Tag Archive for 'new media'

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. 

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).

workshop: Towards Open and Dynamic Archives

Published on June 22, 2008 in Chips, E-culture and Research. 0 Comments

Preservation, digitalisation and accessibility of (audio) visual and paper/book heritage were the keywords about two weeks ago. Monday 9 June I a had an interesting discussion about the topic at the Universty Library in Ghent (as part of the research project I’m running for the Antwerp Academy/University Antwerp), and the next day it was the central theme of a workshop organised by the participants of the research project BOM-VL (Bewaring & Ontsluiting van Multimedia in Vlaanderen) at VUB.

The challenges highlighted during the workshop cross with the small research project as there are: which formats should be used when digitalizing, which quality of digitalisation needs to be used according to the purpose of the digitalized work, what about metadata and what about (re) production rights when opening up content to the wider public? How does these challenges work within collaborations between different types of organisations?

4 examples/ 4 speakers explained how they dealt (or tried to deal) with these challenges. Their projects are more than interesting to have a look at. Paul Gerhardt, running at present an independent consultancy named Archives for Creativity, works with public broadcasters and archives in the UK and the US. It was said to hear though that most of the BBC creative archive is off line now and that the project is on hold at the moment…but the idea has spread over the UK and the US now. Tobias Golodnoff is project director of the Dansk Kulturarv. I particularly liked their Bonanza project, in which they invited the public to participate in the preservation project just by voting which material should be digitalized in the first phase of the project. Marius Arnesen, working for the R&D division of the Norwegian Public Broadcast company, gave an overview of experiments with new media on the Internet using their content. Who has not received through facebook or other social network channel the hilarious clip on the medieval helpdesk. And last but not least Geert Wissinck and Johan Oomen, both working as researchers for the Duch images of the Future – project, gave an insight in the challenges while making audio-visual cultural heritage available to a wider public, save that heritage for the future and make room for innovation as well as research on the process. I’m particularly curious how the education pilot will run, a platform, combining different sources and offering teachers the possibility to use the resources to prepare their educational material for class.

The whole session has been filmed so I guess it will soon available on the web somewhere. Maybe check Cultuurlab or the e-cultuur blog?

Tate tracks

Published on December 27, 2007 in Arts Education, Audience Development, E-culture and Various. 0 Comments

Tate tracksA nice interactive project from over the channel. Tate launched Tate Media about a year ago. The project that attracted my attention a couple of months ago was Tate Tracks.

In a first stage popular musicians were asked to write a song for their favorite work of art at Tate Modern, in a second stage bands and young musicians aged 16-24 were invited to make their choice within the Tate collection and write a song and upload it on myspace. The public could vote on the submitted tracks and the 20 most popular went before a jury of professionals…and the winner is Kotki Dwa inspired by The Handsome Pork Butcher by Francis Picabia. Modern Art meets music and youth through the web!

2008 en de toekomst

Published on December 21, 2007 in Various. 1 Comment

Een nieuw jaar kondigt zich aan, en wat voor één! 2008 wordt het jaar waarin collega Stefan Kolgen professioneel aan een nieuw hoofdstuk begint.

Einde 2007 vroeg de jeugddienst C.H.I.P.S. vzw of de organisatie het zag zitten om een groot project te coördineren waarin nieuwe media, jongeren en participatie centraal staan en zie. De vraag is nu omgezet in realiteit. Per 1 januari gaat Stefan aan de slag binnen C.H.I.P.S. vzw om de komende 3 jaar voor Stad Antwerpen een media-agentschap voor jongeren ‘uit de grond te stampen’ en te coördineren. Meer nieuws hierover in het voorjaar. I’ll keep you posted!

Dit heeft natuurlijk implicaties voor K&L. De webportfolio wordt overgenomen door het Antwerps ontwerpbureau Oskar D. Helemaal op dezelfde golflengte mag u van hen dezelfde service verwachten als wat men al die jaren van K&L gewend was.

Ontwikkelaar Tony De Telder zal zijn taak bij OskarD fulltime verderzetten en blijft instaan voor de technische opvolging van de K&L sites.

En ik? Ik blijf verderwerken zoals voorheen, maar nu onder mijn eigen naam en via de contacten die je op deze blog kan vinden.

En verder blijf ik als voorzitter natuurlijk nauw betrokken bij de C.H.I.P.S. verwikkelingen.

Een spannend en inspirerend 2008 dus!