Futurefarmers is a group of practitioners aligned through an open practice of making work that is relevant to the time and space surrounding us.
Through collaboration, they explore the relationship of concept and creative process between interdisciplinary artists. Futurefarmers work across many media. They enjoy creating platforms for sociability, play and culitvating consciousness.
"Futurefarmers are well known as innovators within the new media art and design contexts. They have exhibited internationally at numerous galleries and museums, including the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York Museum of Modern Art, the ZKM in Germany and at America's most prestigious art exhibition, The Whitney Biennale. They have received numerous awards including the Webby Award and the Transmediale award among others."
-ZKM, Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany
In one example among many, The Human Knot (see image gallery): A project carried out one month after the United States invaded Iraq. Futurefarmers put out a public call for people to come to the Marin Headlands to join in a Human Knot. A human knot starts out with a group of people holding hands in a big circle. People are then asked to get tangled and twisted up without letting go of each others hands. This creates a giant knot of humans wriggling around try to get undone. It becomes quite uncomfortable and demands focus, cooperation and organization. This knot took almost 33 minutes to untie, but through a peaceful cooperation of all participants, the knot resumed to a circle of people joined by the hands.
It was later showed in video format at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum.
(Artist involved: Amy Franceschini w/Stijn Schiffeleer, Jeff den Broeder, Chad Growchoski, and the Headlands Center for the Arts).
In "Game for the Masses" (see image gallery), artist Amy Franceschini observes social interactions around gaming. It reveals how people use games as an interface for conversation, interaction, play and openess. This game prompted creative thinking and problem solving. The game was positioned in a gallery with a small set of rules and instructions, but the game was left open for development. Over the course of the night, the game developed into a multiplayer, 3dimensional, architectural, gambling, building site for ages 3 and up.
FutureFarmer's "mothership" is Playshop , an open-access laboratory which encourages the free flow of ideas. It presents projects, workshops, seminars, art installations and a web site that collectively question or challenge the role of technology and propose alternatives to the cultural social and economic systems we live in. It is characterized as a free-floating and open-source system of activities. It is is an extension of FutureFarmer's studio practice.
Since 1995, Futurefarmers has served as a design studio producing projects for clients including Adobe, Swatch, Hewlett Packard, Levi's, Autodesk, Nike, LucasFilm, Greenpeace, PBS, NEC and MSNBC. Futurefarmers artists and friends; Amy Franceschini, Michael Swaine, Elmar Trefz, Stijn Schiffeleers, Josh On and Richard Mortimer.
For more on their art, sculture and design projects, and residencies, visit their website .
See also: the F.R.U.I.T. Network & Lofoten Game of the Future .
Through collaboration, they explore the relationship of concept and creative process between interdisciplinary artists. Futurefarmers work across many media. They enjoy creating platforms for sociability, play and culitvating consciousness.
"Futurefarmers are well known as innovators within the new media art and design contexts. They have exhibited internationally at numerous galleries and museums, including the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York Museum of Modern Art, the ZKM in Germany and at America's most prestigious art exhibition, The Whitney Biennale. They have received numerous awards including the Webby Award and the Transmediale award among others."
-ZKM, Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany
In one example among many, The Human Knot (see image gallery): A project carried out one month after the United States invaded Iraq. Futurefarmers put out a public call for people to come to the Marin Headlands to join in a Human Knot. A human knot starts out with a group of people holding hands in a big circle. People are then asked to get tangled and twisted up without letting go of each others hands. This creates a giant knot of humans wriggling around try to get undone. It becomes quite uncomfortable and demands focus, cooperation and organization. This knot took almost 33 minutes to untie, but through a peaceful cooperation of all participants, the knot resumed to a circle of people joined by the hands.
It was later showed in video format at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum.
(Artist involved: Amy Franceschini w/Stijn Schiffeleer, Jeff den Broeder, Chad Growchoski, and the Headlands Center for the Arts).
In "Game for the Masses" (see image gallery), artist Amy Franceschini observes social interactions around gaming. It reveals how people use games as an interface for conversation, interaction, play and openess. This game prompted creative thinking and problem solving. The game was positioned in a gallery with a small set of rules and instructions, but the game was left open for development. Over the course of the night, the game developed into a multiplayer, 3dimensional, architectural, gambling, building site for ages 3 and up.
FutureFarmer's "mothership" is Playshop , an open-access laboratory which encourages the free flow of ideas. It presents projects, workshops, seminars, art installations and a web site that collectively question or challenge the role of technology and propose alternatives to the cultural social and economic systems we live in. It is characterized as a free-floating and open-source system of activities. It is is an extension of FutureFarmer's studio practice.
Since 1995, Futurefarmers has served as a design studio producing projects for clients including Adobe, Swatch, Hewlett Packard, Levi's, Autodesk, Nike, LucasFilm, Greenpeace, PBS, NEC and MSNBC. Futurefarmers artists and friends; Amy Franceschini, Michael Swaine, Elmar Trefz, Stijn Schiffeleers, Josh On and Richard Mortimer.
For more on their art, sculture and design projects, and residencies, visit their website .
See also: the F.R.U.I.T. Network & Lofoten Game of the Future .
