hope you like it. I apollogize for the different sound level but my camera (Sanyo Xacti VPC FH1A) does not include the possibility to attach an external micro.

Feel free to rate the video and leave comments.

This is why we like projects like Pecha Kucha (PK):  It accelerates idea translation and therefore innovation. Japanese for the sound of conversation (bla bla), PK is a series of show-and-tell evenings for designers, architects, artists and creatives.

What is new about this PK nite on 19 march 2010? I think it is the first time they team up with collective Box-L and seems they are ploting a smooth transition from the conferences {20*20} to the chill out exhibition and finally to the party where we will have the chance to listen to Soldout DJ Set among others.  Note : Assistance to PK is for free but Register here. Later performance, exhibition and lectures costs 7 euros after 23h. ALSO THIS TIME CONFERENCES WILL PROBABLY BE IN FRENCH.

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