Australian performance-maker Sarah Neville and family were in residence at foam for 3 weeks in October 2013, firstly at Castello Parenzana near the legendary town of Motovun in Istria, then at the Future Fabulators kick-off in Linz, to end amidst the urban landscape of Brussels. In company with her five-month old daughter Florence and together with Maja Kuzmanovic and Nik Gaffney, Sarah is investigating ancient and contemporary myths formed from making meaning of natural disaster. Sarah’s husband Matthew and four-year old daughter Miranda are contributing to the project remotely from home in the Adelaide Hills in Australia. Miranda is sharing her understanding of the natural world through creative storytelling and painting and Matthew is participating by responding to the concepts emerging at Castello Parenzana through an exploration of sound.

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Brittish-Chinese speculative designer Lisa Ma had a Microresidency at FoAM in Brussels for one week in April 2014. During her residency, she developed a 'bioluddite charter', in order to surmise what an 'umbrella movement' for critical biotechnology might look like. She also worked on a speculative scenario of bioluddites in waiting rooms, looked back into the history of Luddism, correlated bioluddism with food futures and collected a range of bioluddite's conundrums.

“Being a ‘luddite’ is more than the derogatory term for people that refuse to use twitter or a smartphone. Luddites changed history by initiating critiques of technology beyond the mechanics and into the way that technology affects everyday people in the industrial era. Luddites prototyped activism through violence in a time of military powers. Are they relevant today? Might Bio-luddites prototype a new form of activism to critically use biotechnology? Can bioluddite activism be sustained within the service culture? Might these activities become socialized?” -Lisa Ma

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