AMSTERDAM.- Soon Platform21 will be closing its doors. The incubation period is over, and they will end three years of pioneering work with a BANG! For the last-ever Platform21 project, Japanese designer Yuri Suzuki and artist Masa Kimura are building a breakfast machine, and they’re throwing everything into the mix – Platform21 = Jamming. They’ll reuse remnants of past Platform21 projects and receive help from designers who’ve previously taken part in our projects, as well as the public. For eight days, everyone will build the machine together, ultimately turning Platform21 into a two-day restaurant serving all-day breakfasts.

Every day at 17:00, it’s Happy Jamming Hour. Visitors are invited to the jam session: various designers will assign quick hands-on activities that put your improvisational skills to the test.

The breakfast machine
Hollywood directors have dreamed of it: the breakfast machine. Imagine a contraption that sets a chain reaction in motion at the push of a button, frying eggs, juicing oranges, brewing coffee, making toast, and serving it all on a plate with jam, cheese and meat. Not a bad way to start the day!

This fantasy will become reality during Platform21 = Jamming. Japanese designer Yuri Suzuki and artist Masa Kimura will build a machine that prepares traditional Dutch breakfasts at Platform21. They’ll recycle the remnants of all our past projects, from remote-controlled toy cars to hacked IKEA lamps, using tools Dremel will put at their disposal. Suzuki and Kimura will get help from other designers who’ve taken part in our projects, and the public is invited to help too! So whether you’re a Gyro Gearloose or all thumbs, get ready for a hefty dose of improvisation and a whole lot of testing. Every day, the machine will gain a new function and the breakfast a new component. By the end, Platform21 will have turned into a restaurant serving all-day breakfasts!

Happy Jamming Hour
Every day at 17:00 it’s Happy Jamming Hour, and visitors are invited to the jam session. Various designers will assign quick hands-on activities to put your improvisational skills to the test. Who can make the tallest spaghetti tower, and the fastest Lego toolbox? We hereby challenge you – but of course, you’re also welcome at Happy Hour just for a drink or two.

Platform21 is closing
For three years, Platform21 has been working on a new concept for a design museum. This concept, which can best be described as a public laboratory, has reached completion, and Platform21’s incubator role is hereby fulfilled. They end this period on a successful note, with a portfolio of interesting, popular projects and numerous enthusiastic participants and visitors.

They will find out later this year whether they will be able to continue operating with the new concept. So as not to let three years of pioneering activity pass by unnoticed, they are bringing together all the people and materials they have worked with one more time in our biggest co-creation project ever. In addition, they will be putting together a publication live during Platform21 = Jamming. It will appear at the end of the year.

Yuri Suzuki
Yuri Suzuki (Tokyo, 19800 takes his inspiration from old and new experiences. Growing up in Tokyo, he watched a lot of television. He collected his childhood impressions from TV, videos and LPs, and this collection still serves as a valuable source of inspiration today. He cites Herbie Hancock’s ‘Rockit’ video and Alexander Calder’s ‘Calder’s Circus’ as his main influences. These works got him interested in kinetic mechanisms, electronic music and technological art.

Suzuki’s work poses questions about the relationship between people and sound, and how music and sound influence the human brain. His sonic art works have been exhibited around the world. He currently teaches in the Design Products Department at the Royal College of Art in London, where he also has his own studio.

For Platform21 = Jamming, Yuri Suzuki reaches back to an old source of inspiration: television and film. Inspired by films like Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Back to the Future and Flubber, he came up with the idea of the breakfast machine. Not only does such a machine always provide a story with a spectacular beginning, but Suzuki also sees breakfast as a symbol of a new beginning for Platform21.

Masa Kimura
Masa Kimura (Japan 1981) graduated from Tama Art University in Tokyo, where he lives and works. He calls himself a ‘peace robot artist’: in his work he searches for peaceful ways of using robot technology.

Programme
16–24 September: Help build the breakfast machine!
25–26 September: Platform21 serves all-day breakfasts
Open daily 12:00–20:00
Happy Jamming Hour every day from 17:00
Free entry and participation

For the daily schedule of Platform21 = Jamming see www.platform21.nl.