nDreams

Little Cities VR

Immerse yourself in a virtual reality and create your own ‘little cities’: from modest villages to bustling metropolises. Plan the infrastructure, manage the city layout and develop a thriving community. Collaborate with other festival visitors and build your own ‘CurieuCity’. Dive into this unique experience of urban planning and spatial planning, just like a real urban planner.

Create thriving cities from scratch with a huge range of buildings, facilities and transport options at your fingertips. Lose yourself in endless creativity and create not only cities, but also the islands of your dreams.

Little Cities is a simple and fun creative simulation game for young and old. You can play it every day in the CurieuCity Video Games Area.

Free Lives

Terra Nil

Step into a post-apocalyptic world where you must transform barren lands into lush, thriving ecosystems. Use the latest advanced eco-technologies to purify the soil, plant forests and breathe new life into natural habitats. Once your mission is complete, you can recycle your buildings to erase all traces of your presence and leave the environment pristine for the new inhabitants of the animal kingdom.

Terra Nil is a strategic game about restoring barren, lifeless landscapes. Experience a sense of tranquility as you marvel at lush hand-painted environments, relaxing music and an atmospheric soundtrack that make Terra Nil a peaceful, meditative experience. Once you’re done, use the ‘Appreciate’ mode to enjoy the natural beauty of the ecosystem you’ve restored.

Xavier Gazon

TaboOTaboO

Immerse yourself in this immersive musical experience with electrokinetic instruments and sound synthesis.

‘TabooTaboo’ is a musical project orchestrated by sound artist Xavier Gazon, creator of unique instruments powered by electromechanical elements and sensors interacting with a modular synthesizer.

Each instrument in ‘TabooTaboo’ is a work of art in its own right, capable of generating unheard-of sounds. But the magic happens when these mechanisms come to life, triggering automated instruments and creating a captivating and poetic symphony. In each performance, Xavier Gazon improvises an enchanting story, transporting the audience on a sensory journey through exotic lands and imaginary soundscapes.

TabooTaboo explores concepts such as ‘sound synthesis,’ ‘sound physics,’ ‘acoustics,’ ‘electromechanics,’ and ‘do-it-yourself.’ It thus offers a captivating performance both for music and science enthusiasts.

Xavier Gazon is a composer, sound artist, and performer who pushes the boundaries of sound art by exploring electromechanics and sound synthesis. Let yourself be surprised by a world where music and technology meet, where vibrations and sound waves are the raw materials of a fascinating artistic performance.

Pauline Mikó

PLUIES

PLUIES is an innovative artistic project that explores the interface between electronic music and plant biodiversity.

Created by artist Pauline Mikó, PLUIES creates an immersive experience where the human body and plants enter into a symbiotic relationship to produce organic electronic music. Using modular synthesis, botany and bioelectronic sensors, Pauline Mikó creates an audiovisual performance that invites the audience to rediscover the relationship between humans and nature through the universal language of music.

Pauline Mikó is a visual and sound artist whose work explores the boundaries between art, technology and nature. A graphic arts graduate, she began the PLUIES project inspired by her travels and artistic encounters in Iceland. With PLUIES, she invites audiences to rethink their relationship with living things and to recognise music as a shared language between humans and nature.

Rhizome

Plantswap

Join the Brussels plantswap community!

‘What is a plantswap?’

This cosy occasion brings together houseplant and garden lovers to share their plants and cuttings to expand their collection of green friends. The perfect opportunity to meet fellow enthusiasts, make new contacts and learn tips & tricks. You simply bring what you have at home and offer it to others.

By exchanging plants and cuttings for free, you counterbalance the capitalist production system: many houseplants are produced in ecologically dubious conditions and sold at high prices, to be consumed as decorative items that are discarded when their health deteriorates.

Help encourage the circular economy and increase your knowledge of plants at the same time!

Noio Games (Thomas van den Berg)

Cloud Gardens

Explore the interaction between nature and urban planning in this creative video game. Plant seeds to rejuvenate and transform overgrown, decaying urban environments into thriving spaces. Create unique dioramas with the healing power of nature and let your imagination run wild as you turn urban landscapes into green paradises.

Cloud Gardens is a garden simulator, dystopian landscape builder and puzzle game that offers frustration-free fun. Share your creations with fellow gardeners, download videos of other dioramas, and immerse yourself in the generative soundscapes of Amos Roddy, the composer of Kingdom.

The relaxing nature of Cloud Gardens encourages creativity. The video game has a huge catalog of objects and plants for you to choose from.

Watch the trailer of the game via the following link: https://youtu.be/pZ6x-Ueoz_Y?si=wC4ggGXQjWLeg5b7

Mâalem Driss Filali & Koyo de Bxl

Discover Gnawa music

The music, singing, and dancing of the Gwanas are part of Moroccan folk culture. Originally, their musical performances were religiously inspired. However, the meeting between Gwana and Jazz musicians in the early ’70s made the music known outside the community as well.

Driss Filali is a ‘mâalem’ or Gwana master, and one of the key artists from the Moroccan diaspora in Brussels. He is a member of MetX groups such as Marockin’ Brass and Banda Quetzal, and is the co artistic coordinator of the Gwana training program Karkaba.

As the son of mâalem Selam, Driss Filali grew up in Morocco in a cummunity where Gwana culture is omnipresent. At a young age, he learned to play music with his father and his cousin, mâalem Hamid. Together, they perform during various lila’s, traditional spiritual healing rituals, in Morocco and at festivals in France and Belgium. Enjoy their captivating music rhythms and whirlwind choreographies at CurieuCity.

Play Corner

This activity is only available in NL-FR

In the CurieuCity play corner, game and innovation come together in a series of fascinating board and building games. Discover “Amai!”, where players race to create a clever AI solution first. With simple rules and an appeal to creativity , this game is suitable for anyone interested in technology, without needing to be an expert.

For nature lovers, there are games such as ”Le Rallye des Vers de Terre” and “Le Jeu du Potager”, where players explore the wonders of urban agriculture. “Carcassonne” invites you to build medieval landscapes, while “Salad 2 Points” combines strategy with a healthy dose of fun. For crafters, there’s ”Villa Paletti”, where building a stable structure under pressure is key.

“Babel” and “Takla” offer a cooperative challenge where collaboration and balance are essential. This diverse collection of games offers something for everyone, from deep strategic games to light and quick ones. Come to CurieuCity’s play area and be surprised by the world of board and building games!

FARI. AI For the common good institute

FARI Datawalk

Cameras, sound beacons, digital billboards and even shared bicycles: since the last few years, cities like Brussels have been full of technologies that collect data about us. The Brussels research institute FARI has recently started organizing data walks, guided walks during which you will discover this virtual layer of the city. During this unique tour, you will learn about the different ways in which data is collected in the city and how data collection is transforming our cities and paving the way for “smart city applications. This guided walk was specially adapted for CurieuCity to the area around the West Station in Molenbeek.

FARI.brussels is a joint initiative of ULB and VUB that aims to develop, study and promote the deployment and management of Artificial Intelligence, Data and Robotics technologies in a reliable, transparent, open, inclusive, ethical and responsible manner.

To register for this activity, click here.

Inforsciences - ULB

Plants to crunch

This activity is only available in FR

Workshop where young people learn the anatomy of a plant.

A tart with leaf stalks … of rhubarb? A tuber puree … of potatoes? Stewed pea seeds and fried carrots from carrots? What do we all actually eat when we talk about five fruits and vegetables a day? Let’s look at the anatomy of the plants (fruits and vegetables) on our plates, because everything in the plant world is a real treat!
During this workshop, children ages 8 to 12 will learn to make a connection between food in everyday life and the origins of the products we eat. By having fun in this “eating laboratory,” children gain an appreciation for the fruits and vegetables on their plates and learn about botany and the food pyramid.