Curated by Lindsay Howard

F.A.T GOLD Europe

Celebrating more than five years of thug life, pop culture, and R&D, the renegade art organization known as the Free Art & Technology Lab, or F.A.T. Lab, is going GOLD. F.A.T. GOLD, that is. From November 15–January 26, MU will present the acclaimed work of F.A.T. Lab. Curated by Lindsay Howard, the exhibition invites the public to experience and engage with the collective’s groundbreaking projects.

F.A.T. GOLD Europe brings together an international group of twenty-five collaborators comprised of artists, hackers, engineers, musicians, and graffiti writers. Many of the members will be in Eindhoven during the week of November 10, participating in panels, hackathons, and leading workshops at MU, Designhuis and Baltan Laboratories in Natlab.

The exhibition features significant works from 2007 to the present, including new projects to be launched on opening night. Showcasing a comprehensive selection of the group’s diverse output, the exhibition includes video, software, net art, installation, and performance. F.A.T. Lab members will also be creating and hacking on new, cutting-edge projects to be added to the exhibition on the fly.

In recognition of the five-year anniversary, F.A.T. GOLD Europe will also launch a new book co-published by Link Editions and MU, edited by Domenico Quaranta and F.A.T Fellow Geraldine Juarez, entitled F.A.T. MANUAL. The instructional book features a selection of works from F.A.T. Lab’s history, all of which encourage DIY entrepreneurship, open source, and activism. Join us for the exhibition opening on November 15, which will include a brief presentation by the book's editors.

F.A.T. Lab members are Mike Baca, Aram Bartholl, Magnus Eriksson, Michael Frumin, Geraldine Juárez, KATSU, Tobias Leingruber, Greg Leuch, Golan Levin, Zach Lieberman, LM4K, Kyle McDonald, Jonah Peretti, Christopher “moot” Poole, James Powderly, Evan Roth, Borna Sammak, Randy Sarafan, Becky Stern, Chris Sugrue, Addie Wagenknecht, Theo Watson, Jamie Wilkinson, Bennett Williamson, and Hennessy Youngman.

The Free Art and Technology Lab

F.A.T Lab is an organization dedicated to enriching the public domain through the research and development of creative technologies and media. F.A.T. Lab’s greater network of artists, engineers, scientists, lawyers, and musicians are committed to supporting open values and the public domain through the use of emerging open licenses, support for open entrepreneurship, and the admonishment of secrecy, copyright monopolies, and patents.

F.A.T. Lab was co-founded in 2007 by Eyebeam senior fellows Evan Roth and James Powderly. Over the past five years, the group has grown to include twenty-five artists, designers and hacker from 3 continents, many of whom have been involved with Eyebeam either as residents, fellows, or collaborators. This exhibition is part of Eyebeam's 15th Anniversary series, which serves to mark over a decade of innovative research and progress in the field of new media art.

F.A.T. Lab members include: Mike Baca, Aram Bartholl, Magnus Eriksson, Geraldine Juarez, Michael Frumin, KATSU, Tobias Leingruber, Zach Lieberman, Greg Leuch, Golan Levin, Kyle McDonald, Jonah Peretti, Christopher “moot” Poole, James Powderly, Evan Roth, Borna Sammak, Randy Sarafan, Becky Stern, Chris Sugrue, Addie Wagenknecht, Theo Watson, LM4K, Jamie Wilkinson, Bennett Williamson, and Hennessy Youngman.

Lindsay Howard

Lindsay Howard is the 2012-2013 Curatorial Fellow at Eyebeam as well as the Curatorial Director of 319 Scholes, a non-profit exhibition space in Brooklyn dedicated to promoting work at the intersection of art and technology. Her work uses experimental curatorial models to reflect what she sees as an essential shift in contemporary culture, specifically a growing interest in collaborative creativity, open source philosophy, and unlimited access to information. She has been following F.A.T. Lab's projects for years, but became interested in working with them when they “occupied” her blog (along with hundreds of others) in 2011.

MU

MU zooms in on the hybrid here, now, and later of visual culture. MU is an adventurous guide to all art lovers with a keen interest in the energetic mix of design, fashion, music, architecture, and new media that contemporary art is. Attracting a wide audience, MU is a meeting place and inspirational breeding ground for creative Eindhoven, the Netherlands, and the world. MU initiates and co-produces. MU regularly challenges international artists to realise their dreams, or to stage their first large presentation, solo, or in a group. MU shows what art can be, not what art should be. The name MU is derived from a Japanese character meaning ‘synergy’. In Zen Buddhism, however, mu has a deeper meaning, one that is even more typical of MU. In Zen, mu stands for ‘nothing’, ‘not one’, ‘not zero’, ‘not yes’, ‘not no’. It creates the possibility to put an end to black-and-white thinking, to leave questions unanswered, and to show what is happening next.