Archive for the 'Research' Category

Ruimte voor 7 Doctoraten @Media, Arts & Design Faculteit Limburg

Published on July 9, 2010 in C-mine, MDA and Research. 0 Comments


De MAD-faculty is de nieuwe gezamenlijke associatiefactulteit voor Media, Arts en Design (PHL, KHLim, UHasselt, KULeuven). De MAD-faculty wil op korte tijd haar onderzoekinstituut MAD-research stevig uitbouwen rond 4 onderzoeksgroepen: Social Spaces, Image & Word, Play & Game, en Art/Object & Design.

In het kader van een LSM-project (Limburg Sterk Merk) wil the MAD-faculty invulling geven aan 7 bijkomende artistieke/ontwerpende doctoraatsprojecten. Concreet zijn we op zoek naar 7 excellente en gemotiveerde doctoraatsstudenten die op basis van een beurs gedurende 4 jaar een artistiek/ontwerpend doctoraatsonderzoek willen uitvoeren en dit willen verdedigen tegenover een relevante jury.

Bijkomende vereisten die gesteld worden aan de projecten zijn 1. de aansluiting ervan aan het algemene onderzoeksbeleid en de meerjarenplanning die opgesteld werden binnen Onderzoeksinstituut MAD-Research en 2. een valorisatiepotentieel binnen de Limburgse Regio (vooral economisch maar zeker ook cultureel/maatschappelijk). Bijgevoegde informatiedossier geeft dan ook een korte omschrijving van zowel dit onderzoeksbeleid (MAD-Research) als van enkele relevante initiatieven in deze Limburgse Regio.

Daarnaast bevat dit informatiedossier ook informatie over de manier waarop een project ingediend kan worden:

- Indiening enkel via domeinspecifieke onderzoekscoördinatoren MAD-Research
- Indiening van projecten
- Dead-line indiening: 15 september, 2010

Meer info bij de verschillende onderzoeksgroepen, of op de MDA site en de PHL site

must read: art direction explained, at last!

Published on December 13, 2009 in Research and Various. 0 Comments

I’m not an art director, and never will be, but I got really fascinated by this book (editors: Steven Heller + Veronique Vienne) . Not only by its content: interesting cases such as the one on the value of multiple entry points or the panache of doo-dads, and a fresh way of looking at art direction using different viewpoints.  But also fresh through its design by Rick Landers.

puntKom lezingen

Published on December 2, 2009 in C-md, Research and Various. 0 Comments

puntKom is een initiatief, opgestart vanuit de master Communicatie & Multimedia Design (MDA - Genk). Het is een mix (kom) van “crispy lectures, tasty workshops, bite-sized performances and yummy demos. In short, a meeting place for you (yes, You!), passionate about media, culture, design and technology!”

puntKom zal elke maand doorgaan op een donderdagavond van 18u38 tot 21u30 in het amfitheater van MDA op C-mine.
De eerste is gepland op 10 december – uitnodiging in bijlage - met op het programma :
Mirko Tobias Schäffer over Basterd Culture
En Roman Kirschner over Serious Gaming
De avond wordt afgesloten met een drink (met dank aan Nascom)….

Deelname is gratis maar wel inschrijven via de wiki zodat onze bevriende buren weten hoeveel catering ze moeten voorzien…

Voor hen die deze maand moeten passen, maar misschien wel een volgende keer willen komen hier alvast de data voor dit academiejaar : Do 10 dec / Do 14 jan / Do 11 feb/ Do 11 maa /Do 22 apr/Do 20 mei/Do 10 jun.

podcast about possibilities of AR in Education

Published on November 7, 2009 in Arts Education, E-culture, Research and Various. 0 Comments

Not the most exciting way of interviewing, but an interesting overview of the current possibilities Augmented Reality offers to education.

Interesting mapping exercise: We will be there - Map of the Future

Published on November 3, 2009 in Research and Various. 0 Comments

 

Map drawn by densitydesign.org, ordered by WIRED Magazine Italy.

presentation DMF09 on citizen journalism

Published on October 24, 2009 in C-md, Chips, Research and Various. 1 Comment

It was maybe a rather peculiar presentation for the Digital Marketing First event, since it hadn’t anything to do with hard marketing facts … although there was a link. The role of social media in the way we pick up news is very present today, and will become even more important in the future.

I did not want to be  it the next powerpoint presentation, so I used a couple of slides with quotes and ended with two short videoreports. For this post I added som extra slides.

The presentation linked in on the blogboat discussion that took place last year in Ghent and moved over to one possible new way of newsmaking. What we call Citizen Journalism or Citizen Media is not new, but it is more present now due to technological evolutions.

Take for instance the images about the London bombings.  The first ones where taken by mobiles phones from the scene. BBC integrated this user generated content in his website.

These images, comments, videos travel the world fast and on a wider scale than ever before. News and discussions are above all going on outside newschannels today. Again more than one exemple possible, but I used the influence of Facebook and Flickr on the informationstream about  Iran elections. Some twitter clients still have a green coloured image. The video at necn.com gives a good overview about the influence of social media on the news.

It is a trend that cannot be stopped. News made by non-professional journalists is here to stay. This was also the consensus at the blogboat meeting. Thus question is how to embrace it within mainstream media? Collaborative models, models concentrated around certain topics with a professional journalist as coach, … were presented.

From the mainstream journalists, however, came the message that “user generated content” is neither free nor easy to deal with, particularly as volume increases, which puts a particular strain on editorial and technical resources. That’s not to say that the mainstream media people in attendance see citizen journalism as a threat, either to their ability to maintain or seek out new audiences, and it was exciting to see both sides discuss the very real possibility of mutually beneficial collaboration in future. (quote from Robin Hamman’s text for the blogboat 1.0. publication) So we have to find ways forward.

Our goal now should be to embrace citizen journalism and to help improve it.  A more diverse ecosystem can be better for all of us, but we need to make sure it is a healty one. (quote from Dan Gillmor’s text for the blogboat 1.0 publication)

Which did lead in the presentation to the StampMedia - model. It is a possible model if you keep Jay Rosen’s definition of CItizen Jornalism in mind of how this kind of journalism and mainstream can reinforce on another in a specific part of newsmaking. StampMedia is the first officially recognized press agency for young people. The agency works inclusive and offers the opportunity for young people to raise their voice in the Media. It is them them decided upon the name of the agency, it is them that decide what news will be covered. They are professionally supported (in that they work with professional material and that they are coached by professionals) and they have plenty of opportunities to improve their skills and to work on a portfolio. The agency exists about 2 years, and works today with a core group of 35 voluntary young reporters (aged 16-26) and more that 200 adhoc reporters. And the news they generate is part of the Belga newsfeed. Thus finds its way towards mainstream media. The agency is a joint initative of the City of Antwerp and C.H.I.P.S.vzw, supported by the City and will start with second department in Genk, which is supported by the Flemish Community, the City of Genk and the Province of Limburg.(the Blogboat 1.0. - publication will be available by the end of 2009)

c-md masterproeven 2009

Published on September 5, 2009 in C-md, Research and Various. 0 Comments

Spacecowboys - How art creates, networks and visualises hybrid space

Published on May 31, 2009 in Arts Education, Chips, E-culture and Research. 0 Comments

This is the title of a publication which covers essays linked with a workshop  or more precisely a joint project of KHLim’s Media & Design Academy and art centre Z33, which took place about a year ago at Z33 and is contentwise concted with the MDA research project Hybrid City & the exhibition Place@Space (re) shaping everyday life. Unfortunatelly I could not make it at the time, therefore I was happy to read the essays. Editors Rosanne Van Klaveren and Niels Hendriks asked some participants to write a text about (digital) art and hybrid spaces.   There is an article about CREW, and Maja Kuzmanovic (FoAM) reflects on an (changing) types of conversation in a networked society, but especially  the articles of Eric Kluitenberg (Public Agency in Hybrid Space - In Search for new forms of public engagement)  and Anne Nigten (Doctors have to deal with Aesthetics) drew my attention.

Kluitenberg argues that due to the fragmented landscape of hybrid media, society is changing. I like his metaphore of the ‘warm publics’ which are highly unstable and temporary constellations, mostly organised against subjects.He highlights that the there is a question that is largely left unaddressed: what with the engagement of a wider public in social and political processes? taking into account the technological changes. Discussions take place on different levels and in different spaces at the same time. We have to face a multi-dimentional public space.

Nigten investigates in her paper the way interactive media-art and electronic art is communicated. She looks at it in its broadest sense and illustrates this with two case studies. One investigates engaged interaction with the audience in such a way that virtual and physical environments mix or support each other. Cultuur Lokaal took place in Gouda and looks at new opportunities for collaboration with (in) formal local networks. It’s a collaboration between the Waterwolf laboratories (Haagse Hogeschool lectoraat Society and ICT by Dick Rijken and three cultural institutions in Gouda) and The Patchingzone student team in The Netherlands. The evaluation process confirmed that the proces of patching knowledge and methodologies from diffrerent knowledge fields in a kind of smooth, remix fashion is actually a specialism in its own right.

As the editors note in the afterword that the power of the corporeal presence in any kind of space should not be underestimated (…) Virtual elements are able to strengthen but also to alienate this spatial perception. 

Digitale week

Published on April 5, 2009 in Chips, E-culture, Research and Various. 0 Comments

donderdag organiseerde het Vlaams Steunpunt Nieuwe Geletterheid een studievoormiddag rond Social Software for Social Inclusion.Tegelijk met dit studiemoment werd het boekje What’s the use of social software - zeven praktijkvoorbeelden en meer om sociale software te gebruiken in jouw organisatie gepresenteerd.We kregen een zicht op 4 van de voorbeelden (voorbeeld 5 was StampMedia) en een paar internationale projecten die deel uitmaken van het Incluso onderzoeksproject. Van de internationale projecten onthoud ik vooral Station House Media Unit. Toch blijf ik met een prangende vraag zitten. Als Social networking platformen bestaan bij gratie van de gebruikers en bij gratie van het delen van informatie, foto’s, filmpjes etc …. Als deze onlineplatformen inclusief bezocht worden, waarom dan nog een eigen gesloten social networking plaform uitbouwen om inclusief te kunnen werken?  Is het succes van Paola246 (met Twitter, Youtube, Myspace, skynetblogs), Meisjeshuis Online (met MSN en Netlog) en Humo (om maar drie van de praktijkvoorbeelden te noemen) niet juist dat ze gebruik maken van bestaande open platformen? Een community kan je niet forceren. De community bepaalt zelf wat ze wil doen, wie/wat hun voorkeur krijgt en waar ze wil uithangen. Om de digitale kloof te dichten geloof ik dat, net zoals vorige week in het  Britse rapport (zie onder meer the guardian) te lezen stond, we kinderen en jongeren wegwijs moeten maken op de online informatiesnelweg en zo de digitale kloof weer een beetje helpen dichten.

Het boekje met praktijkvoorbeelden is binnenkort online beschikbaar op www.vsng.be

Why C-md

Published on March 22, 2009 in Arts Education, Audience Development, C-md, E-culture, Research and Various. 0 Comments

So two months ago I started to combine my freelance jobs with a coordinating job  in Higher Education. Must say that it is quite new for me to work 50% of my time in a Higher Education setting, but  due to the dynamic team and due to the fact that we are dealing with all issues linked with communication & media design I felt immediately at home. I love the combination (communication, design and media with the user at the centre), it is challenging, but inspiring and it matches nicely with some of my other jobs. It is hectic but  Being a coordinator is hectic but exciting. Luckily it is not always linked with education programmes and sheets ;-) We are currently working on a new website (more news after the summerbreak) and at this very moment for instance students are presenting their work made during a workshop at De Brakke Grond in Amsterdam as part of Victorian Circus V. On Friday reseach projects were presented at a rondtablediscussion organised by BAM at Brakke Grond.  And the master students will present their work at a barcamp later in May  (I’ll keep you posted).