Open Design City

Open Zone, ODC 'Make Your Own Market'

Workstation with Open Design City (de), Jay Cousins (uk), Christopher Doering (de),GRLG (de), Trial & Error Kulturlabor (de) and You

1 Feb, 20:00 - 23:00 (Opening Act/Workshop)

Monday-Saturday 11:00 - 22:00

Sunday 12:00-22:00 

The Open Design City in Berlin is a collaboration space in which new relationships and projects are formed between its citizens. It is a space that takes principles derived from the Free Software and Open Source movements and applies them to Design. These Open Design principles lead to the sharing of tools, knowledge and skills, so that anyone can get involved if they have the time and commitment.

Jay Cousins and Christopher Doering, founders and citizens of Open Design City, take up residence in the Open Zone foyer of the Haus der Kulturen for the duration of the transmediale.11 festival. They bring their tools and equipment for all to share in their "Make Your Own Market" stalls that explore the principles of Open Design and new methods of monetisation and reward. They provide a space for interaction between the monetary system and Free Culture by giving festival visitors the chance to learn skills, and a platform to make and sell or exchange their own products and services.

Visitors are encouraged to share their own skills with others and to take part in open workshops ranging from screen printing to plastic making and 3D printing to sewing and upcycling. Specialised equipment such as a CNC cutter and 3D printer are free for all visitors to use. Materials will be provided but visitors are encouraged to bring items to upcycle, customise and exchange.

Special guests of the Open Design City: Graffiti Research Lab Germany with theirSVG2BVG project! SVG2BVG uses custom computer vision software to detect graffiti tags, sends the ensuing shape to a diy laser cutter, and then outputs the tag as a stencil in realtime. The stencils are conveniently sized for the television screens in the Berlin U-Bahn system, allowing you to create cheap, non-permanent, light-based graffiti in the comfort of your own transit system.

Photo: Jonathan Gröger / transmediale

Trial & Error Kulturlabor is a Berlin based, non profit organization, working with crafts, D.I.Y. culture, arts and media, towards a bright sustainable future.

Friday Clothes Swapping

Find out more about this event by reading Open Desgin City's blog:

From the 1-6 February Open Design City will be migrating to Transmediale at the Haus der Welt Kulturen, to play within the “Open Zone”.

If you would like to join us in playing at this festival of Free Culture, in the heart of an international Media Art Festival, then please come along, or if you have a specific idea to add to the brief below then please feel free to email us to join in the fun.

Our objective is to bring actions and activities to the Open Zone – whether you want to make some art, build something or create a collective action in the space we will give you the tools to do so.

Actions so far

Talk to Me About

A viral real world social networking tool – or a bubble shaped piece of paper? Tales of previous outings here

The Crowd

We got invited to DJ, but we’ve no experience. Instead we decided to crowd source the music. But this won’t be no pick three tunes battle, YOU will make the music. Bring your voices, bring your instruments, bring something to bang on, be prepared to fail, to laugh and to maybe find some emergent harmony, wit and song in amongst it all.

Buy me or Make Me

We’ll be selling products, but also you can make them yourself – come and learn how to make your own lampshades and bowls from recycled textiles, wallets from carton, knit your own hats. If you’d like to sell something and are happy to show people how to make their own then please drop us an email – This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or stop by with your tools, material and goods at the event.

Upcycling

Taking waste and turning it into objects of value

GRL IRL

SVG2BVG uses custom computer vision software to detect graffiti tags, sends the ensuing shape to a diy laser cutter, and then outputs the tag as a stencil in realtime. The stencils are conveniently sized for the television screens in the Berlin U-Bahn system, allowing you to create cheap, non-permanent, light-based graffiti in the comfort of your own transit system.

The application (Source Code coming soooon) is written in Processing, and makes extensive use of V3GA’s blobDetection library. SVG2BVG wil be shown as part of Open Design City’s ‘make your own market’ installation at ‘the open zone‘ at Transmediale 11 (Feb 1st-6th, Berlin) as well as at the Cognitive Cities Conference (Feb 26-27th, Berlin).

Coffee Scanner

Come make a 3D scan your face in a bowl of coffee beans and water. Low tech meets high tech

Action Response

Just a fancy term for making it up as we go along

Pre Play – Getting warmed up in the space with a few actions and ideas to get us started

Collaborators

So far Graffiti Research Labs Germany, Trial and Error KulturLabor, and a host of co-conspirators are all coming to play, what would you like to do?

A note on space – we have 20 square meters to do these actions at Transmediale – as you probably figured we are going to expand our territory in negotiation with the rest of the Open Zone. However we have no idea how this will work so if you want to be sure to do something in our specific territory then send us an email outlining your space needs and time requirements (nb. please no more than 10 sqm).