Public Lab Research Fellowship
As an Oil Sheen Testing fellow, I am looking for the most efficient, safe and DIY approachable ways to collect oil sheens and possibly separate oil from water. My fellowship started in October and right now it is about to end. I developed and tested three collection methods. The first oil (sheen) collection method is the “Freezing Method” which I developed during an earlier stage of the fellowship. It is based on freezing the sample - oil and water mixture. This method is so far the most successful. I was able to recover roughly 2/3 (max) of the product with slightly different results for different oils. Another methods I tested are using PIG Oil Absorbent Mats and the Coastguard Oil Spill Sampling Kit
MfPS
“Manuals for Public Space” is an international archive which contains ideas for creating, reclaiming and recreating public space. It is a toolbox for grassroots urban planning and interventions using various methods coming from DIY science, bioremediation, Open Source movement and Constructivist Pedagogy. The ideas contained in the archive are presented in the form of free distributed user manuals together with special tools for these interventions.
Public Lab Oil Testing Workshop, Greenpoint
As a research fellow at Public Lab in collaboration with Newtown Creek Alliance, Sunview Luncheonette, and CLAKULA Productions, Matej Vakula organized an oil sheen collection and analysis workshop in Greenpoint, Brooklyn - a place of the second largest (but not widely known) oil spill in the US history. Participants tested new methods Public Lab is developing for Oil collection and extraction; they used the Oil Testing Kit for sample analysis and the PL Spectrometer. We collected samples from Newtown Creek Superfund site and adjacent areas and learned how to extract oil residues and how to analyze collected samples.
Public Lab Oil Testing Workshop, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
In 2016 I conducted a workshop on Oil Sheen Testing at the environmental science lab at the LaGuardia Community College, at the CUNY.
ChangeLab 1 & 2
This class was focused on developing basic principles of artistic research, and we are developing methods how to use art and data as an investigative tool. The course is also aiming to operate within the realm of public space or “public domain.”
ChangeLab 2 & 3
In 2011 - 2013 Change Lab cooperated with the Slovak Human Rights Institute. Together they produced a project about Slovakia as producers of dangerous military equipment, especially artillery, and cluster ammunition. This Project largely contributed to Slovakia signing the Arms Trade Treaty and Stopping selling and producing the Cluster Ammunition.
ChangeLab
ChangeLab stands for “Laboratory for Social Change”. It is a class I designed at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava, Slovakia. Every semester I teach my students basic principles of artistic research and we are developing methods how to use art as an investigative tool. The course is also aiming to operate within the realm of public space or “public domain”.
iheap
In 2016 Matej was working as a Program Director of iheap, an alternative education institute re-conceived by Alexandre Gurita. The Institute des hautes études en arts plastiques (iheap) is a post-graduate institute for research and experimentation in art. and represents the educational branch of the Biennale de Paris. iheap is a fluid school that develops non-standard practices, offering lessons that take place at different locations and inviting speakers coming from various backgrounds, such as art, philosophy, literature, sociology, economics and so on.
Interactivity
2011 - 2013. The Interactivity class aiming to introduce students to interactive programming and creating interactive objects via circuit making, Arduino microcontrollers, and the Processing programming language. First, the students started with very basic tasks and later moved towards much bigger complexity using motion and environmental sensors, movement tracking, and augmented reality.
