Varia

Sensible World Of Soccer - Varia Cup 2020

Varia — Sat, 21 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Become a goal scoring superstar hero at the Sensible World of Soccer Varia Cup 2020! After two competitive events at WORM it's time to bring the classic football game to the south of Rotterdam. Varia will be host to both an amateur cup as well as a pro cup - anyone can play (literally; in contrast with modern football simulators you only need a joystick with one button!). Although the last official release of the game was in 96 (not counting the terrible 3d attempts that became the downfall of Sensible Software), Sensible Soccer never went away thanks to its highly addictive gameplay and vast database of teams from around the world, creating possibilities to become champion infinite. SWOS has become part of the gaming canon as stated by Stanford University, amongst games as Tetris and Super Mario Bros 3. The Royal Mail celebrated its part in British video game history by releasing a Sensible Stamp last month.

SWOS2020 A strong community (check out www.sensiblesoccer.de) made sure the ball kept on rolling, with ways to play against each other online, rankings, as well as hosting the annual Sensible Days: the World Cup where players decide who's best. The highlight of this year though is the launch of Sensible World of Soccer 2020! Not only does it provide an up-to-date database with around 1,500 teams from all over the world (from The Netherlands to El Salvador; a huge community effort), it is also the first time that the game can be played on modern operating systems without using DOS- or Amiga-emulators. This time you can run the game straight from your Windows-desktop (of course, the database has also been released for the original Amiga version). You can even switch live between DOS and Amiga-gameplay, and choose for a beautiful wide screen mode on UltraHD resolutions. The game is available for free through below link (you do need to own the original version of the game though, but online search machines will help, or check out www.gog.com for a legal way to buy the game).

VARIA CUP We will play the cup in SWOS2020, which means you can play with your favourite team of the moment! Both experienced and unexperienced players are welcome. After a first qualifying round, the top half of the field will go and compete in the Pro Cup, the bottom half in the Amateur Cup; both cup winners will win a prize.

Timetable (depending on amount of players participating)

12:00 - 13:00 Warming-up
13:00 - 14:30 Qualifying rounds (amateurs + pros mixed: best continu to the Pro Cup, worst to the Amateur Cup)
14:30 - onwards Pro Cup and Amateur Cup (on separate systems)
+/- 17:30 Dinner time
19:00 Awards ceremony
20:00/21:00 Closing down

entry: donation

The amount of players is limited. You can enroll between 12:00 and 13:00 but if you want to be sure of a spot, write to: sebatosh@gmail.com. Be sure to write down the club you want to play with. Not participating in the tournament? Feel free to come along and play on one of the practice systems. You can also stop by to support your local heroes while enjoying the live Brazilian commentary we will have during selected games or the Amiga-tunes that DJ Newk will be playing!

Useful Links
The 2020 version of the game -> https://www.sensiblesoccer.de/swos-2020
Why is this game still so good? -> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vdq479/why-i-adore-sensible-soccer-gamings-friendliest-football-sim-407
The making of Sensible Soccer -> https://readonlymemory.vg/the-making-of-sensible-soccer/
Intro of SWOS 96/97 -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eBqIXjj4a8

Radio on the radio

Varia — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Radio on the radio is a live, intermittent radio program with performances that in one way or another discuss radio. It will feature descriptions of radio tools, unboxing and unpacking of radio hardware, radio silences, interviews about radio, radical radio noise, radio-active female monstrosities, repetitive radio dialing, relaxation on the radio waves and much more radio.

door: 19:30
start: 20:00
entry: 5 euro

Relaxing on the radio waves - oyo & mmths

A radio relaxation mixtape performance. A mix of meditative samples and nature with noise and social/political anxieties into an uncanny hypno-magnetic-tape audiopiece. It is performed live with multiple cassette tape players and spacial cassette tape loops spread across the space and modulated by a modular synthesizer.

Radio-active female monstrosity - Angeliki D.

Angeliki D. uses her voice, as well as an online sound archive she built to play, layer and gradually distort into chaos. The female voice becoming the male voice, becoming the monster, the otherworldly voice.

[ASMR] Radio Boyfriend - Pradapony69

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to have your very own ASMR boyfriend, one that talks really soft and only about radio? During this performance by Pradapony69 will send chills down your spine while explaining the difference between long waves and microwaves.

Stations of Exception - Jad Saliba

Jad investigates the possibilities of re-appropriating analogue radio technologies into the realm of live electronic music, creating malleable sonic artefacts from a topography of broadcasted local radio stations.

World Wide Web - Dennis de Bel (PD0WNED)

Radio waves are not constrained by geo-political nor ideological borders. Thus we tried. A close listening of cold war radio interference featuring original vinyl recordings, still being broadcast around the globe today.

Feminist Hack Meetings: Servers

Varia — Sat, 29 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Artemis and Angeliki invite you to join the Feminist Hack Meetings.

Let's talk about feminist servers! In this meeting, we invite you to discuss questions like:
What does it mean for a server to be feminist, and how could it look like? What and who does it serve? What does it take to create and maintain it?
We would like to map and draw collectively our ideas and consider the possibility of setting up a feminist server at Varia, as a base for our practice.
We will bring material (like RPis and computers) to start experimenting and trying things out.
Join us!

The Feminist Hack Meetings are a series of informal research meetings and workshops that aim to explore the suggestions, urgencies and potentials of feminist hack & tech initiatives. We invite people, who are interested in technology and the processes of shaping it, to discuss and work together in matters of inclusion and exclusion in tech communities, feminist servers and hosting, autonomous communication services, archive and documentation. We will also include hardware and sound explorations.
January meeting: https://varia.zone/en/feminist-hack-meetings-jan.html

Program:

Saturday, 29 Feb 2020

15:00 - 18:00

Read & Repair feat. readings & listings: open licenses edition

Varia — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Need books? Need zines? Need electronic parts?

Varia's doors are open every last Sunday of the month.

Come and make yourself comfortable, read the books you never find time to read, browse/exchange/acquire parts from our electronics depot or use the quietness of the day to repair things that need fixing.

On Sunday the 23rd of February, Varia has a special guest: Manetta Berends will host the first edition of a readings & listings session around open licenses.

What to bring?

A computer could be useful for working on the readings & listings together.

What will we do?

We will take an hour or two to talk about open licenses, read snippets of these techno-legal documents, discuss examples and tendencies of this field, and together work on a small reading list around this topic.

Program:

Sunday, 23 Feb 2020

11:00 - 13:00 readings & listings: open licenses edition

13:00 - 17:00 (ongoing time to read and repair)

Tea and coffee will be bountiful. This event is open to all and the entrance is free.

Ctrl-Alt-Save

Varia — Fri, 21 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Ever had a hard-drive crash? lost data? cloud back did not really backup? Time Machine did not have a past do go back to? Many questions around backup and data storage exist and many issues need to be resolved. From large database to a small personal collection, data storage affects everyone and many so-called solutions exist but are they really solutions?

At the first Ctrl-Alt-Save meetup at Varia, many of these questions might become more clear for you.

The focus of the first meetup will be on your data and how you can manage it better and more securely based on your interests and current issues. No solution guaranteed, but a possible better understanding of the topic.

Ctrl-Alt-S will be a series of events and meet-ups at Varia in 2020 and will be shaped by the feedback and comments of the attendees. The meet-ups will be in English.

Date: February 21, 2020
Time: 11:00 - 16:00

Heath Bunting - in conversation with the Voluntary Fire Brigade of the Apocalypse

Varia — Mon, 17 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Heath Bunting is an artist based in the UK who, for more than thirty years, has questioned and undermined systems of control and communication. He began as a street artist putting up fly posters in public spaces, belonged to the first generation of net.artists in the 1990s where he found (and ran the server of) irational.org, but turned away from the Internet in 1998, seeing its corporate takeover as early as in that year.

He set up several radio stations, collaborated with Kate Rich on alternative distribution systems for goods and workshops for trespassing private property. For his "Identity Bureau', he investigated ways for people to legally obtain a new names and identities using loopholes in the bureaucracies of Western countries (and gave an Identity Bureau workshop in 2014 at Wlfrt Projectspace Rotterdam). In his daily life and travels, he strictly avoids use of electronic systems that make him traceable, including bank cards and mobile phones.

The above is only a small fraction of his activities in working against control systems. Florian Cramer will have a two-hour conversation with Heath Bunting on his past and present projects, with the aim to share Heath's knowledge and experience with the audience. This will be followed, at 16.00, by heath's critical feedback on the current activities of the Voluntary Fire Brigade of the Apocalypse in Rotterdam.

Program:

14.00-16.00: Thirty years of researching and working against control systems - conversation & project review with Heath Bunting
16.00-17.00: Feedback on the Voluntary Fire Brigade of the Apocalypse
17.00-19.00: break with coffee, tea, soup
19.00: DJ set by Jacco Weener

date: February 17, 2020 entry: free or donation

Alles Flex? Call me Intern, City Dragon

Varia — Sat, 08 Feb 2020 17:30:00 +0100

Varia would like to invite you to an evening of documentary watching, thoughtful debate and a musical performance!

On the February we will be screening the documentaries "Alles Flex?" and "Call me Intern", both of which reflect on the devastating consequences caused by the ongoing flexibilization of both housing and work. To further clarify and present these topics, Abel Heijkamp, one of the filmmakers responsible for "Alles Flex?" and member of Bondprecaire Woonvormen, has kindly agreed to be present for a Q&A and conversation.

The second part of the program will be secured by Sam Kreuk, who will be presenting his solo project, City Dragon.

Location: Varia, Gouwstraat 3 (Rotterdam)
Date: Saturday 8th of February
Time: 17:30 - 21:30
Entry: Donation

City Dragon
City Dragon is the solo project of Max Kaario aka. Sam Kreuk. Using saxophone, recorders, toys and percussion he creates improvised collages and loops. Expect diva vocalization, power ballads, street trance, a collapsing assemblage of garbage rhythms, Celine Dion mesmer mantra's and much more!

https://maxkaario.wixsite.com/citydragon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP7PE4qcUS4&feature=emb_title
https://citydragon.bandcamp.com/

Alles Flex?
In the documentary ‘Alles Flex?’ (All Flex?) filmmakers Abel Heijkamp (NL) and Julij Borštnik (SI) explore the possible consequences of the current flexibilisation of our life-world. It draws upon the personal accounts of flex workers and flex tenants of different ages and walks of life. What kind of society are we fostering when existential security is no longer a right, but a privilege for those who can afford it?

‘Alles Flex?’ is the first episode of a 4 part web documentary series The Future of Work. Filmed in the Netherlands, Slovenija, Germany and Europe.

Call me Intern
Young, unemployed and frustrated, Filmmakers David Leo Hyde and Nathalie Berger set out to land an internship so they can examine the system from the inside in an act of millenial gonzo-film making.

After David accepts an internship at the United Nations, they move into a small blue tent on the Geneva lakefront and begin documenting his unpaid intern experience. Their action sparks a global press storm, challenging their roles as filmmakers.

Meanwhile, Marisa works for a US presidential election campaign, while fending off harassment from her supervisors. Kyle interns for a fortune-500 company, while living in a New York homeless shelter.

Each of these interns faces a choice: accept the system the way it is or put their careers on the line to speak out against it. Their actions help give visibility and strength to a growing global intern movement. Their journeys reveal the pressures which lead so many millennials to work for free while pop-culture extracts and testimonies from academics, politicians and employers give us a sense of how wide the internship phenomenon has spread.

Schedule:
17:30: Doors open
18:00: Alles Flex + Q&A with filmmaker Abel Heijkamp
19:45: Break
20:00: Call Me Intern
21:15: Break
21:30: City Dragon

Read & Repair feat. The Bootleg Library

Varia — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Need books? Need zines? Need electronic parts?

Starting in January 2020, Varia will have their doors open every last Sunday of the month.

On Sunday the 26th of January, Varia has a special guest: Simon Browne will be introducing the “bootleg library”, which is a shared digital and physical library of bootlegged texts.

 bootleg library sessions

 what to bring?
         a computer and some of your favourite ebooks 
         (PDF, EPUB, whatever)

 what will we do?
         we’ll have an introduction to the “bootleg library”, 
         which is a shared digital and physical library of 
         bootlegged texts. let’s make user accounts, download 
         and upload some texts, talk about what we’re reading 
         and how we like to organise our bookshelves, and 
         together discuss ways the library can develop.

Tea and coffee will be bountiful. This event is open to all and the entrance is free.

Program:

Sunday, 26 Jan 2020

11:00 - 17:00 (ongoing sessions, you can come or go anytime)

Feminist Hack Meetings

Varia — Sat, 25 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Artemis and Angeliki invite you to join the Feminist Hack Meetings.

A feminist approach to technology takes into consideration the social and political context around it. It pushes the boundaries of technological circles, in order to include gender-diverse people, amateurs, or others who have experienced low or high levels of exclusion in tech environments. They also include cultural, artistic and educational practices that are approaching technology, not as an end in itself.

The idea started after participating in /ETC (Eclectic Tech Carnival) in Athens, which is a gathering of feminists, who critically use/study/share/improve everyday information technologies in the context of the free software and open hardware movements.

In this first gathering we will give an overview and an introduction to this series of meetings. We will discuss on how this proposal may grow in time.

Program:

Saturday, 25 Jan 2020

17:00 - 19:00

The event image is part of an illustration made by an /ETC member for /ETC Athens 2019

BPW Rotterdam Huurdersspreekuur + Meet and greet

Varia — Mon, 25 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0100

Dear all,

Bond Precaire Woonvormen (BPW) organizes another round of their tenant consultation plus meet and greet at Varia on Monday the 25th of November. You are welcome to join us for an afternoon and evening of discussion, co-learning, reflection on the housing situation in Rotterdam, our rights as tenants and how we can support each other to work towards solutions for more safe, secure and affordable housing.

BPW is a solidarity movement organised by volunteers who support each other based on the conviction that housing is a fundamental right that must be protected.

SoliGreets,

Varia

In the Rotterdam/The Hague region there are many problems in finding and keeping affordable housing. Living has become precarious and expensive. As the BPW is relatively unknown in this region, even though there are a couple of members active in this area, we thought it would be a good idea to organize a tenant consultation in the city of Rotterdam.

In addition, we are setting up a local department of BPW's in Rotterdam and The Hague. Do you have the time and would you like to participate? Or do you have questions or ideas about this subject? Then, please feel welcome to join us!

15:00 - 17:00, Tenant consultation

Do you have any questions about (temporary) rent, evictions or unreasonable demands from landlords, and do you want to know what your rights are? During our tenant consultation, experienced people from BPW can inform you about what you can do in such a situation.

19.30 - 21:00, BPW meets and greet

We give a short presentation about the activities that the BPW has undertaken to demand housing security for residents. What methods and goals does the BPW have and what can we do together to organise ourselves? Are you interested in participating in a local department of BPW in the The Hague/Rotterdam region?

For more information about the event, see this announcement [Dutch].

To learn more about the association, see bondprecairewoonvormen.nl [Dutch].

Music: Niek Hilkmann, Vulva, Rowan Van As, G. de Singer Songwriter and DJ Wanneer

Varia — Sat, 16 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0100

Another musical night at Varia! Join us on November 16th for an evening full of singers, songwriters, noise and cardboard!

Niek Hilkmann en de Puls

"Your empty milk bottle", "Hey, that's strange ... There is a bug in your hair" and "Zaamslag, never again"; those are not just some random words, but songtitles that Niek Hilkmann is considering for his new EP. To commemorate the fact that they will be recording this very soon, he will perform these songs at Varia with his band, De Puls. Expect a colorful succession of unprecedented scoops and perhaps even some old acquaintances.

Web
Video

Vulva

Vulva is a twoheaded, feminine beast with a mouth so big that you usually only see it in fairy tales and fables. This doesn’t stop them from visiting Varia however! Expect a lot of noise, some theatrical escapades and an abundance of shouting, We will witness Vulva erupt!

Facebook
Souncloud

Rowan van As

One does not easily describe the life and times of Rowan Van As. This artist-troubadour sings, draws, sculpts and records like there is no tomorrow with the help of an abundance of props and home-made instruments (such as his famous organ mussel). At Varia he will perform some brand new songs for us and warm your heart!

Web
Video

G. de Singer Songwriter

Gerard Olthaar is, as his name suggests, a true Singer-Songwriter; a solo musician who knows how to move and amaze an audience with just his guitar and voice. His songs are raw like the paving stones of Rotterdam and his guitar sound is unquestionably unique.

Web
Video

DJ Wanneer

No evening of entertainment is complete without a proper DJ and that is why we are very to have DJ Wanneer on the line-up. This individual combines the best of Scheveningen, Rotterdam and Zoeterwoude by playing an eclectic mix of little crooners, dissonant girl bands and overall hysterical music.

Web

door: 20:00
start: 20:30
entry: 5 euro

Century 21 Calling - Camp Century

Varia — Sat, 09 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0100

With Donald Trump's eagerness to buy Greenland, a new spotlight have been put on this island. However, it is not something new for Greenland to be in the centre of international geopolitics. With the melting of the ice sheets, new trade routes opening and a huge amount of mineral, oil and gas deposits, a new rush for the artic has started.

In the late 1950s, during the height of the Cold War, the US military constructed a secret base in the arctic, hidden from the populations of Greenland and Denmark. This base was a nuclear power facility and part of the secret Project Iceworm. During this edition of Century 21 Calling we will be screening the documentary Camp Century, which is about the construction of the base "Camp Century", the first of many envisioned bases on Greenland, to give you more context about the topic. Before the lecture there will be a lecture by David Young on the topic of Greenland, American politics and control and command strutter of the cold war.

David Young is a researcher interested in archiving media technologies, the history of computing, and the discourses of defence research in the United States during the Cold War. He is currently a M3C/AHRC-funded doctoral researcher at the University of Nottingham; his PhD topic is an examination of the technological administration of command and control systems, the forms of disciplinary practices they depend on in order to operate, and the strategic rationalities which shape their development over time. He has a background in digital media art, and has collaborated with artists, designers, and scientists in the production of experimental, research-oriented artworks funded by the Arts Trust Scotland, New Scotland's Alt-W award, and Creative Scotland.

Century 21 Calling is a series of screenings initiated by the Save_as collective and hosted at Varia in Rotterdam. Together, we take a look at the archival industrial films, corporate infomercials, tv reports and historical documentary of yesterday that shaped the imagination of tomorrow and hold it up to the light of the present.

Door open: 20:30
David Young lecture starts: 21:00
Screening: 21:45
Entry: Donation

Entreprecariat: Everyone Is an Entrepreneur. Nobody Is Safe. Mini Book Launch

Varia — Sat, 09 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0100

Join us for an image roulette session: together with Lìdia Pereira, Silvio Lorusso will randomly dig into his research directories to exhume entreprecarious memes, illustrations, screenshots, artworks, etc.

Entrepreneur or precarious worker? These are the terms of a cognitive dissonance that turns everyone’s life into a shaky project in perennial start-up phase. Silvio Lorusso guides us through the entreprecariat, a world where change is natural and healthy, whatever it may bring. A world populated by motivational posters, productivity tools, mobile offices and self-help techniques. A world in which a mix of entrepreneurial ideology and widespread precarity is what regulates professional social media, online marketplaces for self-employment and crowdfunding platforms for personal needs. The result? A life in permanent beta, with sometimes tragic implications.

“A compelling and relentless j’accuse: debunking the social and political myths that push an increasing number of persons to perform in the entrepreneurship circus — with no safety nets.” — Antonio Casilli, author of En attendant les robots, 2019

Time: 18:00h - 19:00h

Entry: Free/Donation

THE SOCIAL IN THE MEDIA: On Digital Interdependencies (Varia Visits ODD)

Cristina, Julie, Manetta, Roel, Silvio — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0200

In June 2019, a delegation of Varia traveled to Bucharest to meet and exchange with ODD, a space for theoretical discussion and social gatherings of all kinds founded and run by Cristina Bogdan. On the 19th, we gave a presentation entitled "The Social in the Media: On Digital Interdependencies". This was the abstract of the talk:

One of the big contradictions of the scene of self-organised cultural initiatives is that we are extremely reliant on corporate social media when it comes to our digital presence. For example, it seems both unthinkable and inescapable to organise an evening without a corresponding Facebook event, or to plan that evening without Google Docs or coordinating via a Whatsapp group.

The evening will touch upon alternative tools and approaches, from federated and community-owned social media platforms, and other types of infrastructures that Varia, a space in the South of Rotterdam (the Netherlands), is experimenting with. Departing from discussions on this situation and its causes, we will try to imagine and formulate the affective infrastructures that shape everyday cultural practices and online socialities.

Attendants reading Constant's "Dear Cultural Institution, There's an Elephant in the Room" letter. Photo by Florian Cramer.

We started the session by briefly mentioning our individual practices and how Varia came from a dissatisfaction with existing models for self-run spaces, such as the makerspace (lack of critical theory involved), the hackerspace (technology for technology's own sake), the co-working space (sociality as a a service), the fablab, etc.

After this introduction, the topic of the evening was more precisely expounded through a collective reading of "Dear Cultural Institution, There's an Elephant in the Room", a letter by Brussels based organisation Constant which addresses the troublesome relationship that independent cultural institutions maintain with corporate tools and social media. The letter was written as a reaction to multiple organisations' request for "help to degooglify". Following the reading, a short discussion took place, during which we invited the audience to exchange with us the intricacies of their relationship to corporate social media, but also their experiences, or lack thereof, and the obstacles they encountered while attempting to establish some distance.

Obviously, Varia hasn't found any definitive solution to this issue, but the question does connect to a lot of the practices in and around Varia. To explain how we tried to address some of the concerns raised in the letter we created a map of the broad Varia digital ecosystem. With this map, we wanted to stress that our current strategy consists in a combination of self-hosted tools and services (such as the website, the collaborative note taking software Etherpad, the on-line calendar and the git-based code sharing repository), but also some that are run by solidary organizations (such as mailing lists, chat, individual fediverse micro-blogging accounts) and some that are paid for (email). Our wish was to emphasize that a cultural organization doesn't necessarilily need to do everything by themselves, but can make use of what is already available.

We then spoke about our use of bots in chat systems, both to communicate and to document our exchanges. Our initial idea was to develop new forms of note-taking based on our interaction habits. We share a lot of different types of information in group chats, from news to recommendations of articles to instigations to clean the fridge. Starting from the conversational nature of our exchanges, we are experimenting with two different bot-users in the chat: one that gathers images shared on the main Varia channel and displays them online, and another one, focused specifically on the topic of digital interdependencies, that gathers images, quotes and looks for books' citations.

Beyond these internal initiatives, we also try to reach out and collaborate with people involved in the development of the tools we are interested in. Last year we invited Daniel Gultsch, the developer of Conversations, an open source application for self-hosted chat that is used in Varia. Daniel introduced his work and reflections before animating a worksession organised as part of the Welcome to the Federation project. This example was mentioned as one of the ways in which Varia tries not only to use, but also to contribute to and engage more broadly with free software tools and culture.

Varia delegation presenting at ODD. Photo by Florian Cramer.

An other thing we mentioned is the centrality of Etherpad, the collaborative note-taking software, in our practice. The main reason for that is its flexibility and the tools one can build on top of it, such as Etherdump, a command line tool written by Michael Murtaugh that converts etherpad pages to files. Our use of this tool turned our collaborative writing practice into a collaborative publishing practice. As the pads are driving us to write, edit, add and remove text all the time collectively, most content can be described as traces or fragments rather than "properly" edited essays. Reflecting on this tendency, we discussed the possibility of publishing through leaking. This idea became the departure point for the development of a new Etherdump feature allowing us to collect only the pads featuring a "PUBLISH" mention. As a result, the Etherdump became a fuzzy field of documents, that can speak to others in the group.

For the last part of the presentation, we spoke about collaborative projects initiated within Varia which make explicit the importance of tools within our members respective practices. The project Pushing Scores, developed by Cristina and Julie, was mentioned because its development was heavily influenced by our familiarity with software, including its vulnerabilities. Pushing scores, an archive for a research project about experimental score making, was commissioned by De Player, a Rotterdam based organisation dedicated to experimental music and performance. The outcome is a database free lightweight website made using Python (Flask, Jinja and nltk) in which all the content is interlinked through the vocabulary used by De Player themselves to describe it. Each word submitted by de Player is a clickable link, offering the possibility to chose from a list of sentences containing this specific word within the whole collection to access an other item.

Varia XMPP federation nodes with other chat providers.

Ultimately, we tried to introduce and discuss our own experience to point out to strategies that can be adopted by other organizations, such as using the resources of hosting associations or solidary organizations, rather than corporate ones. Furthermore, we also tried to emphasize how the adoption of such tools have provided us with the freedom to implement some custom elements, from bots to publishing tools. We explained our attachment to free software and what other types of hosting can be (such as the ones inspired by the Feminist Server Manifesto). We discussed as well the value and perils of federation against the private silos of the GAFAM and the need for trusted intermediaries. Together with ODD and the audience we discussed the politics of adoption of free software and self-hosting, the issue of time investment and the issues around delegating control over services and instruments.

Floppy Totaal: Double Density

Varia — Sat, 19 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0200

Floppy Totaal visits Varia for another round of dual-layered action. At "Floppy Totaal: Double Density" you can join members of the Floppy Kick music label during a live recording and publishing workshop in the afternoon. The subsequent evening program is filled to the brim with performances by Kisszántó and Eoforwine, presentations and conversations with Joak and Jason Scott and a long distance contribution by Michael Ridge.

The emphasis of the event lies on the concept of the floppy disk as comfort food in a "future/present shocked" digital age. In what way does working with floppy disks help us cope in a time preoccupied with "new" media and planned obsolescence? Does the floppy disk hold more content than just 1,44 MB of data? Join us to find out!

workshop: 14:00 / free
evening: 20:00 / 5 euro

Full Program:

Part 1 of Floppy Totaal @ Varia (14:00-18:00) is free and consists of a special Floppy Kick workshop and a conversation.

Part 2 of Floppy Totaal: Magnetic Flux starts at 20:00 and has tickets for sale that can be purchased at the door for 5 euro's each. The event consists of a series of talks, performances and contributions by Eoforwine, Kisszántó, Michael Ridge, Joak and Jason Scott.

Floppy Kick Workshop

Floppy Kick Records is a not-for-profit, floppy-only label that was formed in Budapest in 2013. All its releases are handmade and any "income" they produce goes straight into future releases. They take a non-political, yet critical position by explicitally rejecting any racism, sexism, homophobic or other forms of radicalism on their releases, choosing to instead focus on the beauty of sound. This can be in any style; experimental, noise, ambient, musique concrète, dark sounds, hnw, avantgarde, field recordings, industrial, power electronics, lo-fi, grindcore, or anything interesting. They believe in physical formats and respect their collectors. During their workshop at Floppy Totaal you can contribute to Floppy Kick by helping out with the recording and releasing of a brand new floppy release.

http://floppykickrecords.blogspot.com/ https://floppykick.bandcamp.com/

Eoforwine

Mark Windisch aka. Eoforwine is the founder of the Floppy Kick label and plays beatless lo-fi noise music, spiced with modified field recordings, synths and a light theremin. He is a regular participant of Eastern Hungary's noise events, including the annual Zajkert (Noise Garden) and the Banzaj series, and has toured through and played at many experimental festivals and gallery openings through Middle-Europe and Ireland.

https://eoforwine.bandcamp.com/

Kisszántó

Tamás Szántó is a DJ, producer, cratedigger and promotor who is dedicated to seeking strange soundings and musical forms with peculiar diligence. He harkens the musical topicalities; not to adapt, but to avoid them. Collecting records such as experimental noise mixes, or fine theatrical idm ones; he might as well have just the right, harsh & obscure acid vinyl to mix further with.

https://kisszanto.bandcamp.com/

Joak

Joseph Oliver Anton Knierzinger or JoaK is an artist and ghost artist. At the moment he works on different algorithms and alogisms between Vienna, Guangzhou and Wartberg. At Floppy Totaal he will present the results of his explorations into the recordable magnetic properties of the floppy disk.

https://joak.nospace.at/

Michael Ridge

Michael Ridge is a UK based artist that creates works whichoften incorporate sound, video, electronics, sculpture, collage and found objects, often exploring the properties of sound reproduction through non-musical materials and objects. He has a keen interest in documenting and presenting the unwanted, overlooked or decayed. Some of his activities include recording and performing Noise Music under the alias Zebra Mu, running the DIY record label Quagga Curious Sounds, being one half of the drawing/zine/mail art duo Ridge & Scrase and being a member of the artist collective other/other/other. For Floppy Totaal Michael Ridge will compose a new sound art composition that draws inspiration from the works of John Cage and Alvin Lucier; whilst examining the physical and storage limitations of the humble floppy disk. A commemoration of extreme file compression!

https://michaelridge.wordpress.com/

Jason Scott

Jason Scott Sadofsky is an American archivist, historian of technology, filmmaker, performer, and actor. Scott has been known by the online pseudonyms Sketch, SketchCow, and The Slipped Disk and has been called "figurehead of the digital archiving world". He is the creator, owner and maintainer of textfiles.com, a web site which archives files from historic bulletin board systems. He is the creator of a 2005 documentary film about BBSes, BBS: The Documentary, and a 2010 documentary film about interactive fiction, GET LAMP. During Floppy Totaal a long distance conversation will be held with Jason Scott about his work, his life and the current state of the floppy disk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Scott

Floppy Totaal

Floppy Totaal is a Rotterdam based initiative by Niek Hilkmann, Thomas Walskaar and Lídia Pereira that investigates the reuse and re-purposing of 'outdated' technology as a cultural phenomenon. By examining the contemporary usage of the iconic floppy diskette, they hope to assess the way past technology is integrated into our culture today, as well as its future potential. The goal of the project is to inject the debate surrounding obsolescent media with new enthusiasm and stimulate a critical approach to the topic with the help of extensive field research in the realm of the floppy disk.

http://www.floppytotaal.org/

This event is made possible with the kind support of Varia and Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie (Creative Industries Fund NL).

One evening, Two launches, Three takes

Varia — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0200

We are all very glad to invite you to the launch of the second issue of Networks of One's Own: three takes on taking care and Fed Up!, the 13th issue of the Pervasive Labour Union zine. We will celebrate this with an evening of stories and discussions around networks and maintenance practices.

Location: Varia, Gouwstraat 3 (Rotterdam)
Date: Saturday 28th of September
Time: 19:30h - 21:30h

Networks Of One’s Own is a para-nodal¹ periodic publication that is itself collectively written in a network. Each of the episodes is thought of as the ‘release’ of a specific software stack, contextualised in its specific practice. The series aims to document a set of tools, experiences, ways of working that are diverse in terms of their temporality, granularity and persistence. Three takes on taking care is the second volume of this series.

In our activity as artists, designers and researchers working with and around free/libre open source technology based projects, we often encounter situations where collective authorship gives rise to complicated interrelationships of ownership. Specifically, these involve the practical aspects of care, maintenance, documentation and overall commitment.

Three of these projects, homebrewserver.club, Bibliotecha and Relearn, have been influential for the individual practices of those involved, but also for a wider international network of actors, including exhibition spaces, festivals, collective and both formal and informal learning communities. The maintenance of those projects, however, which is long-term and requires ongoing engagement, often lags behind since it is taken up by individuals on the basis of their ability and time.

This publication is the result of an act of active documentation of the networked projects developed in and around Varia. Active documentation means that we not only documented, but also revisited these projects, spending time on their maintenance and consolidation:

homebrewserver.club, a periodic gathering where people learn together and reflect on self-hosting digital content. (http://homebrewserver.club)
Bibliotecha, a project centered on the development of local offline digital libraries for the distribution of electronic publications within small communities. (http://bibliotecha.info)
Relearn, a self-organised 'summer school' reflecting upon collective learning, that has as many teachers as it has participants. (http://relearn.be/)

With this publication we hope to improve their resilience, portability, long-term sustainability and accessibility.

The first issue in the series was initiated by Constant and documents the project 'Etherbox', a collaborative writing and documentation environment. The publication included a genealogy of the events, ideas and practices in the Constant network that influenced or reversely were influenced by what eventually became known as Etherbox. This way of documenting stresses how a project like Etherbox is the work of a heterogenous network of practices that each in their way contribute to its formation.

https://networksofonesown.varia.zone/

https://networksofonesown.constantvzw.org/

Fed Up! is the 13th edition of the The Pervasive Labour Union and explores topics and issues relating to federated social networks such as Mastodon, Pleroma and Funkwhale. It was made possible by the contributions of Martin Schotten, Eliot Berriot, Luke Murphy, Eugen Rochko, Julia Janssen, Gui Machiavelli, Inge Hoonte and Louisa Bufardeci, and Silvio Lorusso.

The Pervasive Labour Union zine is a project initiated by Lídia Pereira in 2015. It not only offers a low-barrier entry level for contributors wishing to express their views on corporate social networking labour, but also a low-barrier entry level for those wishing to become acquainted with these debates. It tries to gather existing knowledge and conversations, while opening up that debate and creating new discourses of user organisation and expression.

It brings together personal rants, academic texts, poetry, photo montages, collages, drawing, etc. Each issue represents a smaller particle pertaining to labour on social networking platforms and attempts to establish an interconnecting discourse around topics such as labour on corporate social networks, algorithmic governance, resistance and alternatives.

http://ilu.servus.at/category/13-fed-up.html

This event is made possible with the kind support of the Creative Industries Fund NL.

See: Paranodes in Contra-Internet, Zach Blas https://www.e-flux.com/journal/74/59816/contra-internet/ ↩

BPW Rotterdam Tenant Consultation Hours + Meet & Greet

Varia — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0200

Dear all,

We are very happy to announce that a second tenant consultation plus meet and greet by Bond Precaire Woonvormen (BPW) will take place at Varia on Monday the 23rd of September. You are welcome to join us for an afternoon and evening of discussion, co-learning, reflection on the housing situation in Rotterdam, our rights as tenants and how we can support each other to work towards solutions for more safe, secure and affordable housing.

BPW is a solidarity movement organised by volunteers who support each other based on the conviction that housing is a fundamental right that must be protected.

SoliGreets,

Varia

15:00 - 17:00, Tenant consultation

19.30 - 21:00, BPW meets and greet

For more information about the event, see this announcement [Dutch].

To learn more about the association, see bondprecairewoonvormen.nl [Dutch].

Music: Able Noise, Goldblum and Piyojo

Varia — Thu, 12 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0200

A new season has arrived; time for some fresh concerts at Varia! Kicking of the second half of 2019, we organize an event where three stirring acts will show their craft.

Able Noise is a baritone guitar/drum duo that is based in The Hague and Athens and consists of Alex and George. They indecisively balance themselves on the border between pop rock and noisy free jazz. With the help of tapes and by employing less consistent ways of playing their instruments, they create a somewhat minimal and rather visual musical performance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MacLS1n0l_0

Piyoji is the monikor of Dutch artist Rik Möhlmann. The music he makes has a distinct, liberating sound, characterized by a modest and direct way of recording musical sessions in which different textures are explored. Sounds appear from left to right, as if hidden behind trees or emerging from rivers. Möhlmann uses his eccentric and inquisitive approach to music to make songs that don't necessarily behave in a narrative way. Instead, his tracks expose themselves like little paintings

https://soundcloud.com/piyojo?fbclid=IwAR3Dj-IZUWjOgQXt2bpofTPCV4riTPNSgouNV1D3tuyvslAk4Nqc_BO6xuE

Goldblum is an eye blinding duo from Middelland messing around with flea market cassette tapes and analogue synthesizers. Expect fragments of golden oldies, crippled rhythms and synthesized sounds buried in tape hiss. The duo has cut their teeth in acts like Sweat Tongue and Red Brut.

door: 20:30
start: 21:00
price: 5 euro

Century 21 Calling - Crystals Go To War

Varia — Sat, 24 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0200

Century 21 Calling is back; still showing archival industrial films, corporate infomercials, TV reports and historical documentaries that shaped the imagination of tomorrow and hold them up to the light of the present.

This evening we will be screening the documentary Crystal Go To War from 1943. Created by the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1943, it shows the processes that quartz crystals have to go through before they are ready to be inserted into radios and communication equipment.

Quartz crystals have been part of human life for decades and since the discovery of its piezoelectric properties in the 1880's it has been a key component in modern technology.

Before the screening, there will be a small introduction the usage of crystals in technology. So join us on the 24 for the first screening of the 2 seasons of Century 21 Calling!

“Century 21 Calling” is a series of screenings initiated by the Save_as collective and hosted at Varia in Rotterdam.

door: 20:30
intro: 20:45
screening: 21:00
price: Donation

Bibliotecha, building and maintaining an off-line digital library

Varia — Thu, 30 May 2019 00:00:00 +0200

Building and maintaining an off-line digital library

Bibliotecha is a toolkit to maintain local off-line digital libraries. With it, communities can create and share collections of digital publications in their local area. Technically Bibliotecha relies on a small single board computer (such as a RaspberryPi) running free and open source software to serve digital publications on an open Wi-fi hotspot. Using a laptop, phone or tablet visitors can connect to it and books can be retrieved or donated via the browser. Since it is a low-power device you can power it with a USB powerbank and take it with you everywhere.

During the workshop we will guide participants through the installation process of a Bilbiotecha node. Participants will get introduced to the open source software stack, working with a RaspberryPi and Calibre the library management tool. This will be followed by a book sharing session and conversation where we exchange knowledge on taking care of a off-line digital community library.

At the end of the workshop participants will have a basic working understanding of the command line interface, working with Linux and the RaspberryPi.
In addition participants will get an understanding of the ins and outs of managing collections of digital books.
Last but not least, participants will take home a working Bibliotecha node, ready to distribute books!

Varia curriculum

This workshop is organised as part of the Varia curriculum.

The curriculum is an ongoing series of workshops in which participants are introduced to technical, theoretical and methodological skills at the basis of the various practices that live within Varia. These are short intensive master-classes or workshops aimed towards providing high level introductions as a basis for further explorations.

Would you like to join this workshop? Please send us a short email on the info[a]varia.zone email address at the 04 of July the latest!

⌂ Varia, Gouwstraat 3 (Rotterdam Charlois)
⌚ 06 July 10:00h - 16:00h (Lunch between 12:30h and 13:00h)
💶 Bring your own Raspberry pi workshop price: 50 euros or All materials incuded (Raspberry pi 3, power supply, sd card) price: 100 euros (coffee, tea and cookies included)
💶 Bring ebooks and pdfs you would like to share with the group
💶* The workshop will be conducted in English

^* Lack of funds should not preclude participation. Please get in contact with us to discuss the options (info[a]varia.zone).

Relearn 2019 curved

Varia — Wed, 29 May 2019 00:00:00 +0200

For the Rotterdam control point on this year's curved edition of Relearn, we propose to together attend to a subject zone (•) where different digital network practices intersect. This subject zone can morph into multiple directions throughout the session. Our specific interest is in how publishing formats (••) operate with/on/through this zone.

• There are many questions in the air when we start to speak about digital infrastructures, hosters, servers, services, networks and their technical realities. Instead of picking one and diving deeper, we thought it would be more interesting to present a range and explore different vocabularies, protocols, technologies, infrastructures. We invite you to join Relearn to stretch this zone, starting from or moving towards:

digital interdependencies
affective infrastructures
homebrew networks
networked entanglements
feminist servers
federated networks
and-and-networks
digital autonomy
transitional infrastructures
digital selves-organisations
so-and-sovereignty networks
out-of-the-cloud thinking
…

•• We’re curious about learning through publishing formats. The different publishing formats serve as an invitation to embed ourselves within the subject zone of digital networks. How can these formats be our morphable lenses, that we use to relearn digital networks? Starting from or moving towards:

multiple readers
cross-readings created through algorithms
logbooks
syllabi
documentation
annotations
cookbooks
tutorials
README
bug reports
link dumps
scores
…

Many sub-trajectories can emerge from here during the days, without the need of taking the same path or agreeing about vocabularies or geometries altogether.

The session will take place in Rotterdam and starts on Friday evening (the 7th) in a public setting, followed by two full days of relearning together.

Friday 7th June 20:00 - 22:00
Relearn public evening program: embed yourself into Relearn

Saturday/Sunday 8-9th June 10:00 - 18:00
Relearn sub-zone-trajectories

If you would like to join this Relearn session, please send an email to info@varia.zone with a short motivation of your interest. We will reply to subscriptions on a regular basis, up to the 26th of May.

Our capacities allow us to have a group of 30 relearners. Our preference goes out to people that can join the whole session (Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday). We will take care of a daily vegetarian lunch (please let us know about allergies or other dietary preferences). Following a tradition from previous years, we will arrange a hosting network in the city and find a place to stay for everyone. Please mention in the email if you need to be hosted or could host one or more relearners in your house.

If you would like to join us only on the Friday evening, there is no need to subscribe, just come over! :)

Practical info
Date: 7th-9th June 2019
Location: Varia - Gouwstraat 3, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Website: relearn.be

Resources & contact
→ email: info@varia.zone
→ subscribe to the Relearn mailinglist
→ Relearn’s gitlab repository
→ IRC channel: #relearn on Freenode
→ Photographs of previous Relearn editions can be found in Constant’s gallery

This event is made possible with the support of the Gemeente Rotterdam & Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie.

Activating an archive

Varia — Tue, 28 May 2019 00:00:00 +0200

Publication launch and performance evening

At the end of last year, De Player approached Varia to develop a web-publication for their Pushing Scores project archive. The project investigated the state of the arts of composing scores in a contemporary environment and spanned over 2-3 years.

Varia contributed by developing an archival web publication where the vernacular vocabulary of De Player creates the possibilities of text-based navigation across the collection of items. The material is embodied by a dynamic, accessible and therefore active archive, which creates new relations, new perspectives and, at its best, new concepts for the production and/or processes of making scores. Navigating within the data structure of the archive becomes an act of score notation.

To test this De Player and Varia asked several artists to work with the tool and use the result as a starting point for a performance.

Julie Boschat Thorez and Cristina Cochior will give a brief introduction to the tool, followed by Niek Hilkmann, Christine Cornwell and Robert Kroos's score interpretations.

The performances will be ongoing throughout the night, you are welcome to join in at any moment.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Niek Hilkmann is a Rotterdam based artist, musician and researcher with a background in art history, media design and musicology. He has a particular interest in the abstruse technological condition we are living in and the insufficient intellectual methodologies that seek to justify, or explain it. During the presentation of Pushing Scores he will utilize the spatial dimensions of Varia and recontextualize the scores created by the archive. In an ongoing performance unexpected correlations will be produced between the items in the archive and the physical surroundings in which they are represented.

Christine Cornwell is a composer and violinist working between NL/UK with projects involving improvisation and collaborative work often combined with visual artists, dancers, opera companies or experimental TV. She is currently completing a Composition MA at Codarts with Hans Koolmees/René Uijlenhoet and her freelance work includes presenting new works for violin, collaborative residencies, workshop leading and producing/curating events in this field. From her first experiments, such as 2011’s interdisciplinary collaboration with visual artist Eddie Peake/LuckyPDF TV at London’s Barbican to 2019's experimental event 'Invitation (x)', collective creation practises are a vital meeting point which can be traced through all of her creative work between performance, production and management.

Robert Kroos (aka Duckfood) is a Rotterdam based musician, sound-artist and DJ working on all kinds of sound- and music related projects. For this special event he will be using the guzheng and electronics as instruments of choice.

Date: Friday, 31 May 2019
Start: 20:00
Entrance: Free

BPW Rotterdam Tenant Consultation & Introduction

Varia — Thu, 02 May 2019 00:00:00 +0200

Dear all,

We are very happy to announce that members of the Union of Precarious Dwellings (Bond Precaire Woonvormen, BPW) are organising a tenant consultation and an introduction session at Varia on the 6th of May between 15:00 and 20:00.

BPW is a solidarity movement organised by volunteers who support each other based on the conviction that housing is a fundamental right that must be protected.

Please feel welcome to join us for a day of discussion, co-learning and reflection on the housing situation in Rotterdam, our rights as tenants and how we can support each other to work towards solutions for more safe, secure and affordable housing.

For more information on the event, please see this announcement.

To learn more about the union, please see bondprecairewoonvormen.nl.

SoliGreets,

Varia

Century 21 Calling - Safety First

Varia — Sat, 20 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0200

During the fifth screening of our Century 21 Calling series we will take a look at how to stay safe in an insecure world. Rules change over the decades; What was once seen as a completely safe thing to do, is now extremely deadly. How do you stay safe in the traffic? What are the dangers around the office? Where can your children play safely? These questions and many more will be addressed during this informative evening.

During “Century 21 Calling”, an series of screenings started by the collective Save_as and hosted at Varia in Rotterdam, we observe the archival industrial films, corporate informercials, tv reports and historical documentaries that shaped the imagination of tomorrow and hold them up to the light of the present.

door: 20:00
start: 20:30
price: donation

Open Day @ Varia

Varia — Sat, 13 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0200

During the next edition of South Explorer Varia will host its second annual open day. Expect an afternoon full of heated discussions, sound installations and retro video games. These include Idione Dynamic’s ‘What Remains’ and Mathijs van Oosterhoudt’s ‘Strange Fruits’. Furthermore, Thomas Walskaar will conduct interviews for his new project ‘Hidden Levels’ and Niek Hilkmann will present a new sound installation ‘Venice on the Maas’ in Varia's basement. Join us from 12 till 6!

Dear Cultural Intitiative, there is an Elephant in the Room

Varia — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0200

One of the big contradictions of the scene of self-organised cultural initiatives is that we are extremely reliant on corporate social media when it comes to our digital presence. For example, it seems both unthinkable and inescapable to organise an evening without a corresponding Facebook event, or to plan that evening without Google Docs or coordinating via a Whatsapp group.

This workshop is a moment for some out-of-the-cloud thinking. Departing from a discussion on this situation and its causes, we will try to imagine and formulate the digital infrastructures that shape our everyday cultural practices and online socialities. The workshop will touch upon alternative tools and approaches, from federated and community-owned social media platforms, to hosting cooperatives, free software philosophy and feminist understandings of the internet.

Date: Friday 12 April, 13:00h - 17:00h

This workshop is part of the Autonomous Fabric symposium. http://www.autonomousfabric.org

The Network We (de)Served, (XPUB Special Issue #08)

Varia — Thu, 04 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0200

Dear guest,

We traveled from home to home by bicycle, setting up homeservers. As friends and companions on this Infrastructour, we studied our routers over drinks served by our hosts. Where possible we installed our servers in our homes, in other cases we had to depend on another member of the group.

While self-hosting together we questioned our understandings of networks, autonomy, online publishing and social infrastructures, where each of us departed from a different question. We would like to share our personal (yet interconnected) routes with you, tell you a story, present our web- and printed zines, and invite you to explore our homebrewed network.

Date: Thursday, 04 April 2019
Location: Gouwstraat 3, Rotterdam
Entrance: Free
Start: 19:00

https://issue.xpub.nl/08/

Contributors: Simon Browne, Tancredi Di Giovanni, Paloma García, Rita Graça, Artemis Gryllaki, Pedro Sá Couto, Biyi Wen, Bohye Woo, Roel Roscam Abbing, Manetta Berends, Lídia Pereira, André Castro, Aymeric Mansoux, Michael Murtaugh, Steve Rushton, Leslie Robbins.

Brought to you by the Master of Arts in Fine Art and Design: Experimental Publishing (XPUB) of the Piet Zwart Institute, and Varia, Centre for Everyday Technology, Rotterdam, April 2019.

The Call Of The Kettle

Varia — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0100

There is more between heaven and earth than humankind! Therefore, we would like to direct your attention to your fellow "inanimate" object on the 15th of March. On this day five special acts will showcase their intimate relationship with their sewing machines, toasters, fans and working gloves. All this under the guise of 'The Call Of The Kettle'; the first object oriented music evening at Varia! During this event there will be performances by the following artists:

Agente Costura and Stephen Doyle are a duo playing improvised sounds, on amplified sewing machine and drums. Constura has been playing the Singer since 2003. In the daytime she tackles unwanted clothing, transforming them into new wearable shapes. At night, the Singer joins her fellow musicians and Lisa sews to the beat of the music, improvising on clothing based on rhythm and sound. Lisa has performed extensively, for instance at The Vancouver Art Gallery, the Month of Performance Art Berlin, the Bimhuis Amsterdam, and Curitiba Fashion Week. Stephen Doyle is a drummer, living and working in Amsterdam. His sounds have previously graced the creations of Dagora, 78rpm, and many more. Together, Costura and Doyle create a percussive upcycled torrent of uniquely sculpted sound.

Agente Costura Online
Stephen Doyle on Soundcloud

Watt’s Cookin’ is composed of Zeynep Aslan, Tamara van Suylekom and Inge Hoonte who met through re#sister and rehearse at Worm. For this performance, the three have teamed up to bang, clang and tinker with everyday household items. They are currently rehearsing in Inge's kitchen with the orchestra members they’ve interested to participate, such as water cookers and coffee percolators, a knife and a cutting board, a few jars with nuts, rice, and corn, and a couple of empty jars, a mini oven, two pans, two tea spoons and an egg beater. A bread toaster and a coconut milk can are hesitant if they want to join this upbeat troupe, but they will probably fit right in!

De Brut is a new project by Marijn Verbiesen who, according to sources, is "one of the forces that keeps the Rotterdam underground together!" She has participated in numerous projects (Sweat Tongue, Red Brut) and is active as one of the organizers of the infamous Herman concert series. Besides that Verbiesen is renowned for her tape collages that are highly personal and highly regarded by magazines like The Wire.

Red Brut Online

Beachcombartband is a one-man-sea-trash-band from Rotterdam, helmed by none other than Bart Koppe. He performs with a collection of marine debris, played by mechanics and by hand. He will sweep the beach and throw its garbage on your head, in a maze of audio galactic joyfulness.

The Singing Toaster is not like other toasters, because not every toaster is able to sing. Therefore the inclusion of this one during ‘the call of the kettle’ is somewhat of an occasion. Will the burned crumbs between its heating elements be enough to warm your heart?

Date: Friday, 15 March 2019
Entrance: 5 euro
Door: 20:00
Start: 20:30

Conversas at varia

Varia — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0100

On the 6th of February from 19:30 to 21:30, Varia has the pleasure to host one of the nomadic Conversas evenings.

Conversas is a series of bi-weekly informal meetings made so that we can get to know each other, share projects, stories or interests.

During the event, three Conversadores (those who start the conversation) bring something to share with the gathered group, for thirty minutes each. As the title suggests, Conversas (Conversations in Portuguese) aim at an equal set up from which both the Conversadores and the group benefit. In this series, we are challenging our guests to not use a beamer, try to be creative and use only words and/or other objects to tell their story.

The three Conversadores for the session at Varia are:

Karla de Witte (Dutch Love Letters)
Clara Mendes (Nude models, postcolonialism and museums)
Ludovic Lacreuse (Digressions around a flag)

Karla is designer and educator of visual arts. DLL started when two mothers met at a colorful schoolyard in Rotterdam. Both born and grown up in different parts of the world, sharing similar memories of New Year's Eve with waffles. Delicate and very thin made with great patience by their grandmothers. www.instagram.com/dutch_love_letters/

Clara has recently moved from Portugal to The Netherlands to pursue her wish to learn more about how art impacts the lives of different people. She will talk about the projects she jumped into throughout her master's program in Arts and Society whilst she was still struggling to find her way around a new city.

After a 3 month artist residency (State of the City, in Paviljoen aan het Water, in Rotterdam), Ludovic will present a flag which will be hoisted on top of the varia zone building. His conversation will be filled by digressions about different subjects more or less related to the flag.

The 13th series of ten Conversas Rotterdam starts on the 7th of November and runs every other Wednesday until the 20th of March. This series is happening in different locations spread through the city of Rotterdam. It is organized by Bérénice Staiger, Constança Saraiva, Marco Aperti, Zahra Said and Sebastian Helbers.

Conversas is a project initiated in Lisbon by Constança Saraiva and Mafalda Fernandes, in 2012. Nowadays, it's a project of many people and cities.

Events are open to all and the entrance is free.

Varia New Year's Reception

Varia — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0100

It's a new year! Dennis (de Bel) is back, the window is broken and l'intolerant #18 is out. Enough reasons to come together and have a drink.

This Friday, the 11th of January, from 19:30, Varia opens its doors for some special new year's drinks and some fitting music.

Woodstone Kugelblitz will also be presenting the latest issue of L'Intolerant #18: A Really Useful Cookbook.

Almost everyone is welcome and the entrance is free. However, a voluntary donation of 5 euros will help us replace our window and is greatly appreciated!

See you there!

Christmas at Varia - With adammmmmmmmmmmm and Logosamphia

Varia — Sat, 22 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0100

A cold wind is blowing through Charlois; leaves are falling from of trees, birds fly to the south and people start waxing their ice skates. The end of 2018 is neigh! What can we do about this? Celebrate the holidays at Varia of course! Come and dance to some holiday themed music, warm your heart up with a hot cup of glühwein and discuss your new years resolutions like there is no tomorrow! There will be performances by:

adammmmmmmmmmmm, also known as Adam Tuch, is an artist/musician based out of Boston. He is part of a collective called media_rins that creates and publishes work in the fields of electronic music, new media, and performance art. They organize events in the Boston area for adventurous and contemporary artists working with Hi-Fi digital tools, analogue electronics, and information media. In his work he focuses on absurdity within online/digital identities and reflexivity.

adammmmmmmmmmmm on Bandcamp
Website of media_rins

Logosamphia is a project of Sadra Hemati. With one foot in the French underground party scene, and another in Netherlands’ avant-garde noise performance & arts world, he represents one of the few Iranian musicians active in non-mainstream electronic music. Hemati has a penchant for combining influences from both traditional & modern techniques in unique and catchy arrangements.

Logosamphia on Bandcamp

DJ The Sound of C brings you a dirt cheap Christmas extravaganza selected at your local thrift store. Records will be wrapped and gifts will get scratched. Everything is for free, after it’s being played. Santa comes early this year. Warm hearts only!

See you at Varia!

Date: Saturday, 22 December 2018
Entrance: 4 euro
Door: 20:30
Start: 21:00

Century 21 Calling - I'd Buy That For A Dollar!

Varia — Sat, 15 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0100

During our fourth and final screening of Century 21 Calling this year, we will honour the holiday season by taking a look at the development of ‘the shopping experience’. During this 'Christmas special' we'll take a walk through the shopping center and focus our attention on amazon.com, creditcards and refund instruction video’s. This will surely get you in the shopping mood!

Century 21 Calling is a series by the collective Save_as and hosted at Varia in Rotterdam. During these screenings we take a look at the archival industrial films, corporate infomercials, tv reports and historical documentary of yesterday that shaped the imagination of tomorrow and hold it up to the light of the present.

Save_as is a platform for 360 degrees media exploration by Thomas Walskaar and Léna Robin, initiated in 2017. Save_as investigates media and alternative publishing practices, to observe tensions which emanate from them. Save_as is also an independent publisher of printed and non-printed matter.

Date: Saturday, 15 December 2018
Door: 20:00
Start: 20:30
Entrance: Donation

Welcome to the � Federation - Mastodon and The Fediverse

Varia — Sat, 08 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0100

In recent years there has been a lot of dissatisfaction about social media. At the same time there has been a new platform, Mastodon, which has been gaining popularity in the way it seeks to address the sources of this unease. It looks and behaves like similar platforms, but under the hood it works substantially different ways.

Rather than a single service, Mastodon is part of a collection of community-owned independent services that interoperate with each other. This larger set of projects is also known as the Fediverse and is compromised of vastly different softwares, cultures and attitudes.

Public conversation

A general introduction into Mastodon and the Fediverse
Saturday 8 December 2018
20:00h - 21:30h

On the Saturday 8th of December Wtt�F will host an evening roundtable as a general introduction into Mastodon and the Fediverse. How does it work? What are the underlying concepts? Who made it? What has been the history behind it? What kind of different communities inhabit this Fediverse? What does it mean to host such a community?

It will be hosted together by an administrator of a large Mastodon community and an administrator of a small Mastodon community. Both are also contributors to the fediverse.

Worksession

Translating and documentation of the Mastodon project
Saturday 8 December 2018
14:00h - 18:00h

As part of this edition of Wtt�F we will also spend the afternoon together to look at the documentation and translation of the Mastodon project. How does the translation of open source projects work? How are projects communicated? How can the technical concepts be made accessible for larger audiences without diluting their significance?

If you would like to join the worksession, please register in advance by sending a mail to info[at]varia.zone.

Practical

This gathering takes place in Varia, Gouwstraat 3 in Rotterdam.

Welcome to the � Federation

Welcome to the � Federation is grounded in a renewed interest in 'alternative' on-line services such as social media and chat. Through meetings and worksessions the project hosts various events around software projects that are working towards these ecosystems. A particular focus will lie on those projects whose activities have reinvigorated interest for their underlying protocols, in part by their focusing on design, language and user experience (UX).

The Wtt�F question is to explore how arts and design communities can play a supportive role in these processes by contributing skills, knowledge, time and exposure. For more information please visit: Welcome to the � Federation

This project is made possible with the support CBK Rotterdam and Varia.

Maximum Velocity

Varia — Fri, 07 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Pitch, timbre, texture, volume, duration and form; These are the secret ingredients to most compositions. The question remains however; Is there also room for something extra? And what could that extra element be? Today we will focus on the concept of velocity by showcasing concerts by musicians working with both speed and movement in their compositions and performances!

The event is comprised of the following elements:

Bismuth is a two-man formation, made up of experimental instrument builder Yuri Landman and multi-instrumentalist Arnold van de Velde (ex-Feverdream). Together they play a space-filling amount of self-built instruments made of wood, steel, strings, motors and electronics. This colorful collection of instruments leads to a rhythmic amalgamation of experimental noise rock, dance and gamelan.

Yuri Landman's website

good cop / naughty cop make instant electronic compositions with self-programmed software and self-made controllers. They aim for a physical approach towards electronic music (and in particular realtime synthesis) by using objects such as bicycles, radios, FM transmitters and little solar cell synths in their performances. Their music – sometimes described as ‘improvised noise ambient’ – is influenced by the music and ideas of artists like John Cage, Tim Hecker, John Zorn and Captain Beefheart. Current members are composer/sound artist Sjoerd Leijten and ambient producer/pianist Patrick Bossink aka. Arpatle.

Sjoerd Leijten on the web

Arpatle Online

Jacco Weener is a performer, artist and theologist working between Charlois and Scheveningen. For the last 10 years he has performed continuously under various monikors (Gul Night Out, Het Open Hart, Moonflower Warrior, DJ La Dolce Vita) and in a variety of setups. At Maximum Velocity he will perform a dance inspired by the concept of meditative sufi whirling, practiced by the Sufi Dervishes of the Mevlevi order.

Pushing Scores with De Player

Varia — Thu, 29 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0100

During this evening we focus on the archiving of the Pushing Scores project by DE PLAYER; A project on the contemporary meaning of the 'graphic score', which has been running for the last 2-3 years. What are the possibilities of graphic scores, in a day and age in which graphic notation is still usually seen as a ‘drawing’, serving as some kind of sheet music?

To communicate the project to a larger audience DE PLAYER asked Varia to develop a context and technical environment as a web-based archival publication for the Pushing Scores project. The idea is that this material will be embodied by a dynamic, accessible and therefore active archive, which creates new relations, new perspectives and, at its best, new concepts for the production and/or processes of making scores. Julie Boschat Thorez, Cristina Cochior and Niek Hilkmann will explain their ideas and approach to this matter.

Valentina Vuksic will bring a live performance in which she approaches computers with transducers that transform electromagnetic radiation into sound within choreographically setups. The ‘runtime’ of executed software is staged for an audience to provide an acoustic experience: that of logic encountering the physical world.

Ana Guedes is introducing her project Untitled Records; a performative sound installation weaving historical and emotional narratives through the “instrumentalisation” of a collection of records.

Niek Hilkmann (part of Varia) will present his UNI (Universal Notation Ideal), a Pay2Print investigation in the simultaneous production and distribution of standardised graphical scores through the mediation of an automaton. It is developed by Niek Hilkmann and Joseph Knierzinger, based on a new notation system that is created to help conceptual composers in developing and exchanging conceptual music within one uniform language. The actual printing of the thermal paper is a stochastic performance in itself. By emphasizing this aspect of the machine as a musical entrepreneur, earning its own income, we explore the conditions of mechanised labour within the cultural industry and its corresponding ethics.

about Pushing Scores

What are the possibilities of graphic scores, in a day and age in which graphic notation is still usually seen as a ‘drawing’, serving as some kind of sheet music?

In an attempt to redefine this concept, DE PLAYER compiles a programme in which artists, musicians, theoreticians and practitioners are invited to participate. The collective goal is to develop and present new audio-visual and media-technical forms of graphic notation through artistic research and development.

Based on our compilation of the most contemporary and innovative graphic notation practices in the fields of music, sound art, performance art, e-culture, new-media art, graphic design and media design, we introduce artists and designers from various creative disciplines to a national and international audience, with the goal of collectively developing new forms of graphic notation.

Date: Thursday, 29 November 2018
Door: 20:00
Start: 20:30
Entrance: 5 euro

Druk: An Evening With Cantos Deus & Bohman Family

Varia — Sat, 24 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Because we can't always keep the pressure on, we've added a musical intermezzo during Woodstone Kugelblitz: Druk In Varia.

And what an intermezzo it is!

Bohman Family

For more than two decades the English Bohman Brothers have been summoning a mix of unique and impure experimental music from a table stuffed with ordinary day to day objects. The mix contains fluxus elements, musique concrete and free improv. For this one evening the Bohman Brothers become a Bohman Family as they will adopt a bunch of local musicians and perform together as a nonet.

Cantos Deus

2018 • cantos deus from arnold schalks on Vimeo.

Cantos Deus will play a selection of no-wave, gospel, reli-pop en psychedelica worship, all in the form of an entertaining revival show. Plenty of opportunity for the audience to dance, sing and worship. The company consists of Bruno Xavier da Silva, Lukas Simonis en Jacco Weener.

Date: Saturday, 24th of November 2018
Door: 20:00
Start: 20:30
Entrance: 3 euros

Woodstone Kugelblitz: Druk in Varia

Varia — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Some things are more useful to know than others.

On the 23rd, 24th and 25th of November during Woodstone Kugelblitz: Druk in Varia we will make a Really Useful Knowledge Cookbook. A manual to be more an actor and less a consumer in your day to day affairs. The cookbook brings together recipes and instructions from the practice and theory of daily life.

This three day convivial book sprint is about exchanging knowledge on analog printing techniques, eating together, sharing of recipes for and from daily life, discussing Really Useful Knowledge, hanging out and editing and designing the publication.

'What we want to be informed about is how to get out of our present trouble' Poor Man's Guardian

A Call For Really Useful Recipes!

For this event we are looking for DIY-advice, tips and tricks, that need to be inscribed in our collective memory as part of this recipebook. We already have recipes about raising toddlers without diapers, blocking online advertising and making of hot sauce based on lactic fermentation!

All of your recipes for daily life are very welcome!

These can be submitted just as text or as already designed pages.

Please send us recipes for the book by email(info[at]varia.zone) or by post (Gouwstraat 3, 3082 BA, Rotterdam) before November 15th.

You can also submit via this Really Useful Etherpad: https://pad.vvvvvvaria.org/really_useful_knowledge

About the book sprint

If you are interested in participating in the book sprint you can also drop us an email (info[at]varia.zone). Please note that to ensure continuity we prefer you to join the full three days.

We will have the following machines on site:

Riso automatic A3 with black and blue ink
A0 Roll inkjet plotter
A0 Roll pen plotter
A4 b/w laser printer
Dot matrix printer
automatic stencil copy printer -> yellow and black ink
manual stenciling machines -> red, green, blue, black ink
Fax machine (can be used to make stencil masters)
Telex FS200 Teletypewriters
Thermal receipt sprinter

RecycleReduceReuse and where is Repair Workshop (full)

Varia — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Over the last couple of centuries rapid changes in technology, economic fluctuation, technological replacement and planned obsolescence have resulted in a fast-growing surplus of (electronic) waste around the globe. An equally growing demand has risen for the re-purposing, repair, disposal and salvaging of this material, generating different methods that each have their own impact on the economy and environment. Among others, some relevant questions arise from this matter:

What values construct our contemporary attitude towards waste?
Is it perhaps an obsession with utility?
What are the artistic merits of repair?

In this workshop, hosted by Yoana Buzova and Niek Hilkmann, we will take a look at the implications of recycling (electronic) waste. This will happen in a hands-on workshop in which we will visit places where ‘waste’ is being gathered and turn the concept of repair and recycle upside down. Departing from the idea that uselessness, like a haiku poem, contains a certain subversive potential, we will rework a utility object into something quite useless.

Varia curriculum

This workshop is organised in the context of the very first series of the Varia curriculum, developed in collaboration with the 3rd year minor "Hacking" of the Autonomous practices from the Willem de Kooning Academy (WdKA) in Rotterdam.

The curriculum is an ongoing series of workshops in which participants are introduced to technical, theoretical and methodological skills at the basis of the various practices that live within Varia. These are short intensive master-classes or workshops aimed towards providing high level introductions as a basis for further explorations.

~~Would you like to join this workshop? Please send us a short email on the info[a]varia.zone email address before the 19th of November!~~ This workshop is full.

⌂ Varia, Gouwstraat 3 (Rotterdam Charlois)
⌚ 22 November, 10:00h - 18:00h (Lunch between 13:00h and 14:00h)
💶 50 euros (coffee, tea and cookies included)
💬* The workshop will be conducted in English

^* Lack of money can not obstruct participation. Please get in contact with us to discuss the options (info[a]varia.zone).

Choreo-Graphic-Hypothesis Book Launch

Varia — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0100

< body > < script >

var delay="5";
var count="0";

Texts=new Array ();
Texts[0]="Media Choreographies.";
Texts[1]="ChoreoGraphic Vocabularies";
Texts[2]="Choreo-Graphic-Matters";
Texts[3]="Choreo-Graphic-Hypothesis";
Texts[4]="Rehearsal Series";
Texts[5]="Scores & Scripts";
Texts[6]="A glossary of language for movements";
Texts[7]="Choreographing from 0 to 1 and beyond";
Texts[8]="Algorithmic Anatomies";
Texts[9]="Language(s) and Breathing";
Texts[10]="Dancing Bodi{es} & Choreographing Code{s}";
Texts[11]="ChoreoGraphing Design";
Texts[12]="Designing Choreographies";

function Moving_Title ( ) { document.querySelector("#title").innerHTML=Texts[count]; count++; if (count==Texts.length) {count="0";} setTimeout ("Moving_Title ( )", delay * 1000); }

Moving_Title ( )

< head >
< meta content="choreographic scores; programming scripts; notation systems; languages; poetics; composition; improvisation; process; temporalities; code; coding; emergence; error; failure; opportunity; interface; human-computer interactions; design; web; site; action; dramaturgy; movement; presence; (a)live; performance; performativity; affect; body; vocabularies; syntax; discourse; voices; speech; public; privacy; transparency; digital; physicality; embodiment; collaboration; trans- disciplinary practices"; name="corpus terms" >

< meta author="Joana Chicau"; >

Find here a sneak preview of the publication at: http://joanachicau.com/choreo-graphic-hypothesis-preview.pdf

Come dance along ~

Date: Thursday, 15th of November 2018
Time: 19:00h - 21:00h
Location: Varia, Gouwstraat 3 Rotterdam
Entrance: Free

Joana Chicau [PT/NL] is a graphic designer, coder, researcher - with background in dance. Her trans-disciplinary project interweaves media design and web environments with choreographic practices. Chicau has been researching the intersection of the body with the constructed, designed, programmed environment, aiming at in widening the ways in which digital sciences is presented and made accessible to the public. She has been actively participating and organizing events with performances involving multi- location collaborative algorithmic improvisation, open discussions on gender equality and activism. She is a member of Varia! http://joanachicau.com

Choreo-Graphic-Hypothesis gif preview.

Cover image: Joana Chicau

Looking Back - Varia Anniversary

Varia — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0100

It is a rule of life that everything that moves forward, must also one day also look back. Varia is no exception to this truism and that is why we are going to celebrate the first anniversary of our residence at the Gouwstraat.

You are welcome to join us, feast on our exclusive varia drinks and enjoy nostalgic memories of varia's past and future!

Thanks to the DJ skills of Newk and DJ USB, plus the rare appearance of the varia karaoke set, this will surely be a night to help you remember!

Date: Friday, 9 November 2018
Door: 20:00

Inter-Planetary File System unearthed

Varia — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Off the centralitarian HTTP path.

In recent years, new peer-to-peer protocols have appeared that attempt to decentralise the transmission of information over the internet. Instead of one central machine delivering information to many others, the focus has shifted to enabling all machines to serve files to one another. The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) protocol constitutes one of these attempts: a distributed file system that seeks all computing devices with the same system of files for storing and sharing.

IPFS has raised the interest of many communities, from archivists to activists. Versioning, resiliency and availability make it a useful infrastructure builder for digital archivists, while its distributed nature has enabled groups of people to circumvent censorship. For instance, the 2017 referendum website of Catalonia, which was mirrored on IPFS after the original website was shut down by the Spanish government.

During this workshop, we will look at the successes, the pitfalls and the potential of this protocol. We will install it, go through the basics, discuss how it differs from other P2P protocols like dat and what types of usage it enables.

This workshop will last for 8 hours and a laptop will be necessary.
Prior knowledge of command line would be good, but is not obligatory.

This workshop is an initiative by Julie Boschat Thorez, Silvio Lorusso and Cristina Cochior.

Varia curriculum

The curriculum is an ongoing series of workshops in which participants are introduced to technical, theoretical and methodological skills at the basis of the various practices that live within Varia. These are short intensive master-classes or workshops aimed towards providing high level introductions as a basis for further explorations.

Would you like to join this workshop? Please send us a short email on the info[a]varia.zone email address at the 29th of October the latest!

⌂ Varia, Gouwstraat 3 (Rotterdam Charlois)
⌚ Thursday 01 November, 10:00h - 18:00h (Lunch between 13:00h and 14:00h)
💶 50 euros (coffee, tea and cookies included)
💬* The workshop will be conducted in English

^* Lack of money can not obstruct participation. Please get in contact with us to discuss the options (info[a]varia.zone).

Life Hacks: Space

Varia — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0100

What shapes the daily routine of a telemarketing sales agent? How to go beyond the co-working model when it comes to organize a place for collaboration? What's the territorial and political role of furniture within the semi-domestic area of the artist's studio? Are life hacks a form of liberation or yet another burden? Together with author and designer François Girard-Meunier, the WORKNOT! collective (Arvand Pourabbasi and Golnar Abbasi), Varia, the Centre for Everyday Technology (represented by Roel Roscam Abbing, Manetta Berends and Niek Hilkmann) and XPUB (the Experimental Publishing program of the Piet Zwart Institute), we will tackle these and more questions during an evening dedicated to spaces that are at once entrepreneurial and precarious.

Life Hacks is part of Het Nieuwe Instituut’s fellowship program around the theme of ‘burn out’. As 2017 fellow Ramon Amaro states, “on the one hand, to ‘burn out’ is to stall, break, or become otherwise unusable. In other words, processes, procedure and participation simply stop working. On the other hand, ‘burn out’ is an opportunity to break open, promote action and catalyse change towards new structures and relations.”

Life Hacks manifests in a series of gatherings that respond to this ambivalence by exploring the approaches and techniques adopted to design or redesign life against the backdrop of growing precarity and an intensified entrepreneurial regime.

Together with theorists, practitioners and XPUB, the Experimental Publishing program of the Piet Zwart Institute, Life Hacks looks into the tensions and releases that emerge from the constant reinvention and progressive self-optimization necessary to inhabit public and private space, manage time and productivity, and tweak one's own thoughts and feelings.

Life Hacks is curated by Silvio Lorusso, and jointly organized by HNI’s Research Department and XPUB.

Date: Wednesday, 31st of October 2018
Time: 19:00h - 21:00h
Location: Varia, Gouwstraat 3 Rotterdam
Entrance: Donation

Roel Roscam Abbing (NL) is an artist and researcher whose work engages with the issues and cultures surrounding networked computation. He engages with themes such as network infrastructures, the politics of technology and do-it-yourself approaches. He holds an MA Networked Media from the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam and a Fine Arts BA from the Willem De Kooning Academy. Currently he also works as a teacher in Digital Media at the department of Graphic Design in Artez, Arnhem. He is also a member of the homebrewserver.club and Varia. https://roelof.info

Manetta Berends (NL) is a graphic designer with an interest in networked publishing & free software. Her practice is rooted in practical investigations into the sociality of software related to publishing infrastructures. Besides working on commissions, projects and workshops, Manetta is also member of Varia. https://www.manettaberends.nl

François Girard-Meunier (CA/NL) is interested by the performativity and politics of labour in the contemporary western post-fordist context. Graduated from the Graphic Design department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (2015) and the Critical Studies department of the Sandberg Instituut (2018), he works mainly in the cultural field as a designer, web developer, writer and so on. Recent projects include Flexible Bodies (2017), at the Tallinn Photomonth 17, and Talent at Work (2017), in collaboration with Mirjam Reili and re-published in the context of Signals From The Periphery (EE). He is based in Amsterdam, where he runs the Office for Workspace Studies and self-publishes. http://www.francoisgm.com/

Niek Hilkmann (NL) is an artist with a background in media design, art history and musicology. After graduating from the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, he started collaborating with various institutes, designers and artists on the fringe of speculative design, science fiction, media archeology and extratonal music. Besides being the curator of events such as "Floppy Totaal" and "De Grote Hoop", he is also one of the core members of Varia, the conductor of an amateur avant-garde orchestra, the editor of the UNI Graphical Notation System, a part-time dodologist and the creator of one of the first moving panoramas since the nineteenth century. https://niekhilkmann.nl/

Varia (NL) is a Rotterdam based initiative focused on working with, on and through everyday technology. At its core the initiative aims to be a social infrastructure from which to collaboratively facilitate critical understandings on the technologies that surround us. The initiative is a membership-based organisation striving to become a space for questions, opinions, modifications, help and action. http://varia.zone/

WORKNOT! (NL/IR) is a Rotterdam-based independent open collective that works to create a platform for the representation of the life and work of today’s cognitarians. It works with seemingly banal, yet extreme (and political) conditions that shape our today’s contemporary forms of living and working. The collective consists of Arvand Pourabbasi and Golnar Abbasi, researchers/designers/makers with a background in architecture and art. Since its foundation in Tehran (2012), it has worked in a variety of context through a broad range of collaborations, and has created workshops, exhibitions, performances, images, writings, lectures and publications. https://worknot.info/

Cover image: François Girard-Meunier

The Big Bounce - Century 21 Calling

Varia — Sat, 20 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0200

During our third screening of Century 21 Calling, we will be taking a look at the development of satellite communications. From the shiny orbs of the 1950s to our present day SATCOM systems.

How do they work? How do they get into space? What happens when the systems break down? Why are there no more shiny orb satellites in space?

This and many more questions will put into the light of today, via the present.

Later in the evening you can join mmths on a trip through the radio spectrum, to listen to the satellite pirates in GEO Oribt and drown in the noise of the static and signals of ghost satellites.

mmths is a sound artist currently based in Rotterdam. In his practice, he often is fascinated by outer space activities. His current research deals with harvesting satellite transmissions and signal hunting as a tool for exploring live performance and composition.

In a series of screenings called “Century 21 Calling” we will have a look at archival industrial films, corporate infomercials, tv reports and historical documentary of yesterday that shaped the imagination of tomorrow and we hold it up to the light of the present.

“Century 21 Calling” is an event by the collective Save_as and hosted at Varia in Rotterdam.

Date: Saturday 20th of October 2018
Doors open: 20:00h
Start screening: 20:30h
Performance: 21:30h
End of the evening: 23:00h

Entree: Donation

Save as is a platform for 360° media exploration. Save as investigates in media, alternative publishing practices, and observes tensions which emanate from them. Save as is also an independent publisher of printed and non printed matter. Save as is a project by Thomas Walskaar and Léna Robin, initiated in 2017.

In the Beginning ... Was the Commandline

Varia — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0200

On text, encodings and command lines.

The command line is a textual interface for the computer, rather than being an 'old fashioned' interface it is a completely different methodological approach to computing. Instead of large visual programs aimed at being 'professional tools', command line tools follow the philosophy of doing one thing and doing it well. These small programmes can be 'chained' together into pipelines capable of processing any type of data or text. These pipelines are a way of quickly producing unique and custom toolsets providing a wide range of creative opportunities.

In this workshop we will focus on command line tools in relation to plain text. During the day we will dive into the social-cultural history of the command line interface, explore the materiality of plain text on a computer and discover a wide range of command line tools.

No prior knowledge of programming is required, but note taking skills are essential.
Computer / Laptop is necessary.

This workshop is initiated by Roel Roscam Abbing and Manetta Berends.

Varia curriculum

The curriculum is an ongoing series of workshops in which participants are introduced to technical, theoretical and methodological skills at the basis of the various practices that live within Varia. These are short intensive master-classes or workshops aimed towards providing high level introductions as a basis for further explorations.

Would you like to join this workshop? There is still space for a few participants. Please send us a short email on the info[a]varia.zone email address at the 15th of October the latest!

⌂ Varia, Gouwstraat 3 (Rotterdam Charlois)
⌚ Thursday 18 October, 10:00h - 18:00h (Lunch between 13:00h and 14:00h)
💶 50 euros (coffee, tea and cookies included)
💬* The workshop will be conducted in English

^* Lack of funds should not obstruct participation. Please get in contact with us to discuss the options (info[a]varia.zone).

The Key to Casio (and Yamaha too)

Varia — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0200

In celebration of all casio’s, yamaha’s and other home keyboards worldwide Varia will host an exclusive event called ‘The Key To Casio (And Yamaha Too)’. On the 12th of October we will acknowledge the wonderful things these instruments have brought mankind during the last 50 years; from Casio’s Rapman to Trio’s Dadada!

The event is comprised of the following elements:

Dion & The Magic Chords is the lovechild of casio freaks Dion Woestenburg and Griffin Stuip and sounds like the toybox equivalent to your favourite progressive acts, such as Jean Michelle Jarre and Yes. With the help of stunning visuals and a wild arrangement of casio’s and yamahama’s they will bring your mind towards the next level of levitation

Dion & The Magic Chords on Soundcloud

ZOONTOON is een Nederlands muzikant/kunstenaar. Hij maakt gebruik van een loopstation en de presets op een kleine zelf bewerkte SK-1 Casio keyboard om te experimenteren met Noord-Afrikaanse ritmes, geluid verstoringen en melodieen.

M. Klein is also known for his work in Sweat Tongue, Lewsberg, Eklin and his label De Hef. Inspired by Satie and Fauré he decided to compose some minimalist electronic piano compositions. At Varia M. Klein will perform these with the help of his Yamaha PSS-170 and who knows what else?

Listentomerijn is the pseudonym of Merijn van Ham. What has not been said about him? This renowned Rotterdam DJ will prove his skills once more; this time behind the keys and maybe some drumpads too. What kind of drumpads? Those of the Casio MT205 course! Would you expect anything less?

Casio Show and tell; Interluding the way, there will be a series of keyboard presentations that showcase the many shapes and sizes these instruments have taken throughout the years. The show and tell will be presented by none other than Lídia Pereira and her assistant, Niek Hilkmann. Want to present a keyboard yourself? Send an email to: info@varia.zone

Date: Friday, 12 October 2018
Entrance: 5 euro
Door: 20:00
Start: 21:00

Considerate Cake Confection (full)

Varia — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0200

In our understanding, food as a commodity finds its most revealing expression in the form of the cake. In this workshop we investigate the history of culinary hegemony by collectively baking a specific sweet recipe that showcases the way we perceive and partake in food today. Not only will we be analysing the origins of specific ingredients and recipes, we will also focus on the political economy and class dynamics that engender taste and ingredient accessibility. The actual confection of this cake will provide us with an opportunity to hack into the requirments involved in such practices and turn the table around.

The workshop will be divided into two practical phases: the recipe analysis phase and the cake baking phase. During the recipe analysis phase we will be looking at each of the required ingredients of our cake of choice and evaluate whether they meet our 'considerate' standards. If they don't, we will consider possible alternatives. During the cake baking phase participants will actually bake the cake, according to our new considerate recipe.

Considerate Cake Confection is an initiative by Lídia Pereira and Niek Hilkmann.

Varia curriculum

The curriculum is an ongoing series of workshops in which participants are introduced to technical, theoretical and methodological skills at the basis of the various practices that live within Varia. These are short intensive master-classes or workshops aimed towards providing high level introductions as a basis for further explorations.

~~Would you like to join this workshop? Please send us a short email on the info[a]varia.zone email address at the 8th of October the latest!~~ This workshop is full.

⌂ Varia, Gouwstraat 3 (Rotterdam Charlois)
⌚ 11 oktober, 10:00h - 18:00h (Lunch between 13:00h and 14:00h)
💶 50 euros (coffee, tea and cookies included)
💬* The workshop will be conducted in English

^* Lack of money can not obstruct participation. Please get in contact with us to discuss the options (info[a]varia.zone).

Concert: Crimson Butterfly, Evamuss and St. Fractalium

Varia — Fri, 14 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0200

Crimson Butterfly (Russia) is a cosmoenergetic alliance of two cats with synths and laptop. Physical bodies of the band are located in Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia, the sounds have been created for more than ten years. For this period different genres had been tried: coldwave with mysterious autist singer, then synthpop with two lead singers, and currently the band returned to what it had started with: improvisational abstract electronic. The band makes very intense and hypnotic music with dance and ambient elements, improvisational by nature. People often call it "experimental". Crimson Butterfly love to give concerts and play at any venues from vaults to museums in any cities from Balashikha to Barcelona. Their faces are so beautiful that they hide them behind the masks and all their unforgettable shows are always accompanied by hipnotic visual sequences.

Crimson Butterfly's Bandcamp page

Evamuss (Peru/The Netherlands) was a project of the Peruvian Chrs Galarreta (aka: Sajjra, DiosMeHaViolado, Tica, among others alias). This project was very active in the underground Lima scene between 1997-2003. Evamuss have 9 solo albums published on very limited editions, also appears in a lot of collaborations and compilations of that period. At the beginning Evamuss used home made amps, oscillators, pedal effects and toy keywords , last years it will include the misuse of computer and the pirate software. Error and non-functionality were welcome in its process. On November 2017, Evamuss resurrects with a pair of self-hacked synth toys, some effects, hand made sequencers furbished in collaboration with some hackers in Paruro (the legendary electronic black market's in Lima City). In the current days its sounds mutated towards a warm and humid analog jungle. Its recent - 2018- assaults included tours between Portugal, Spain, Lithuania, Russia, The Netherlands and a publication of a release in Favela Discos (Porto).

Eva Muss on Soundcloud Eva Muss on Bandcamp

St. Fractalium (Russia) St.Fractalium is an audio-visual duo from Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia, residents of local cult place Black Ho. Inspired by bands like Autechre and Coil, and having impressive experience in various musical projects, the guys bring the light of Saint Fractalium, an enlightening nectar for those are tired of conventional music, using only computers and controllers.

St. Fractalium on Bandcamp

Organized by ALOARDI

Date: Friday, 14 September 2018
Entrance: 3 euro (donation)
Door: 20:00
Start: 21:00

Streaming The Techno-Galactic Guide to Software Observation Stream @ varia

Varia — Fri, 07 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0200

"The Techno-Galactic Guide to Software Observation is the obsessive fantasy of optimization turned on its head and stuck to the ceiling of a self-reflecting elevator. It is the ultimate book, with almost 300 pages of dos and don’ts, of forgotten histories and un-inevitable futures, of mindful agile actions and improvisational service architectures, of any and all things that you can and cannot imagine needing in a techno-galaxy."

The Techno-Galactic Guide to Software Observation gathers methods from the Techno-Galactic Software Observatory, a worksession that took place in June 2017 at the Constant headquarters in Brussels. It was collectively edited by Carlin Wing, Martino Morandi, Peggy Pierrot, Anita Burato, Christoph Haag, Michael Murtaugh, Femke Snelting, Seda Gürses and designed by Christoph Haag.

The book-launch can be attended online at http://observatory.constantvzw.org/stream or offline at the WTC25 in Brussels.

For those who are not able to go to Brussels to attend the book launch, we will be projecting the event in varia!

Original announcement: http://constantvzw.org/site/The-Techno-Galactic-Guide-to-Software-Observation-A-streaming-book-launch.html

Date: Friday, 07 September 2018
Start: 19:00 (sharp)
End: 20:30

Concert: Matheus Silva and Theo Krantz Album Release

Varia — Thu, 09 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0200

Theo Krantz is an American artist currently based in New Mexico. He plays guitar and sings in the sentimental grunge band Dog Park and contributes to a variety of collaborative projects under his indie label Cry Like Donna. He recently released his most experimental solo album yet, Wednesday Two, which blends ambient synthesizer work with tape sounds and the human voice.

Theo Krantz's bandcamp page

Matheus Silva is an electronic artist originating from Brazil. From his start as a musician in the Florida hardcore punk scene in 2011, he eventually moved onto producing electronic music as a solo artist. With an eclectic musical background, he draws inspiration from various genres of music such as ambient drone and hip hop to produce a unique sound.

Matheus Silva on Soundcloud

Date: 17 August 2018
Entrance: Free / Donation
Door: 21:00
Start: 22:00

What Remains - Final Playtest

Varia — Thu, 14 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0200

It is 1986. You just came home from a skate session when a Nintendo game cartridge falls into your hands. Excited to find out what kind of game is on the cartridge, you visit your friend who just bought a brand new Nintendo console two weeks ago. You plug in the cartridge and …

What Remains is a new darkly humorous 8-bit homebrew adventure video game for the 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), and developed by Iodine Dynamics. The game is currently in final development and will be released for free in 2018. By free we mean a free of charge NES ROM download, and we will publish the source code and assets of the game and tools we used. A limited edition of physical cartridges for the NES and the Famicom, using recycled hardware, will be also be produced.

During the development of the game Iodine Dynamics has worked with Het Nieuwe Instituut for preliminary research, and V2_ for hosting the early playtests. On June 22, Varia will host the last playtest for the game, and we are looking for players to come and give us feedback one last time!

Come save the planet and join us the evening of June 22!

Iodine Dynamics

Starting at 19:00h
Ending around 22:30h

What Remains is made possible with the support from creative industries fund nl.

What a website can be

Roel, Manetta — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0200

When considering how to design a website for varia, our¹ mutual but implicit understanding was not to just make a site. But rather that there was a potential for the process of site-making to become a process of exploring what a website can be. Exploring how one could do web publishing in a self-hosted², minimal³, portable⁴, documented⁵, FLOSS⁶ and playfull⁷ way. In a way that connects to the multiplicity of practices that varia consists of. This text is the beginning of an attempt to make explicit and put to words some of the ideas and questions that drove this process. In the spirit of release early, release often we will publish a series of texts as we develop this site. Hopefully this can trigger questions on web design in the conceptual sense, not as a practice only involved with visual language, but as a practice considering on-line publishing ecosystems. One of the fundamental choices we made early on was to use a static site generator as our publishing tool, so we'll start by introducing the concepts of both 'static site' and 'generator'.

The varia website unfolding over time.

Static site

Varia.zone is a static website. A static website is a 'traditional' website where all the content consists of HTML documents on the server's hard disk. In our case these are generated through Pelican⁸, which is a collection of Python⁹ scripts and plugins¹⁰ to turn unstyled plain text into HTML pages.

Schematic overview of the main differences between a static and a dynamic website.

This way of working can be understood to be different to 'more modern' websites. These modern methods use server side programming languages that generate the website on the fly by querying a database. This means that every time someone visits the site, it gets generated on demand.

A static website instead gets generated once and exists as a set of documents. They are always there, not only when a visitor visits the page. Like the tree in the forest that also falls when nobody is there to hear it. Static websites are thus based on file storage whereas dynamic websites depend on recurrent computation. A website based on storage has some advantages for performance, security, portability and reproducibility that we will address in detail later in the series.

The static website is supportive to another idea we would like to push for: independent, self-hosted services. Since a static website requires less resources, one can do with a not-so-powerful, energy efficient server to host them. This opens up the possibility to (economically) serve the site directly from our space, which we currently do.

The varia server in the space, where various self-hosted services are installed.

In general hosting a server from one's own space introduces some security concerns. These are however partly mitigated by a static site, because it doesn't use server side languages. That also means the web server doesn't become a liability in terms of exploitable plug-ins or databases like in popular systems such as Wordpress. Once it has been generated, it is very much a case of set and forget.

In essence the minimal file-based website is contrary to a cloud mentality, where the material circumstances of the hardware and hosting location are made irrelevant (for the cloud/vps customer) meaning that any 'service' can be 'deployed', 'scaled' 'migrated' etc. Our approach instead informs what can be hosted based on the material circumstances of the server. The choice to self-host this website is a start for us to think about what it means to base web design decisions on a specific situation in terms of hardware and hosting location.

Generator

The static HTML documents that together make the varia website are not manually written in the html language, but are generated out of a set 'plain text'¹¹ documents. This generating aspect allows for multiple ways to engage with the texts and images that we publish. It is a promising way to think about possible transformations of plain text into not just web pages but different media altogether.

One of the needs for transformability comes from the fact that our website exists in a context where usage of the web has atrophied to the point where one is required to publish on or via social media in order to reach an audience at all. However, politically we are not interested in dedicated profiles on social media platforms for our organization. This is a clear decision driven by a strong desire to self-host and own our content, yet allowing to let that content be referred to comfortably within social media as well. The technique of the generator allows us to do this¹².

Working with generative processes also triggers our interest and enthusiasm for exploring other publishing tools. One can imagine a single text or article morphing into widely different media such as calendar entries, RSS feeds, email newsletters, posters, etc. Each of these introducing their own potentials for playful aesthetics, reading experiences and publics. This is on the one hand interesting as a form of automation that reduces (or better: re-uses) work, but more importantly as a process which necessarily will introduce new 'forms' and aesthetics.

This article in its plain text 'view', showing the markdown mark-up language.

At the center this processes relies heavily on the habit of writing in markdown, a mark-up language that allows one to add styling information to plain text, so that it can be read by both people and a variety of tools. The markdown files can be archived using versioning tools¹³ or easily converted into different formats using generators. The content of the website, in its 'raw' form, can therefore be read by many other softwares across (historical) operating systems or included in other workflows, and thus stay open for potential reuse and long-term re-accesibility. Using this process makes it possible for our source files to remain simple, fluid and archivable.

Concluding

Revisiting static sites and taking all these small steps feels like going back in time. However, revisiting web-development basics in this sense becomes a vehicle for understanding the web of these days. To get a sense of the compound choices that have sedimented over time into 'web design' practices and that remain opaque when using ready made frameworks. Creating an on-line publishing work flow from ground up instead allows one to explore the potentials and challenge the conventions of what a website should be.

To unpack the website ...

This folder of Pelican scripts, markdown documents, images, template and css files ...

varia.website.git
├── content/
| └── post1.en.md
| └── post1.nl.md
├── LICENSE
├── Makefile
├── output
├── pelicanconf.py
├── pelican-plugins
├── plugins-custom
├── publishconf.py
├── README.md
└── themes

... generates the following output folder ...

output/
├── author/
|   └── varia.html
├── categories.html
├── category/
|   └── event.html
├── en/
|   └── feeds/
|   |   └── all-en.rss.xml
│   ├── post1.en.html
│   ├── post2.en.html
|   └── post3.en.html
├── events.ics
├── feeds/
|   └── all.rss.xml
├── images/
├── index.html
├── pages/
│   ├── about.html
|   └── stream.html
├── post1.nl.html
├── post2.nl.html
├── post3.nl.html
└── theme/

Varia works via different thematic work groups, one which is concerned with its website. We use the word 'group' here, which only works if you consider two people to be a group already. Current website work group members are Roel Roscam Abbing & Manetta Berends. ↩
Self-hosting culture as a way to speak about network infrastructures and preferences. This is also the main subject of the homebrewserver.club, a group for discussions, learning and reflection on the practice of hosting a server from home. ↩
Minimal not as in minimalism in design but rather understood as simple/low-tech/appropriate technologies, understood in (some) aspects of Minimal Computing. ↩
Portable in the sense that it allows for multiple transformations and media, generated by various tools and distributed to various contexts and publics. ↩
What does a documented process mean? For whom? Currently the varia website is translated into two different languages (dual NL/EN), but documenting can also refer to other types of languages like explanatory articles such as this one, to accompany a work-in-progress to enable further reading than rather just 'reading the code'. ↩
FLOSS, or Free Libre and Open Source Software, refers to free culture communities and the use of free licenses. ↩
The context of varia creates a playful space that enables us to experiment with different tools, modes of address and publishing work flows. ↩
Pelican is static site generator software written in Python, getpelican.com. ↩
Python is a commonly used object-oriented programming language, Python. ↩
We use both the plugins made by the pelican community and our own custom ones. ↩
"Plain text identifies a file format and a frame of mind. (...) [A] kind of a systematic minimalism when it comes to our use of computers, a minimalism that privileges access to source materials, ensuring legibility and comprehension." - A quote from: Plain Text, the poetics of Computation (2017), by Dennis Tenen - Stanford University Press ↩
For example by generating meta tags in our web page following Open Graph or Twitter Cards. These provide previews of one's page when a link is published on social media or in mobile apps. Right click on any page and view source to have a look. The OG headers are at the beginning in the <meta> tags. ↩
The source files of the varia website are stored in and tracked by a Git versioning system. You can access these files through this Gitea interface, where you can read the markdown documents and follow the changes that are being made. For example: this article can be found here. ↩

Moving Monument - Presentation

Varia — Mon, 28 May 2018 00:00:00 +0200

Long before there were people in Charlois, there was already water. Water is always on the move and always finds a way. Historically, fountains were gathering places that occupied a central place in village- and city life. Often they were installed to commemorate a great battle, a plague epidemic or some other historical event, donated by the municipality or a patron. Unfortunately, Charlois currently has no working fountain. Niek Hilkmann and Anne Kolbe want to remedy this shortcoming and temporarily give Charlois a mobile fountain that is not tied to a single place or interpretation. After an opening ceremony, held on the 2nd June around 13:00, next to Varia, the fountain can be seen during the weekends of the Charlois Speciaal festival, in search of new meaning and appreciation.

Opening Ceremony: 2 June / 13:00-14:00
On Display: 2,3, 9 and 10 June / 13:00-18:00

Welcome to the � Federation - The Ecosystem is Moving

Varia — Sun, 20 May 2018 00:00:00 +0200

On the 1st and 2nd of June Varia will host 'The Ecosystem Is Moving', a lecture by and worksession with Daniel Gultsch about federated instant messaging, open source software and the sustainability of open systems.

June 1st, 19.00 - 22.00 - introduction to XMPP and lecture by Daniel Gultsch
June 2nd, 10.00 - 18.00 - hands on worksession on design and federated chat systems.
Please register for the worksession via info * varia.zone

Daniel Gultsch is the developer behind Conversations, an open source instant messaging application for Android. In 2014, he decided to work full time on Conversations and try to make a living from it. Rather than starting from scratch with Conversations, he built it as a client for the existing federated messaging protocol XMPP.

Since an XMPP messenger can, in a way, only be as good as the entire ecosystem, Daniels work on Conversations also meant work on expanding and improving that larger XMPP ecosystem. This work includes helping to draft and implement protocol standards, such as OMEMO, a modern and user-friendly end-to-end encryption based on Signal's protocol. He also contributed code to other XMPP servers and clients in the ecosystem to bring them up to speed with modern uses. Additionally, through his critical essays he is a vocal defender of XMPP and open standards in general.

Conversations is notable because, through its continuous focus on user experience, design and security it has garnered a lot of interest for both itself and the XMPP ecosystem as a whole. This makes it an interesting example to talk about what the design field could potentially contribute to critical software practices.

Welcome to the � Federation

This project is made possible with the support of Varia and CBK Rotterdam.

Century 21 Calling - Rising to the High-Rise

Varia — Wed, 02 May 2018 00:00:00 +0200

During our second screening of Century 21 Calling we will take a look at the development of the workplace. What happened to the paperless office? And how did the development of technology impact where and how we work? Is today's situation new or is it just a repetition of the past? Where is the paperless office? What happened to the phone exchange when we cut the cord? What takes place at the office after work? And how do you react to customers when they complain about your product? All of this and more will the answered at the next edition of Century 21 Calling.

In a series of screenings called “Century 21 Calling”, an initiative started by the collective Save_as and hosted at Varia in Rotterdam, we look at the archival industrial films, corporate informercials, tv reports and historical documentaries that shaped the imagination of tomorrow and hold them up to the light of the present.

door: 20:00
intro: 20:15
screening: 20:30
price: Donation

Wojtek Szustak - Space Junk Workshop

Varia — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0200

Wojtek Szustak is an electronic intermedialist from Krakow who works with and around music and space junk. In preparation of 'Infinite Outwardness' he will conduct a synthesizer junk workshop at Varia where we will make new electronic instruments from old rubbish we find on the streets of Charlois. The results will be presented during the evening.

Want to join?

Please sign up through: info@varia.zone. There's only limited capacity, so don't wait too long!

door: 10:00
start: 10:30
end: 18:00
price: 5 euro

Infinite Outwardness

Varia — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0200

Since the beginning of time, space has captured the imagination of artists around the world. On the 18th of May varia is proud to present ‘Infinite Outwardness’; a music event based on the bounties of space, where several artists will present their idiosyncratic view on space exploration. Ranging from playable space junk to cosmic toilets, this will be an evening to remember!

Door: 20:00 Start: 20:30 Price: Donation

http://varia.zone/

Line-up:

Erik Debny is one of Belgium's hidden gems. On a time travel from the sixties, this man single-handedly, or together with his band the Shovels, transforms the universe of music as we know it into a trip to the boundaries of sonic belief. He will perform songs from 2016's 'Spaced Out In Outer Space' and his brand new album 'Beat The System'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk1n0D-2OqM

Wojtek Szustak is an inventive composer from Krakow who works with and around space junk. In preparation of 'Infinite Outwardness' he will conduct a synthesizer junk workshop in Charlois where he will make new electronic instruments from old stuff he finds on the streets. The results will be presented during the event.
Niek Hilkmann is a topsy-turvy polymath who conducted an amateur avant-garde orchestra, created a one hundred meter long moving panorama, constructed the Universal Notation Ideal (UNI) system and curated events such as "Will VHS Save The Universe?" and "Floppy Totaal”. During ‘Infinite Outwardness’ he will exhibit the debris of his current projects 'Galaxico; Christmas between the stars' and 'The International Space Disenchantment Research Association'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGj95EddDos

Joshua Thies is a Rotterdam based artist working predominantly in the field of sound as a jumping off point for new projects. He will present an audible exploration of cosmological phenomena and take us into space via Google’s colonisation of virtual space. Digital and/or virtual mapping of Earth, claiming territory via mapping and viewing Earth from orbit have been the subject of his recent work.

http://joshuathies.blogspot.nl/

Squirrel, Arrow, Bee and Fly is the moniker of the international research designer team that brought you Toilettronic; a stress free toilet experience in space. It is a gamified toilet navigation system for space habitats. During 'Infinite Outwardness' the team will present a musical sequel to this project.

http://oyoana.com/toilettronic

DJ Cosmos404 and DJ Naam are household names in the global space DJ scene. In May they will team up to bring you music from the fourth dimension and beyond that will take your mind to another level of conscienceless.

This event is made possible with the kind support of Popunie Rotterdam, WORM Pirate Bay and of course... varia.

Open Day @ Varia

Varia — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0200

On the 12th of May, varia opens her doors and invites you to join an afternoon of informal conversations, workshops and demos. There will be free coffee, tea and software!¹

We will have the following activities throughout the day:

Linux Presentation Day (All day)

Bored Windows or Apple? Unable to update your operating system? Time to try linux, an operating system that comes in all shapes and flavors! Linux runs on the latest macbooks, your Playstation, possibly on your brand new fridge, but also on very old computers. Don't throw your old computer away yet. Bring your old and new laptops and breathe new life into them. Have a try or get help installing Linux on it. The Leeszaal West group that have been organising Linux Presentation Day in the previous years will be around to help you with your installation or with any other questions.

Adblockers for beginners (all day)

Are you tired of looking at online ads? Are you tired of on-line ads looking at you? Bring your computer or smartphone and we'll show you how to enjoy the tranquility and privacy of an ad-free internet.

Introduction to soldering (14:00 - 16:00), 12+

Learn how to make a pocket boombox using only a few electronic components, a soldering iron and a steady hand. Bring your favourite tune(s) as mp3 files and a (disposable) memory card (micro)SD!. There is space for a maximum of 6 participants. Participation fee: €5. Please sign up by writing us an email.

Graphic tool-test-party (15:00 - 16:00)

Tired of having to crack yet another version of Photoshop? Tired of Microsoft Publisher? What about Microsoft Paint :-(? Come and play around with a series of graphic tools such as Gimp and ImageMagick (image editors), Laidout, or self-built ones: make a zine with Publish or Perish!, a Desktop Publishing tool that is also a game. We will group together in an intense one-hour tool-test-party to make visual reviews of these tools and print them on one of Varia's printers.

We speak Dutch/English/Italian/French/Norwegian/Spanish and Portuguese!

Free software refers to a movement around(in?) computer cultures. Thanks to a (open/)free license, a user is given the freedom to run, study, modify and share it. Grounded in communities of people writing and maintaining all different kinds of software. Free software lies at the heart of Varia's activities and way of working. ↩

Concert: CLM and Maria Violenza

Varia — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0200

Varia presents two concerts by three incredible musicians from Italy.

CLM (formerly known as Cascao & Lady Maru) is a quirky electro duo, hailing from the saucy punk/no-wave scene of the aethernal Rome. Starting in 2008, they quickly turned into a bizarre live act with guitars, synths, live samples, percussion and poppy art melodies: evoking talking heads, the residents, and proto 70's & 80's wave stuff. In 2016 they released their first LP 'Spleenism' on vinyl and digital through the San Francisco based Cochon records.

CLM on Soundcloud

Sicilian born and Rome based Maria Violenza plays dark synth punk music under the influence of her homelands’ mixed cultural heritage. Besides her rousing solo-work, she is also a member of French music collective Grand Triple Alliance Internationale De L’Est, Capputtini 'i lignu, The Normals, Trans Upper Egypt, Vernon Sélavy and Corpus Christi.

Maria Violenza's bandcamp page

Date: 17 April 2018 Entrance: 3 euro Doors: 20:30 Start: 21:00

Century 21 Calling

Varia — Wed, 07 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Once we were all promised a better tomorrow with robots, atomic powered cars and inflatable plastic homes. After the second world war the promises of technology made it seem like everything was possible. However, it seems like much of this optimism might have been a bit premature. Where is the dream of tomorrow now? Do we still dare to dream of the future?

In a series of screenings called “Century 21 Calling”, an event started by the collective Save_as and hosted at Varia in Rotterdam, we will have a look at archival industrial films and corporate informercials/propaganda that shaped the imagination of tomorrow and hold it up to the light of the present.

During our first event we will have a general look at films from world fairs and the their dreams for todays tomorrow.

Date: 14th April 2018
Entrance: Free / Donation
Doors open: 19:00
Presentation: 19:30
Screening starts: 20:00

Algologs

Varia — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0100

practices in the age of algorithmic reprediction

Algologs = a 1 + 1 day dialog with algorithmic practices. This two-day event is an extention of Algolit, a workgroup where text-based practices and algorithms meet. Algologs is part of a series of occurances meant to open up the usually Brussels-based Algolit meetings by inviting external speakers, presenters and participants to join the conversation. During Algologs, we will increase the % of engagement with everyday algorithms.

On Friday evening we explore a multiplication of Algoliterary ways of converting words to numbers x infrapunctural reliefs x bookscanner pipelines x “We Are Going to Take Over the World, One Robot at a Time”. Together we will log algorithmic attitudes, voices and practices.

The presentations on Friday are followed by an Algolit session on Saturday, where we will host a collective dive into the clustering techniques of word-embeddings. We propose to look at a specific implementation of word-embeddings step-by-step, to use it as a source for recipies for small (code or non-code based) experiments.

Calling all extra-amateurs, protoprofessionals and circumstantial algologgers.

Algolit is a Brussels-based group of artists, designers, programmers and activists that meet once a month to write textual code experiments together.

Cristina Cochior is a Rotterdam-based researcher, designer and enthusiast media aggregator who is currently interested in algorithmic stress relief.

the XPUB practitioners are currently working on OuNuPo: the 5th Special Issue with and around bookscanner culture. XPUB is the Experimental Publishing master at the Piet Zwart Institute.

Marloes de Valk is a software artist and writer in the post-despair stage of coping with the threat of global warming and being spied on by the devices surrounding her.

Program

Friday 16th of March, 19:00 - 21:30+
Introductions, infrapunctures, bookscanner samples, big data promises

18:45 - 19:00 doors are open

19:00 - 19:20 Algoliterary introductions
19:20 - 19:40 Infrapunctures
19:40 - 19:50 --BREAK--
19:50 - 21:00 XPUB bookscanner pipelines
21:00 - 21:30 “We Are Going to Take Over the World, One Robot at a Time”
21:30 onwards Drinks & Discussion

Saturday 17th of March, 10:00 - 18:00
Algolit session: From words to numbers through word-embeddings

This session is special edition and part of a longer timeline of monthly Algolit gatherings organised by Constant in the WTC25 in Brussels. In 2018 Algolit decided to open the sessions, to allow incisive jump-in jump-out participation. More information & material around Algolit can be found on algolit.net.

We will start the day with going step-by-step through the script word2vec_basic.py, and slowly slide into both code-based and non-code based experiments, depending on what the attendants are inclined towards. This work session is a moment to try things out yourself.

Note to attendants: It would be good to bring a laptop. Not per se for the reason of working with code or digital tools (we are big enthusiasts of non-coding experiments!), but we usually take notes collectively or look at references. For that reason a laptop is a nice companion!

If you are interested to attend this session, please email info@varia.zone at any point in advance.

Location
Varia - Gouwstraat 3, Rotterdam
varia.zone

Links to previous exercises around these topics

Algoliterary Encounters, a multi-day event in November 2017 around machine learning & word-embeddings with guided tours, presented tools, two lectures and two workshops.
word2vec_basic.py, step-by-step
You should know a word by the compant it keeps, graphs generated by word2vec
Crowd Embeddings, a first-step into a case study of applied word-embeddings

The research project of Cristina Cochior is kindly supported by .

It Is As If We Were Doing Work

Varia — Sun, 18 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0100

A few months have passed since the 11th issue of the Pervasive Labour Union zine was launched, but the topics that were touched upon are yet to be digested. Focused on the "entreprecariat", the issue is an exploration of the multiple ways in which entrepreneurial ideas, models and approaches relate to the perception of precarity. To expand on the reflections that emerged from this informal publication, Varia is hosting some of its contributors. After an introduction of the Pervasive Labour Union zine project, there will be a conversation between Alina Lupu, Gui Machiavelli and Lídia Pereira moderated by Silvio Lorusso. The guests will discuss their contribution to the zine, as well as the relationship between their practice, emerging work standards, and the current state of education. Furthermore, there will be an open gaming session of two (or maybe more!) videogames which were reviewed in the zine, such as "It Is As If You Were Doing Work" by Pippin Barr and "The Founder" by Francis Tseng.

Food, drinks and entrance are available on donation.

Program:
18:45 Open Doors and Welcome 19:00 Introduction of the Pervasive Labour union zine by Lídia Pereira (PT/NL) and conversation with Alina Lupu (RO/NL), Gui Machiavelli (IT/BR/NL), moderated by Silvio Lorusso (IT/NL) 20:00 - 22:00 Open gaming session with "It Is As If You Were Doing Work" by Pippin Barr and "The Founder" by Francis Tseng

http://varia.zone/

Alina Lupu (http://www.theofficeofalinalupu.com/) is a conceptual artist and a food delivery bike courier, at times a project manager, a copywriter, a photographer, an all-around side-jobber. Recently she became an elections candidate for the position of municipal advisor for the city of Amsterdam.

Gui Machiavelli (https://guimachiavelli.com/) is an okay programmer from Monday to Thursday and a lethargic writer from Friday to Sunday.

Lídia Pereira (http://immateriallaborunion.net/) is an independent designer, artist and researcher based in Rotterdam, NL. Current interests revolve around the political organisation of labour in corporate social networking platforms and working class identity within networked economies, presenting a focus on the power structures governing online and offline behaviour.

Silvio Lorusso (http://networkcultures.org/entreprecariat/) is a designer without qualities, an artist without a gallery and a writer without spell checker.

Solutions and problems in Extratonality

Varia — Fri, 16 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Solutions and problems in Extratonality 4
“Extratonality - Opening Doors Is Not Enough”

The 4th International Conference on the solutions and problems in extratonality titled “Extratonality - Opening Doors Is Not Enough” focuses on an evaluation of practices in the field of extratonality. In a time where problems are designed to be solutions, and industrialised rubbish predominates our everyday life, there is an urgent need for another extratonal conference that digs deeper in the current state of affairs of the "extra" tendencies. "Solutions and problems in extratonality" (SAPIE) is the international conference on solutions and problems in the field of extratonality for smaller and larger institutes, as well as independent composers and scholars. They will explore advanced obstacles in their daily routines with the support of custom-made instruments, obsolete writing techniques, special notation systems and alternative applications of existing technologies.

On Friday, February 16, 2018, the fourth edition will take place in Rotterdam at "varia - the center of everyday technology". SAPIE4 is about applying extratonal solutions to everyday problems and everyday solutions to extratonal problems. SAPIE4 is a must attend for those who want to know more about working strategies and cases around extratonality. After SAPIE1 in Vienna on 28th April 2017, SAPIE2 in Zagreb on 30th September 2017 and SAPIE3 in Rotterdam on the 6th February 2018 the next edition will catch up on the latest debates in the field and trigger new input for the future ongoings around extratonality. More than 250 years after its discovery and justification the field is now recognized worldwide as a significant inquiry in its discipline, therefore this edition consists of several different tracks and presentations.

The approximately 300 SAPIE visitors rated the conference with a 9.8 and more than 98% of the visitors recommends the conference to others or would like to come back in the next edition.

This event is made possible by the kind support of the Institute of Extratonal Composition, WORM pirate bay, varia and nothing more.

Food, drinks and entrance are available on donation!

Program:
19:30 Registration, meet and greet & welcome drinks
20:00 Official Opening: Welcome by Danny van der Kleij (NL, Chairman varia - center of everyday technology / ArtEZ hogeschool voor de kunsten)
20:05 Introduction by the Conference Chairs; Niek Hilkmann (NL, varia - center of everyday technology / Institute of Extratonal Composition) and Joseph Knierzinger (AT, nothing more - Association for the Promotion of Art, Irritation and Commons / Institute of Extratonal Composition)

20:15 - 20:45
Applications: Imagination and Extratonlity
Chair: Christina Cochior (RO/NL, Wikipedia Bot Memorial Foundation)
"The imagination of storing" - Thomas Walskaar (NO, Save as.media) - Presentation of an imaginary medium
"how to build a drum" - Teun de Graaf (NL, fanfare voor vooruitstrevende muziek / woodstone kugelblitz)

20:45 - 21:15
Extratonality and Labour:
Chair: Lidia Pereira (PT/NL, PLU - pervasive labour union)
"full range orchestra tonal system" - a. tangram poets (INT, no institution)
"universal notation ideal - UNI revisted" - Niek Hilkmann (varia - center for everyday technology)

21:15 - 21:45
the extra in the everyday surroundings:
Chair: TBA
"Voice over Opus with feedback" - JoaK (AT, nothing more - nothing more - Association for the Promotion of Art, Irritation and Commons, Institute of Extratonal Composition)
"solitaire - eurorack edition"- Dennis de Bel (NL, varia - center of everyday technology / Willem de Kooning Academy / Design Academy Eindhoven)
"Remote Fulfillment" - Moritz (NL, Random Creations)

21:45 - 22:15
extra and beyond:
Chair: TBA
"walking through objects - an intratonal approach" - Michael J. Muik (AT, nothing more - Association for the Promotion of Art, Irritation and Commons)
"Quasitonality - Towards a circulatory practice of disagreement" - oyo (BG/NL, LOFO, Willem de Kooning Academy) & mths (AT/NL, LOFO)

22:15 - 24:00
Extra Presentations:
DJ Pattex (varia - center for everyday technology)

http://extratonality.nothingmore.work/
http://varia.zone/
https://worm.org/production/solutions-and-problems-in-the-field-of-extratonality/
https://www.facebook.com/events/167517747195086/

New Year's reception

Varia — Fri, 19 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Varia has big plans for 2018! We would like to share these with you during a special New Year’s reception as part of the season opening of the galleries and projectspaces in Oud Charlois. Besides drinks and salty snacks, there will be a special robomop-performance.

date: Friday, 19th of January start: 18:00h
performance: 21:00h

34c3 screening session

Varia — Fri, 15 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0100

For those that didn't make it to Leipzig this year we're gathering to watch the 34c3 livestream in Varia:

Wednesday 27th: 11:00h - late
Thursday 28th: 11:30h - late
Friday 29th: 11:30h - late
Saturday 30th: 11:30h - 18:15h

Bring your own beer and add your whishes to the list of talks¹[1] https://pad.vvvvvvaria.org/34c3, we only have one projector and make the livestream programme on the spot!

Download the CCC progam²[2] fahrplan (PDF)

Screening: The Secret Life Of Machines, season 3

Varia — Fri, 15 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0100

New attempt! Now without snowstorm.

Technology is everywhere, sometimes it hides its face underneath a mask of everydayness, but we can only guess what goes on in our vacuum cleaner, telephone or copy machine. When were these inventions introduced into our lives and how can we keep control over them? These questions, and many more, are answered by 'The Secret Life Of Machines'. In this cultseries from the BBC, which was produced between 1988 and 1993 engineer, cartoonist and writer Tim Hunkin and inventor Rex Garrod dissect the workings and history of a everyday appliance in each episode. During the next few weeks varia, center of everyday technology will screen the entire series during a couple of public screenings.

dates

20 december: season 3 - office applicances (lift, word processor, electric light, photocopier, fax machine and the office)

Door: 19:30
Start: 20:00
End: 23:00

Price: Donation

Soup & Talk - Inox Kapell

Varia — Sun, 26 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0100

Varia gets a visit; from Inox Kapell, the insect man from Wespbaden. On December 16 he will give a short lecture about everything that concerns him. In addition, we serve some soup.

Inox Kapell loves insects. As a child he was already obsessed by these creatures and documented them. Today he takes people on insect excursions, for example in castle Freudenberg. He makes films, music and art from and about them, including his work with the Dadaist band 'Ordnungsamt et la politesse’. Besides that he is the founder of the 'Insektium', an insect-related museum / gallery / happeningraum in Berlin. According to him, insects are often wrongly condemned, but he can mediate between humans and insects as a sort of ambassador.

A few of his words:

was ist es wenn die insekten sterben? was ist dann noch? alleine die inspiration, die dann geht, aber besonders der erdboden stirbt, dadurch unsere nahrung für unsere kindeskinder...

video: link web: www.inoxkapell.de

16 december

Soup: 19:00
Talk: 20:00
Price: Donation

Screening: The Secret Life Of Machines, season 3 (cancelled)

Varia — Thu, 23 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0100

dates

10 december: season 3 - office applicances (lift, word processor, electric light, photocopier, fax machine and the office)

Door: 19:30
Start: 20:00
End: 23:00

Price: Donation

homebrewserver.club, kalenders sessie 2

Varia — Wed, 22 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0100

A second gathering around self-hosted calendars.

Location: Varia

Screening: The Secret Life Of Machines, season 2

Varia — Sun, 12 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0100

19 November: season 2 - outdoor appliances

(car, internal combustion engine, quartz watch, telephone, radio and videorecorder)

Door: 16:30
Start: 17:00
End: 20:00

Price: Donation

homebrewserver.club, calendars session 1

Varia — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0100

A first gathering around self-hosted calendars.

Screening: The Secret Life Of Machines, season 1

Varia — Sun, 29 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0200

dates

5 November: season 1 - household appliances

(vacuum cleaner, sewing machine, central heating, washing machine, refrigiator and television)

Door: 19:30
Start: 20:00
End: 23:00

19 November: season 2 - outdoor appliances

(car, internal combustion engine, quartz watch, telephone, radio and videorecorder)

Door: 16:30
Start: 17:00
End: 20:00

Price: Donation

Opening Space

Varia — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0200

After a few weeks of finishing up the space Varia opens her doors on friday the 3rd of november from 20:00 onwards. Drop by to say hi, have a drink and explore the building through 'de_varia'; a custom Counter Strike map made for the occasion!

homebrewserver.club

Varia — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0200

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A monthly gathering for those who (wish to) host their own online services from home, rather than using commercial and privacy unfriendly alternatives. Together we config and work on our homebrew server setups. These are low-cost, low-power, low-maintenance, high-fun computers through which we can host all of our online necessities and keep them out of the cloud. The club meetings are open for anyone, from more experienced users to interested beginners. During the homebrewserver.club meetings we exchange tips or look into particular topics together. As we gain more knowledge about a topic, we write and publish guides for others to share.

homebrewserver.club

Relearn Rotterdam

Varia — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0200

Relearn is a collective learning experiment with as many teachers as it has participants. It is motivated by the possibility to displace parameters of/for research, studying and learning.

During the week of Relearn, we work with a set of case-studies, observations, questions or stacks of study material that we call "tracks". Relearn outlines the idea of resetting thinking modes, for a diverse set of approaches that we can reconsider, that come out of the development of our cultures towards and through digital entities.

While Relearn is an experiment in collective learning, it grows from an interest in Free / Libre Open Source Software culture and practices as a way to address and acknowledge the production processes and frameworks involving technology and cultur

29th of August - 2nd of September 2017
Poortgebouw, Rotterdam

www.relearn.be

Rotterdams Electronica Depot

Varia — Sun, 09 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0200

   ╦═╗┌─┐┌┬┐┌┬┐┌─┐┬─┐┌┬┐┌─┐┌┬┐     
   ╠╦╝│ │ │  │ ├┤ ├┬┘ ││├─┤│││     
   ╩╚═└─┘ ┴  ┴ └─┘┴└──┴┘┴ ┴┴ ┴     
┌─────────────────┬───────────────┐
│misc parts       │misc parts     │
│                 │               │
│                 │               │
│                 │               │
│                 │               │
│                 │               │
│                 │               │
├─────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────────┐
│IC's             │trim pots,     │octo couplers       │
│                 │               │EEPROMS             │
│                 │               │                    │
│                 │               │                    │
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│                 │               │                    │
│                 │               │                    │
│                 │               │                    │
├─────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────────┤
│transistors,     │resistors      │big resistors,      │
│empty boxes,     │big            │empty boxes,        │
│                 │               │FTDI,               │
│                 │               │arduino             │
│                 │               │oscilloscope parts  │
│                 │               │                    │
│                 │               │                    │
│                 │               │                    │
├─────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────────┤
│transistors,     │resistors      │capacitors,         │
│diodes           │small          │transducers         │
│                 │               │                    │
│                 │               │                    │
│                 │               │                    │
│                 │               │                    │
│                 │               │                    │
│                 │               │                    │
└─────────────────┴───────────────┴────────────────────┘
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 ║╣ │  ├┤ │   │ ├┬┘│ ││││││  ├─┤         ║║├┤ ├─┘│ │ │  
 ╚═╝┴─┘└─┘└─┘ ┴ ┴└─└─┘┘└┘┴└─┘┴ ┴        ═╩╝└─┘┴  └─┘ ┴

Rotterdam Electronics Depot

Since many of the independent electronics stores in Rotterdam have permanently closed their doors, it has become nearly impossible to hop on a bike and quickly get some parts. In response to this Varia started the Rotterdam Electronics Depot, a community resource where members can purchase common parts parts at cost.

Become a member:

get in touch with us via the varia list

Opening and picking up

Opening times are dependent on the members. Pick up location is: Gouwstraat 3, 3082 BA, in Rotterdam