All posts by nanotopian

Tosca Hidalgo y Terán is a part of Nanotopia. She is a Toronto based multidisciplinary artist. Born in San Francisco, California, Tosca relocated to Canada in 2001. Working with metals, computer coding, and animation since the mid-eighties, Tosca was introduced to glass as an artistic medium in 2004. Through developing bodies of work incorporating metal, glass, and electronics, Tosca has been awarded scholarships at The Corning Museum of Glass, Pilchuck Glass School and The Penland School of Crafts. Her work has been featured at SOFA New York, Culture Canada, Metalsmith Magazine, The Toronto Design Exchange, and the Memphis Metal Museum. Most recently, Tosca has been awarded residencies at Gullkistan Centre for Creativity, Nes artist residency Iceland, The Association of Icelandic Visual Artists and the Ayatana SciArt Research Program in Ottawa. Tosca founded nanopod: Hybrid Studio maker space in 2005. Continually exploring new materials and tools, Tosca started collaborating artistically with Algae, Physarum polycephalum, and Mycelium in 2016, translating biodata from non-human organisms into music. Mycelium Network Podcast, iTunes: https://goo.gl/95PdBe Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/nanotopia/sets/midnight-mushroom-music http://www.toscateran.com

Metal in May

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Learn how to form, fabricate, solder, set-stones in our 4 wk  Metal + Glass course, etch, cast and more!

Almar’s cuttlebone cast from a 4/wk course in Iceland

Metal + Glass 4-week course Starts up Tuesday evening, May 5th thru 28th and runs – 8 evenings. Tuesday & Thursday 6:30-9:30pm  $285/pp – limited seats!

 

evening #1: First evening: working with copper: safety, drilling, sawing. Adding textures.

 

 

evening #2: Making a ring band out of silver (stamp, hammer finish, roller print, etc.)

evening #3: Working with wax create a small piece w/the lost wax technique- to be cast in Sterling silver or brass (off-site).

evening #4: Finishing wax projects, Lo-tech casting with Cuttlefish bone.

evening #5: Fold-forming

evening #6: Enameling copper projects, forming, how to make your own basic findings.

evening #7: Bezel settings cabochon stones or fossils or crystals, or an enameled glass piece.

evening #8: Finish up projects  No experience necessary!

Copper, wax, glass, and some sterling silver are supplied*.  A list of local suppliers is included.   Questions concerning this course? Please see our FAQ’s

What’s included:
Approx 4×5” piece of copper sheet, 2’ copper wire, sterling silver for 1 ring band, fine silver bezel wire to set 1 cabochon-cut stone, silver solder to complete class projects, wax, 10 grams of sterling silver for cuttlebone casting,  powdered vitreous enamel, 1 doz saw blades, 1 1mm drill bit, 1 half-face particulate respirator, nitrile gloves, refractory materials for casting molds.  Students are encouraged to supply their own cabochon cut stones, crystals, rocks, etc.

Additional materials not included: cabochon cut stone(s), extra sterling silver grain for lost wax castings, sterling silver sheet/plate for setting stones on/constructing other pieces.  Sterling silver casting grain may be purchased at $2.50gram.

The lab fees offer tools and materials for students to continue projects at home and start setting up their own studio.
Lab fee $150.00 (optional) what it includes:
adjustable jeweller’s bench pin, jeweller’s saw frame, 1 gross (144) jeweller’s saw blade assortment, 20 grams of sterling silver casting grain, 2″x2″ sterling silver plate.
Lab fee 1

Multi-species entanglements: Forming with Mycelium • working with environmentally friendly, renewable materials

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Multi-species entanglements: Forming with Mycelium • working with environmentally friendly, renewable materials

Next Mycelium Bio-Materials workshop
is scheduled for Sunday, April 19th, 1pm start

April 19th workshop
May 24th workshop

 

During this workshop, Tosca Terán introduces participants to the amazing potential of mycelium for collaboration at the intersection of art and science. Participants learn how to transform their kitchens and closets into safe, mini-Mycelium Biolabs, learn how to cultivate mycelium, and leave the workshop with a live Mycelium planter/bowl form, as well as a wide array of possibilities of how they might work with this sustainable bio-material. All materials are provided.

Workshop includes:
1 round planter growth form
1 bag of substrate inoculated with Mycelium
Nitrile gloves
Particulate mask
Instructions

This workshop includes everything you need to grow a round planter, as well as hand-sculpt a small form plus, a full bag of substrate inoculated with mycelium! Suggestions on how to grow other forms or grow onto various armatures (3D printed, hand-knit/crocheted, wood structures, etc) will be discussed.

March 15

Mycelium can be used in industrial design, art, architecture – the possibilities are seemingly endless! Check out the Mycelium Martian Dome project, an installation that took place in 2019 through a residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto in partnership with the Ontario Science Centre.

Mycelium= the mass of interwoven filamentous hyphae that forms especially the vegetative portion of the thallus of a fungus and is often submerged in another body (as of soil or organic matter or the tissues of a host) aka mushroom roots

Artist-instructor Tosca Teran works with Mycelium collaboratively –
creating the Midnight Mushroom Music Podcast.

February & March workshops at co:Lab & InterAccess

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Bio-Data Touchpads @I/A

Tuesday, March 3rd 6PM-10PM
$95 for members of I/A
$125 for non-members, includes materials fee.

 

Tosca Teran will lead a workshop on how to build customized touchpads that can trigger sounds, samples, and sequencers, collect bio-data, be used with analog or digital synthesizers, and so much more. With this device, you can start listening to your BioData!

Create your own custom touchpads and you will be able to:
– Use with your analogue or digital synth
– Trigger sounds/samples
– Trigger sequences
– Control a robot
– Collect bio-data
– Use with Unity and more!

Participants will learn how to design and etch customized touchpads using their own hand-drawn and digitally created images. While designs are etching we will discuss and design the circuitry to be included on our touchpads! Participants will start with simple on/off touchpads and move into a multi-touch and slide-touch touchpad.

This workshop takes place at InterAccess.org

Mapping with Slime Mould • Sunday, March 22nd 1pm-4pm $50/pp

During this workshop, Tosca Terán introduces the potential of slime mould for collaboration at the intersection of art and science. Participants learn how to transform their kitchens and closets into safe, mini-Physarum Biolabs and leave the workshop with a feeding and growing kit, their own Slime mould, as well as a wide array of possibilities of slime mould (Physarum polycephalum*) culturing. The workshop invites participants to experiment with different biological media and feeding substrates, reflecting on how they inform the growth and morphology of protozoans and protists.

*Physarum polycephalum is a yellow ameboid dweller of decaying logs and decomposing vegetation on dim forest floors. It made headlines when Japanese biologists demonstrated its uncanny ability to optimize paths through mazes and reproduce tracks between mapped Tokyo railway stations. Since then, slime mould has become an attractive living substrate for research in diverse areas such as mathematical modelling, computation and bio-art.

This workshop takes place at co:Lab

Link: https://soundcloud.com/nanotopia/episode-3-special-guest-physarum-polycephalum

Winter Workshops – 2020

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Bio-Material/Bio-Art workshops

 

 

 

 

 

Bio-Art related workshops taking place at co:Lab|nanopod studio scheduled into March 2020. 

Mycelium Bio-Materials

Bio-Sonification Modules

Physarum non-human encounters 

We’ve had an overwhelming response to our Mycelium Bio-Materials workshops so, we’ve added a special Thursday evening workshop! Thursday, January 23rd 6:30 to 9:30pm
Only 5 seats remain – register soon via the button below!  

Working with environmentally friendly, renewable materials

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Multi-species entanglements: Forming with Mycelium • working with environmentally friendly, renewable materials

New date added for January, 26th 2020

 

 

During this workshop, Tosca Terán introduces participants to the amazing potential of mycelium for collaboration at the intersection of art and science. Participants learn how to transform their kitchens and closets into safe, mini-Mycelium Biolabs, learn how to cultivate mycelium, and leave the workshop with a live Mycelium planter/bowl form, as well as a wide array of possibilities of how they might work with this sustainable bio-material. All materials are provided.

Workshop includes:
1 round planter growth form
1 bag of substrate inoculated with Mycelium
Sculpting mix
Nitrile gloves
Particulate mask
Instructions

This workshop includes everything you need to grow a round planter, as well as hand-sculpt a small form plus, a full bag of substrate inoculated with mycelium! Suggestions on how to grow other forms or grow onto various armatures (3D printed, hand-knit/crocheted, wood structures, etc) will be discussed.

Mycelium can be used in industrial design, art, architecture – the possibilities are seemingly endless!

Mycelium= the mass of interwoven filamentous hyphae that forms especially the vegetative portion of the thallus of a fungus and is often submerged in another body (as of soil or organic matter or the tissues of a host) aka mushroom roots

Artist-instructor Tosca Teran works with Mycelium collaboratively –
creating the Midnight Mushroom Music Podcast.

Bio-data Module building workshop

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Holiday gift-giving!

Collaborate sonically with the non-human organisms around you.
Workshop participants receive step by step guidance putting together their Modules and help in understanding how the device works. Prerequisite: Basic knowledge of soldering is very important. Here is a link to the Mighty Ohm’s, fullsoldercomic_en

“Bio-sonification,” basically means using technology to turn the bio-rhythms of living organisms into sound.
Biodata Sonification is a process to translate complex real-time sensor data into musical notes and controls, exploring auditory sensory modality to provide insights into invisible phenomenon. The Bio-Sonification module is a purpose-built circuit able to detect micro fluctuations in conductivity that have a duration between 1000th and 100,000th of a second.
While in Australia researching bio-sonification of Gum trees and Aussie fungi, Tosca was interviewed by ABCWhat do mushrooms sound like?
Curious to listen/hear what bio-sonification has taken place so far?
Check out the Midnight Mushroom Music podcast here!

Build a biodata to MIDI module

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Build your own portable Nanotopian MIDI Bio-Sonification Module to record and play-back Bio-Data from nature. 

Tuesday evening, December 3rd, 6:30pm start.  Module kits are  $45/pp for registered workshop participants.  The workshop is  $50/pp

Registered participants can purchase their kit on the day of the workshop or pay for their module in advance.

Reserve your seat soon, seats/kits sell out fast!

 

Collaborate sonically with the non-human organisms around you.
Workshop participants receive step by step guidance putting together their Modules and help in understanding how the device works.
Prerequisite: Basic knowledge of soldering is very important. Here is a link to the Mighty Ohm’s, fullsoldercomic_en

The MIDI Bio-Sonification modules require MIDI connectors (Midi Into the Module).
Musical (instrument) shops sell them or check out Amazon, Moog Audio, Long and McQuade, etc
iConnectivity is great! They offer a package with both USB and Lightning connectors. Non-iPhone/Pad users can use a USB adaptor.
Here are some links for you to check and the Ableton LIVE 30-day trial link. We work with Ableton (have since its beginning) this is why we recommend it but there are other music production/editing apps out there!
Animoog is awesome and amazing and costs $29.99 through the app store: https://www.moogmusic.com/products/animoog
Propellerheads Reason Compact Free: https://www.propellerheads.com/reason-compact
AudioKit-Synth One: https://audiokitpro.com/synth/
Android synth apps

“Bio-sonification,” basically means using technology to turn the bio-rhythms of living organisms into sound.

Biodata Sonification is a process to translate complex real-time sensor data into musical notes and controls, exploring the auditory sensory modality to provide insights into invisible phenomenon.