Mcd #74. Art Industries. Digicult Carte Blanche

offprintmcd#74 - summer 2014

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Art /Industry

DESIGN/TECHNOLOGIES/AGENCIESBUSINESS/R & D/INNOVATION/URBAN PLANNING

ARCHITECTURE/CREATIVITY/OPEN DATANEW MEDIA/MEDIALAB

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The disruption of artAt a time when brands like Facebook, Google, Twitter... gather more peoplethan entire continents, it can be interesting to question the relationship between digital artists and new creative industries. Creative people who usetechnology and work with engineers, developers and scientists produceworks, devices and inventions whose users are no longer confined to theinstitutional sphere and museums nor places dedicated to the contemporaryart scene.

Their research & creation intersects the R&D departments of companies andlaboratories. The collaborative methods of such groups made of developers,designers and artists, promote innovation without necessarily claiming itsownership. Some of them, like the Graffiti Research Lab or the Free ArtTechnology Lab (FAT Lab), even assert the open-source as a constitutivefeature of their works. Occasionally, companies and brands are inspired bythese creations and might even choose to involve artists in their development.

Art-Industry interactions are numerous and crossbreed at different stagesof collaboration. The content of this issue demonstrates the variety and richness of achievements and the research undertaken. The connected artistmight indeed be the one who best enables us to disconnect.

I am particularly grateful to Marco Mancuso from Digicult Italy, who wasgiven carte blanche for this issue, all the authors as well as organisations,artists and brands who kindly answered our questions. I also wish to thank,once again, the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, our partnersand advertisers for their support towards this publication.

ANNE-CÉCILE WORMSEDITORIAL DIRECTOR

With the support of the French Ministry of Culture and Communication

Art/Industry EDITO


Art/Industry

03_ ÉDITO

05_ CONTENT

CARTE BLANCHE / DIGICULT08_ ART INDUSTRIES:

A NEW PRODUCTION PARADIGM

12_ TECHNOLOGY AND ART: THE COMPANY AS A SOURCE OF NEW FORMS OF KNOWLEDGE

16_ FURTHERFIELD AND CONTEMPORARY ART CULTURE

20_ VALUE AND INNOVATION IN CONTEMPORARY ART AND CULTURE

24_ NEW INDUSTRIES: AGENCIES, ARTISTS & DESIGNERS

28_ ARS ELECTRONICA: GERFRIED STOCKER.

32_ SCIENCE GALLERY: DR MICHAEL JOHN GORMAN

36_ SINLAB : JEFFREY HUANG & ALEX BARCHIESI

40_ MIT SENSEABLE CITY LAB : CARLO RATTI

44_ AALTO MEDIA FACTORY : PR. PHILIP DEAN

48_ ART+COM : PR. JOACHIM SAUTER

52_ SUBSCRIPTION

54_ WHO'S/DISTRIBUTOR

CONTENT

Couverture :Forms, installation

audio-visuelle. Memo Akten

en collaboration avec Quayola.

Photo © R.R.

06 - mcd offprint / summer 2014


CARTE BLANCHE /

DIGICULT> www.digicult.it

Since 2005, Digicult has been one of the main online platforms that examines the impact of digital technologies and science on art, design, culture and

contemporary society. Based on an international network of critics, curators, artists, designers, professors, researchers, journalists, media centers, galleries

and festivals, Digicult is an editorial project that daily publishes news, informations,articles, interviews, reports and even essays, artists’ books and the Digimag

Journal through its online publishing service Digicult Editions. Digicult furthermoredevelops tools for communication, marketing and Internet cultural promotion

strategies, as well as curatorial, management, consultancy and artists supportingprojects through the Digicult Agency. Digicult was founded and is directed

by Marco Mancuso. Twitter: @digicult

http://www.digicult.it

Carte Blanche /DigiCult> INTRODUCTION


In the last three decades, the necessaryfinances to activate production processes inthe field of Media Art have come first andforemost from institutions, but also frombanks, patrons or sponsorships from mar-kets that seemed apparently untouched,though ready to commercially contaminateothers and thus guarantee their own sur-vival. The common feeling is that this greatwelfare mechanism that — let’s admit it —was thought to be everlasting is no longersustainable and should allow space to morevirtuous art production and disseminationprocesses.

In fact, in a period of growing economicrecession and widespread cuts to culturalfunding, the number of examples of cultur-

al and creative subjects and industriesinvolved in the standardization of sustain-able development models aimed at activat-ing functional productive processes to real-ize a "cultural object" is increasing: artists,designers, programmers, authors, hackers,makers, musicians, film-makers, graphicdesigners; but also companies in the ICTsector of course (such as hardware and soft-ware producers) or active in fields includ-ing scientific research, mechatronics, artifi-cial intelligence, biomedicine or materialsinvestigation.

The new "creative classes" come from diversebackgrounds; they have not necessarily beeninstitutionalized even though they contributeto creating "value" on a socio-economic mod-

el scale that is more connected to the networksand the production of bottom-up culture.They are able to act as a link between theindustries and an the ecosystem of researchcentres, laboratories, and academies, exhibi-tion spaces and institutions of excellence, soas to create interesting sharing, exchangingand production mechanisms. The ultimategoal is to activate dissemination and circula-tion processes for the "cultural object" — aproduct that a company would not haveaccess to — for the growing interest of a wholeproductive sector ever more ready to investin arts and culture, more attentively and mas-sively than in the past.

The ability of what we refer to here as “ArtIndustries” is that of acting as catalysers and

ART INDUSTRIESa new production paradigmWe’ve got to start living with it, the future is here; those who do not take it in are lost. The twentieth-century sustenance models of artistic and cultural production are disappearingand our generation has not had the time to test them all the way. In Western countries, statesubsidies for culture, as well as funds provided by enlightened (and interested) sponsors,are ever more scarce and concentrated in the hands of a few representatives of a social and economic elite that is busy occupying and consolidating its roles and positions.

CARTE BLANCHE/DIGICULT - ART/INDUSTRY - mcd offprint / summer 2014 - 09

incubators of an increasingly popular formof grassroots artistic, economic and cultur-al production, linked to the usage of (new)technologies; and it is interesting to note thelong the list of similar experiences, both inrecent times and with reference to the pastcentury avant-gardes.

If, on the one hand, it is useful to recall suchprograms as the Boston Cyberarts “Artist inResidence at Technology Companies of Mas-sachusetts" (A.R.T.C.O.M.) that puts NewMedia artists in contact with high-tech com-panies for a mutually beneficial exchangeof technical and creative resources, or thePAIR, The PARC Artist in Residence Pro-gram (US), an ongoing research project atXerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center),at the ARTLAB, developed by Canon Inc.,that serves as a laboratory aimed at pio-neering new artistic realms through the inte-gration of science and art by applying dig-ital technologies to artistic investigations,on the other hand it is also important to

trace the history of contemporary arts, fromthe avant-gardes to the pioneers of the ‘60sand ‘70s — as described in Claudia D’Alon-zo’s essay — investigating the thickening ofthe relationship between art and industry,firstly due to the artists’ fascination for themechanized world and, subsequently,thanks to the increasingly systematic inter-est that hi-tech companies and TV broad-casting companies have had in integratingartists within their R&D departments.

The new “Art Industries” highlight the needto operate by activating networks of acquain-tances and contacts, integrating artists in themost appropriate productive circuits; design-ers and creative people belonging to increas-ingly liquid local/global networks that mir-ror a hybrid territory, interpenetrated by(in)experience and know-how. We need tobe acquainted with the most prominent inter-national case studies and draw from specif-ic literature, between topics related to “cre-ative industries” and the more “Media Art”

oriented publications. Lastly, we must under-stand how the paradigms of artistic and cul-tural object creation are changing, how theyare being affected by the relationship withthe companies and the market and how themechanisms of expression and freedom ofresearch on the medium are changing.

Thus, the interviews and testimonies here-in have the ambition to narrate a commonexperience. From Linz’s Ars Electronica Labto Dublin’s Science Gallery, from Helsinki’sAalto Media Lab to Lausanne’s Sinlab toBerlin’s ART+COM studio and MIT’s Seans- >

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ART+COM, River Is…, Yeongsan, South Korea, 2012.

Carte Blanche /DigiCult> INTRODUCTION


able City Lab, what emerges is a commontrait characterized by interpenetrated pathsamongst arts, design, science and researchon new forms of artistic and cultural pro-duction, entailing a tight form of collabora-tion between the world of industrial pro-duction and scientific research. The questionswere posed in a spirit of inquiry, to analysethe mechanisms and dynamics behind theworkability and economics of productivestructures referred to globally. The attemptwas to extrapolate experiences, highlightstrategies, search for often-concealed formsof collaboration; in other words, share a pos-sible alternative economic model, as part ofa cutting-edge production circuit still over-ly neglected by institutions, governmentsand markets.

The ultimate aim of this publication is tohighlight how the introduction and dis-semination of new open technologies, on

the one hand, and the development of net-works, peer-to-peer structures and socialnetworking dynamics on the other hand,have produced radical transformations inthe relationships amongst arts, science,design and society. In fact, if the progressivede-institutionilisation of forms of produc-tion, management and usage of material andimmaterial goods, brought in by new tech-nologies, is reshaping the way we thinkabout the production of culture, economicsand information — blurring the boundariesbetween fields and disciplines, combiningmethodologies, languages, know-how andinfluencing the distinction between "high"academic approach, and "low" self-taughtapproach — the birth of a series of platformsand online projects facilitates new ways ofrelating between producer and market.

The Do It Yourself philosophy has becomethe subject of reflection and research into

new and interesting balances for a class ofproducers of creativity and culture: reduc-tion of costs, lean structures, offer of serv-ices, capillary dissemination and commu-nication, platform sharing, sharing ofexpertise, direct professional relationshipsare forms and practices that provide the mar-ket with culture, art, design and communi-cation in an innovative and competitive wayfor companies in the sector.

This is the sense of Marc Garrett and Car-oline Heron’s texts: to recount — with com-petence, vision and knowledge — the var-ious experiences carried out at the head ofthe cultural project Furtherfield and theseries of social events, training sessionsand meetings on digital strategy in culturecalled Art of Digital London (AoDL) /Metamute. I proposed Marc Garrett to tellus about models, potentialities, risks andstrategies as regards the difficult relation-

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Visitors with Magicicada by David Rothenberg as part of OSCILLATOR, at Science Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin.


ship between the worlds of art and ofindustries and private research. How dothe conception and production of an artpiece change in relation to new industrialand economic paradigms? How can cul-tural institutions work in such a systemand how can curators and producers dotheir job, i.e. supervise?

Whereas, I suggested Caroline Heron tofocus her attention on what roles Media Artand contemporary cultural production areplaying and how these are changing(through misusage, adaptation or depend-ence) within the increasing economy of rep-utation in the contemporary cultural indus-try, whilst being affected by Internet andsocial technologies in a new system of values, social recognition and visibility. How are professional networks (from theworld of ICT, computation technologies, sci-ence, art, design, manufacturing, hacking,architecture) opening new opportunities tothose artists and creative people who areable to relate to different cultural and pro-duction playgrounds?

Although both essays are focused on whatis going on in the UK, the situation is inform-ative and can refer, more broadly, to digitalcultural production in general. The sur-prising (or maybe not so much so) conclu-sion is how thin the divide between art,research and commercial representation ofaesthetics, codes and expressive languageshas become. Google reigns and prospers overwhatever is Internet-related, with a series ofplatforms and projects aimed at linking com-panies, professionals, web marketing strate-gists and programmers, software artists,video artists and broadly intended audio-visually creative people.

From Think With Google to the CreativityOnline platform, up to Google Creative Lab(who declined participating in this study),the Mountain View giant clearly looks atcontemporary Media Art with great inter-est. Meanwhile, the number of culturalevents is expanding exponentially, in theform of talks or presentations, branded byICT or computer science firms, in whichmore or less well-known artists and design-ers personally represent the industry’s grow-ing interest for their creativity, technicalexpertise and knowledge of the latest codesand expressive languages.

From the Ted Talks, now covering a broadspectrum of topics, to the MoMo Amster-dam Conferences, up to the Seed DesignSeries and to other important gatherings inthe contemporary Media Art circuit such asBarcelona’s Offf, Manchester’s Future Every-thing and, above all, Belgrade’s Resonate, thecontemporary artist is clearly and mostly aprofessional who not only is able to respondto the demands of the society he is active in,but also to the markets who reside there.What we may still ignore is how industries

and markets look at the world of art andcomputational design; how research on spe-cific materials and technologies can affectproduction and sales of artistic works andobjects and what the evolution of the so-called “creative classes” can be in a worldradically dominated by technology and net-works.

As a conclusion, Nikolaus Hafermaas is theone to tells us that if and how innovation inindustry can be driven by creative people(namely artists and designers) and whichare the creative processes of conception,experimentation, rapid visualizing / proto-typing / testing / fabrication, crowd sourc-ing, radical collaboration that can be devel-oped on a larger scale and can be potentialand interesting for industries to invest in.

With this in mind, I would then talk aboutOpen Innovation, i.e. when the processesdescribed herein really affect not only the eco-nomical dynamics, but also the productionof art and culture in contemporary society.Here, innovation is not only “open” becauseit implies shared knowledge and techniques,but mainly because it activates cross-cultur-al processes, thus developing artistic objectswhose real “value” is not only what deter-mines their impact as "goods".

Marco Mancuso

Bibliographie> Boston Cyberarts, Artist in Residence at Technology

Companies of Massachusetts (A.R.T.C.O.M.).http://bostoncyberarts.org/air/

> ARTLAB, Canon Inc.www.canon.co.jp/cast/artlab/index.html

> PAIR, The PARC Artist in Residence Program (US),Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center).www.pair.xerox.com

> Mobile Monday Amsterdam. www.mobilemonday.nl

> Seed Design Series.http://seedmagazine.com/designseries

> Ted Talks. www.ted.com/talks

> Offf Festival. www.offf.ws

> Future Everything. http://futureeverything.org

> Resonate. http://resonate.io/2013/

> Google Creativity Online. http://creativity-online.com

> Think With Google / Creative Sandbox.www.thinkwithgoogle.com

Marco Mancuso is a critic and curator in thefield of digital technologies and their impactonarts, design and contemporary culture.Founder and Director at Digicult and DigimagJournal (part of The Leonardo Affiliate Program),he teaches at Naba Academy in Milan, CarraraAcademy In Bergamo and SUPSI in Lugano.

With the Digicult Agency he curated a series ofexhibitions, screenings, lectures, meetings andwas partner with the most important media artfestival internationally. Marco Mancuso recentlydeveloped the Digicult Editions open-publishingservice and is now studying new economicalInternet models for art and culture.

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Faber Futures by Natsai Chieza as part of GROW YOUR OWN, at Science Gallery,

Trinity College, Dublin.

http://bostoncyberarts.org/air/

http://www.canon.co.jp/cast/artlab/index.html

http://www.pair.xerox.com

http://www.mobilemonday.nl

http://seedmagazine.com/designseries

http://www.ted.com/talks

http://www.offf.ws

http://futureeverything.org

http://resonate.io/2013/

http://creativity-online.com

http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com

Carte Blanche / DigiCult> TECHNOLOGY AND ART


The very first interest for a contaminationbetween both areas came from artists andintellectuals rather than from the industry,as a result of the industrial revolution andwith the assertion of mechanical productionmethods. Things, as we shall see, hadchanged so much by the 1950s with thegrowing complexity of the technology land-scape, the advent of pioneering forms of elec-tronic and digital media and the birth of ICT.From the second half of the Nineteenth Cen-tury the industrialization caused radical

transformations that affected the field of thearts. One of the most evident was theassumption of greater and greater impor-tance of applied arts, which determined whatwould then be defined as industrial designor design and their statuses within the indus-trial world.

But there were also many indirect conse-quences on the areas which, at the time,were defined as "fine arts". In particular, inthe first two decades of the Twentieth Cen-

BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY AND ARTFor a history of the company as a source of new forms of knowledge

The relationship between art and industry, which emerged with more clarity in recent decades thanks to widespread digital technologies, has indeed been present since the dawnof contemporary arts. This proximity was initially supported by a common interest for technique and, later, for technologies. Looking at some important moments in the history of this binomial allows us to identify features, constant aspects and mutations, perhaps useful to decode the current scenario. A history explored in the light of two questions that have both an epistemological and a pragmatic character: what do historical episodes of insertion of artists in the frames of industrial production have produced in terms of knowledge? What are the advantages generated for the industrial world and what are those for the arts?

Tennis Racquets Equipped with ElectronicComponents / designedby Bill Kaminsky andJim McGee, 1966.Photo: Éric Legendre.The Daniel LangloisFoundation for Art,Science, and Technology,9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering fonds.


tury, Futurism in Italy, Cubism in France,and Constructivism in Russia faced the issue of mechanization not only inindustry but of life in the broader sense.They overturned the (often negative) senseattributed to the concept of technique, sub-ordinate to aesthetics, occurring in mod-ern aesthetic, and often exhibited a trueenthusiasm for mechanisation. The tech-nical medium therefore was the first vec-tor in the rapprochement between the pathsof the art and those of the industry. A fas-cination that continued in the decades thatfollowed, always driven by an interest forthe medium, not necessarily as a techno-logical apparatus, but also as a material. In the 1950s, in fact, numerous artists open-ly looked to the factory and included intheir work industrially produced materials— such as plastics, synthetic varnishes, andmetals. These entered the canvas, oftenreplacing it — As in the works of the Amer-ican Abstract Expressionism and later inPop Art or, in Europe, in the work of Ital-ian artists such as Alberto Burri, LucioFontana and Pino Pascali, Enrico Castel-lani or Fabio Mauri.

The advent of electronics marked a shift offocus from material to medium understoodas an apparatus and a system of functions,cornerstone of processes and ways of

designing with direct consequences also in the ways of “doing” and designing art.The first movement that made this influ-ence readable was without a doubt Arte Pro-grammata e Cinetica, which proposed tocreate their own methods and technologi-cal tools of industrial production into artis-tic practice. Simultaneously, the industrystarted to take an interest in artists. If inthe USA, this interest was manifested in theform of residencies, which welcomed artistsin dedicated areas, one should also remem-ber an experience of the second half of the1950s in Europe, more precisely in Ivrea,a small Italian town.

The example is that of the management byAdriano Olivetti of the homonymous fami-ly company, an avant-garde and utopianexperience not only because it was one ofthe first examples (on the internationalscene) of the inclusion of artists and human-ists in a company, but also because (perhapsthis case is unique) in the course of the1950s, artists, writers and humanists werefully included in the factory’s organisationof production. An inclusion deemed neces-sary to adapt the industrial production tochanges occurring in society and modernisethe territory, carried out through a recruit-ment policy defined by the “principle of tri-ads”: for each new technician or engineer

who joined the company, a person with aneducational background in economics, lawor humanities was also hired.

In the USA, since the 1960s, many techno-logical industries have created residency pro-grammes for artists and writers.(1) The com-panies see in the artists a great resource forempirical experimentation of the potential-ities of technologies developed in their lab-oratories. The first company to have had thisintuition was the Bell Telephone Laborato-ries, Incorporated, which initiated a resi-dency programme (1962-1968) linked tographic design using the BELFLIX anima-tion system, created by Dr. Kenneth C.Knowlton in 1963 and used by him to create a computer-animated film in 1964.(2)

The program hosted artists such as Stan Van-DerBeek, who later worked (starting around1965) with Knowlton in creating computeranimated film series Poemfield(3) and LilianSchwartz, who initially visited Bell Labs atthe very end of 1968 and later worked withDr. Knowlton (from 1970 to about 1975) inthe creation of a number of experimentalartistic films involving computer animation.Jerry Spivack, was also an employee of BellLabs and he did an interactive art piecetoward the end of 1968. Aaron Marcus wasan artist who visited and worked at Bell Labsdoing computer art in 1967. >

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The Pepsi Pavilion, World Fair, Osaka, 1970

Carte Blanche / DigiCult> TECHNOLOGY AND ART


Employee Dr. Manfred R. Schroeder alsodid computer art at Bell Labs. Visiting artistLaurie Spiegel programmed herself com-puter art — in the early 1970s — at BellLabs. In the course of the years, the pro-gramme has helped developing not onlyresearches of technical type but has also encouraged a process of innovation ofthe repertoires and visual aesthetics. As described in the excellent documentary"Incredible Machine" from 1968,(4) the free-dom left to the creators and the close rela-tionship between engineers and artistsallowed experimenting with new methodsof work, generating previously missingknowledge and skills. As well described byA. Michael Noll in his essay(5), the programwas given tacit approval by department headJohn Robinson Pierce, yet was not a formalarrangement within the Labs.

But the greater legacy left by Bell to the con-temporary scene is represented by the con-tribution to the establishment of the elec-tronic work in the realm of the arts. And notonly because many works have been exhib-ited since 1965 in major museums, but main-ly because it inspired the birth of the E.A.T.(Experiments in Art and Technology), a not-for-profit organisation of services for artistsand engineers that gave life to importantphases in the history of media art, such as

Evenings: Theatre and Engineering (1966)and the Pepsi Pavilion at the Expo in Osa-ka (1970). Billy Kluver, engineer at Bell,founded the E.A.T. in 1966, carried by theenthusiasm for his residency experience atBell. The IBM artist residency programme,launched in 1966 with John Whitney, rep-resents another virtuous example. As a resultof the productions with IBM, the artist decid-ed to abandon analog synthesis and to entire-ly devote himself to digital works, creatingfilms such as Arabesque (1975), a classicpiece of computer animation.

Another section of the emergent media artthat finds the lifeblood for its developmentin residencies in large American companiesis video art. Between the second half of the1960s and the beginning of the next decade,many creators were welcome in the prem-ises of public broadcasting companies, most-ly WNET (NY), KQED (San Francisco) andWGBH (Boston). A mechanism governedby a particular synergy, unfortunately onlymaintained for a few years, thanks to sub-stantial grants from the Rockefeller Foun-dation, the interest of some "enlightened"producers — such as Howard Klein and Nor-man Lloyd — and from Nam June Paik, whohas acted as a mediator and animatorbetween financiers, television companiesand the art world.

The need to feed it implied, for the artists, thepossibility to use very expensive profession-al tools, for the television companies, theawareness of the resource of expertise on the"new technologies" represented by the artists,which occasionally influenced the design anddevelopment of some fundamental devicesfor the evolution of the technique and thelanguage of television. In some cases, the aimof the companies was also the creation, togeth-

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COMPUTERS/Movies - BEFLIX One scene of BellLaboratories 17 minute animated file producedby a computer programmed in the new BEFLIXlanguage. This self explanatory film is entitled,A Computer Technique for the Production of Animated Movies. The notation above theframe does not appear in the final movie.It also was produced by the computer.

It gives the time and date of the computer runand indicated that 75 frames of the final movie,frames 2425 through 2499, are to be printedoptically from this original master frame. The programmed computer generates a magnetic tape, which is fed to a General Dynamics Microfilm Recorder that produces a drawing on the face of a cathode ray tube. A camera photographs these drawings.

Catalogue published for 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering. Edited by Pontus

Hultén and Frank Königsberg. New York: Experiments in Art and Technology,

The Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, 1966. The Daniel Langlois

Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology,9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering fonds.

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er with artists, of new palimpsest models,thus to extensively reform communicationprotocols of the TV medium. If there weremany successes and innovations in the tech-nological field, this second aspect remainedlargely unfulfilled and the programming ofthe artists remained relegated to the marginsof broadcast programming. This perhaps wasthe determining factor in the rapid depletionof these experiences, in the United States butalso in similar examples present to a lesserextent in Europe, with the disappearance ofpublic and private funding.

In 1975, in fact, the Rockefeller Foundationput an end to the grant for the residenciesat the broadcasting networks. After this, hav-ing neither the artists nor the identificationof other forms of sustainability by televisioncompanies, the collaboration and all of itspotential for the future of video art and forthe birth of a different television ran out ina definitive way. A TV reformed thanks toartists remains a utopia, not even followedby initiatives like the one from the mostavant-gardist of producers, Howard Kleinwho in 1977, foreseeing it was necessary toexpand the boundaries of the Americanexperience, started the international con-ference INPUT, aiming at creating collabo-rations between producers of the majorAmerican and European television compa-nies and some representatives of video art.

At the end of this historical route, withouta doubt partial, it is worth returning to theinitial questions: What have historicalepisodes produced in terms of knowledge?What advantages do these hybridisations

generate for the art world on the one handand the industry on the other? One partic-ularly needs to examine what has happenedsince the second half of the 1950s, the vir-tuous consequences are mainly related tothe developments of new devices and theaffirmation of media aesthetics, which hasled to the growing awareness that new tech-nologies could have enabled the birth of newart disciplines. Therefore, it was a big boostto the innovation in terms of aesthetics andnew knowledge. These results were, with-out a doubt, of extreme relevance. The con-sequences of which, however, fall almostexclusively in the domain of art and culture.

Unwilling to slow the flow in any way, it isnevertheless natural to raise a doubt. The unresolved challenge remains that ofthe sustainability and the visible advantagesin the medium term for companies, withoutcompromising the freedom and the integri-ty of artistic research. On the contrary, exam-ples of similarities between the purposes ofart and those of profit still exist and they are,indeed, too numerous. But this is not whatwe are interested in. The issue of sustain-ability and the challenge represented by theidentification of the mechanisms that allowart and industry to feed each other withoutlosing their own specificities, suddenlybrings us back to the present. Now the issuearises with great urgency, because develop-ing models for this synergy, which could takeinto account this untreated aspect through-out the history of media art, could representthe survival of much art of research.

Claudia D'Alonzo

(1) Cf. George Fifield, "Artist In Residence Programs.A mutual attraction: creativity and innovation",http://bostoncyberarts.org/air/fifield_air_essay.html,last access 6 March 2014.(2) Marita Sturken, "Private Money and PersonalInfluence, Howard Klein and the Rockefeller Foun-dation's funding of the media arts", in Afterimage,Vol.14, No. 6, January 1997.(3) Sherry Miller Hocking & Richard Brewster(curated by), Eigenwelt der apparatewelt, Pioneers ofElectronic Art: Image Processing, catalogue, Ars Elec-tronica, Linz, 1992.(4) Among the first initiatives there was the BellagioConference, at the Rockefeller Foundation, alsoattended by the omnipresent Nam June Paik, accom-panied by a young artist in residence at a small centrein Italy, Bill Viola, at the time hosted at ArtTapes 22.See note 2.

Researcher, writer, and curator,Claudia D’Alonzo holds a PhD inAudio-Visual Studies. She workswith digital art, visual arts, cine-ma, and video art. She has collabo-rated with museums, galleries,arts centres and festivals for cul-tural projects and exhibitions. She is an advisory board memberof the project Digicult. As a writer,she publishes for magazines, cata-logues and papers. She has con-tributed to seminars and lecturesat international conferences andfestivals.

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Some More Beginnings: an Exhibition of SubmittedWorks Involving TechnicalMaterials and Processes,New York: E.A.T., 1968. The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science,and Technology. Collection of Documents Published by E.A.T.

Cybernetic Serendipity: the Computer and the Arts, edited by Jasia Reichardt, New York: Praeger, 1968. The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology. The Daniel Langlois Foundation collection.

Catalogue published for the exhibition Software, InformationTechnology: Its New Meaning for Art, New York: Jewish Museum,1970. The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology. The Daniel LangloisFoundation collection.

Maurice Tuchman, A Report on the Art and Technology Program of the Los Angeles County Museumof Art 1967-1971, New York: Viking,1971. The Daniel Langlois Foundationfor Art, Science, and Technology. The Daniel Langlois Foundation collection.

http://bostoncyberarts.org/air/fifield_air_essay.html

Carte Blanche / DigiCult> THEORY


Neoliberalism’s panoptic encroachment oneveryday life has informed Furtherfield’s ownmotives and strategies. In contrast to mostgalleries and institutions that engage withart, we have stayed alert to its influence aspart of a shared dialogue. Neoliberalism per-petuates patriarchal systems of dominancethrough, de-regulated markets, corporatecorruption and bad government; each ofwhich implements the circumstances whereus everyday people are only valued as mate-rials for a colonial exploitation. This turnsus all into indigenous peoples strugglingunder the might of the wealthy few. Hacking around and through this impasseis essential if we are to maintain a sense ofhuman integrity and control over our ownsocial contexts and ultimately to survive asa species.

We assert that any practice that calls itselfcritical, innovative, experimental, avant-garde, visionary, evolutionary, or imagina-tive must take account of this context. If weas an arts organization, shy away from whatother people are experiencing in their dai-ly lives and do not examine, represent andrespect their stories, we quite rightly shouldbe considered as part of an irrelevant elite,and seen as saying nothing to most people.Thankfully, there are many artists andthinkers who acknowledge and take onthese themes in their work in various ways,on the Internet and in physical spaces. So much so, that this has introduced adilemma for the mainstream art world

For over 17 years Furtherfield has been working in practicesthat bridge arts, technology, and social change. Over theseyears we have been involved in many great projects, and havecollaborated with and supported a variety of talented people. Our artistic endeavours include net art, media art,hacking, art activism, hacktivism and co-curating. We havealways believed it is essential that the individuals at the heart of Furtherfield practice in arts and technology and areengaged in critical enquiry and the role and direction of ourarts collective is shaped by the affinities we identify amongdiverse independent thinkers, individuals and groups. The mix of art, culture and technology keeps us contemporarywhile remaining critical and examining the human condition.

WHERE WEARE NOW?Furtherfield and Contemporary Art Culture


regarding its own relevance in contempo-rary culture, constrained by its complianceto the demands of a corporate elite, whomonly appreciate art in terms of economics,markets and brands.

Most Art Says Nothing To Most People.

The more our physical and online experiences and spaces are occupied by the state and corporations rather than people’s own rooted needs, the morewe become tied up in situations thatreflect officially prescribed contexts, and not our own.(1)

To start things off, I want to refer to an art-work made by Heath Bunting (co-founderof irational.org) and I in 1991. It was a largepaste-up displayed on billboards around Bris-tol in the UK. At the time, as well as initiat-ing and participating in other street art proj-ects, pirate radio and BBS boards, Heath, Iand others were members of the art activistcollective called Advertising Art. We madestreet art as an argument against the pre-sumed ownership of our art culture and voic-es of expression, by the dominating hierar-chies in society. I have taken the slogan

"Most Art Says Nothing To Most People" asa personal mantra ever since. Furtherfieldis inspired by ideas to underpin a grass rootsform of enlightenment, and so nurture pro-gressive ideas and practices of social and cul-tural emancipation. The Oxford English Dic-tionary describes emancipation as the factor process of being set free from legal, social,or political restrictions.

Kant thought that Enlightenment onlybecomes possible when we are able toreason and to communicate outside ofthe confines of private institutions,including the state.(2)

Art critic Julian Stallabrass proposes thatthere needs to be an analysis of the opera-tion of the art world and its relationship withneoliberalism(3). Gregory Sholette arguesthat, “imagination and creativity in the artworld thrives in the non-commercial sector,shut off from prestigious galleries and cham-pagne receptions. This broader creative culturefeeds the mainstream with new forms, andstyles that can be commodified and utilized tosustain the few elite artists admitted into theelite. […] Art is big business: a few artists com-mand huge sums of money, the vast majority

are ignored; yet these marginalized artistsremain essential to the mainstream culturaleconomy serving as its missing creative mass.At the same time, a rising sense of opposition-al agency is developing within these invisiblefolds of cultural productivity. Selectively sur-veying structures of visibility and invisibility,resentment and resistance […] when, theexcluded are made visible, when they demandvisibility, it is always ultimately a matter ofpolitics and rethinking history(4).

Drawing upon Sholette's inspirational,unambiguous and comprehensive critiqueof mainstream art culture, I would like tooffer as an illustration, Furtherfield’s recentexperience of this process in action, withthe emergence and usage of the term "Post-Media". This concept is only just begin-ning to be defined by theorists in mediaart culture and is said to unleash new formsof collective expression and experience(5).However Furtherfield - an entity whosepractice is entirely native to, and arguablya key player (with many art other collec-tives and individuals) in the generation of,"Post-Media" art context since 1997 – isnot referenced in any of the proliferatingmaterials on the subject. >

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Up close and personal with Furtherfield, Randall Packer, Open Source Studio, Performance is Reality, 2012.

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The extra irony here is that many of thesesupposedly insightful art historians and the-orists advocate a decentralized, relationalcontext and networked culture in their writ-ings. However, many of them are not actu-ally either engaged in supporting or creat-ing these alternative structures with othersthemselves or in practice.

The real problem is how they acquire theirknowledge. Most academic writing takesplace within certain networks and proto-cols, and relies on dominant theoreticalcanons to validate regurgitated conceptsrather than connecting with what is actu-ally happening on the ground. The art usedto illustrate and inspire their themes areselected from established arts venues orfrom within associated, academic institu-tions and conferences. This inevitably rein-forces the validity of the work selected byestablished power networks and degradesand devalues other works and artist groups

not included. This insular and hermeti-cally sealed approach is restrictive andshows an over reliance on central hubs forofficial reference, and it also distances the-orists from the actual culture they proposeto be experts in. Because of this, wholeareas of innovative practice are lost andthis is a big mistake. It only serves to per-petuate the conditions of an institutional-ized, privileged art elite, blocking or lay-ing low avenues for genuine, artistic andsocial emancipation.

Furtherfield and Hack Value.

We must allow all human creativity to be as free as free software.(6)

Furtherfield is a network across differenttime zones, platforms & places — online &physical, existing as various decentralizedentities. Its culture supports interaction: tocreate, discuss, critique, review, share infor-

mation, collaborate, build new frameworks,power systems, artworks & alternative envi-ronments — technological, ecological andsocial independent structures for peerknowledge, respect and representation, withgrounded contexts and socially aware valuesystems.

Furtherfield’s roots in cultural hackingassert the value of hacking not only withtechnology but also in every day life. Infact, Furtherfield is one big social hack.Hack Value advocates an art practice thatdevelops the cultural agency of the artistby: taking the mechanics of society aspart of the medium of art along with theaesthetic resonances of social contexts;working critically with existing (art) sys-tems. It disrupts and discovers fresh waysof looking and thinking about art, life andbeing; reclaiming artistic and human con-texts beyond the conditions controlledby elites.

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Shu Lea Cheang, Seeds Underground Party, 2013.


Hack Value can be a playful disruption. It isalso maintenance for the imagination, a callfor a sense of wonder beyond the tedium ofliving in a consumption-dominated culture.It examines crossovers between differentfields and practices, in terms of what theircombined approaches. It can be political orparticipatory, or both. Hack Value can becarried by artworks that use digital networksand physical environments as well as print-ed matter. What binds brings them togeth-er is not only the adventures they initiatewhen experimenting with other ways of see-ing, being and thinking; they also share com-mon intentions to loosen the restrictions,distractions and interactions dominating thecultural interfaces, facades and structures inour everyday surroundings. This relates toour relationship with food, tourism, muse-ums, galleries, our dealings with technolo-gy, belief systems and community ethics.

Donna Haraway proposes a kind of criticalsubjectivity in the form of Situated Knowl-edges. We seek not the knowledges ruled byphallogocentrism (nostalgia for the presenceof the one true world) and disembodied vision.We seek those ruled by partial sight and lim-ited voice – not partiality for its own sake but,rather, for the sake of the connections and theunexpected openings situated knowledges makepossible. Situated knowledges are about com-munities, not isolated individuals(7).

In 2012 Furtherfield relocated it’s gallery tothe heart of a North London park. The parksetting informs our approach when coordi-nating and setting up exhibitions, projectsand events. The place has a strong local iden-tity in a public green space set aside fromthe larger busy, urban environment with itshighly multicultural population. Our grow-ing connection to the local community rein-forces for us the necessary connectionbetween art and an unruly and unpredictablepublic. We relish this. We are not distantfrom our gallery visitors like most traditional,academic or mainstream arts environments.We are not interested in creating yet moreelite artists, elite groups and elite products.We want to change our culture through ourpractice.

It is our contention that by engaging with thesekinds of projects, the artists, viewers and par-ticipants involved become less efficient usersand consumers of given informational andmaterial domains as they turn their efforts tonew playful forms of exchange. These projectsmake real decentralized, growth-resistant infra-structures in which alternative worlds start tobe articulated and produced as participantsshare and exchange new knowledge and sub-jective experiences provoked by the work(8).

We are simultaneously connected to a network of international critical artists, technologists, thinkers and activists throughour online platforms and communities, as well as a wider networked art culture.

Being accessible has nothing to do withdumbing down. It concerns making the effortto examine deeper connections between peo-ple and the social themes affecting theirs andour lives. We don't avoid big issues and con-troversies and are constantly engaged in aparallel dialogue between these online com-munities and those meeting us in the park.

On the 23rd of November we opened our sec-ond space in the park the Furtherfield Com-mons. This new lab sets out to explore waysto establish a commons for the 21st Centu-ry. It draws upon influences from 1700swhen everyday people in England such asGerrard Winstanley and his peers forged amovement known as the Diggers also knownas the True Levellers to reclaim and claimcommon land back from the gentry for com-munity interests. Through various work-shops, residencies, events & talks we willexplore what this may mean to people local-ly, alongside our connection with onlinecommunities and international networks.This not only includes skills exchange andlearning about coding, free software andhardware, but also critical approaches to gar-dening, gaming, drawing, making and oth-er hands-on practices where people canclaim direct influence in the physical world,so to initiate new skills and social changeon their own and shared terms.

Marc Garrettwww.furtherfield.org/programmes/exhibitions

(1) Marc Garrett. "DIWO (Do-It-With-Others): Artis-tic co-creation as a decentralized method of Peer-2-peer empowerment in today’s multitude". Fromchapter - DIWO, Emancipation and Mainstream Cul-ture. Page 2. (2013) (2) Dan Hind. The Return of the Public: Democracy,Power, and the Case for Media Reform.Verso, 2010. pp 155.(3) Julian Stallabrass, Art Incorporated: The Story ofContemporary Art. OUP Oxford, 2004.(4) Gregory Sholette, Dark Matter: Art and Politics inthe Age of Enterprise Culture. Pluto Press, 2011.(5) About the Post-Media Lab By Post-Media Lab, 20 January 2012. Metamute.www.metamute.org/editorial/lab/about-post-media-lab(6) Hans-Christoph Steiner. Floss + Art. Compiledand Edited by Aymeric Mansoux and Marloes deValk. GOTO10 in Association with OpenMute, 2008.P.151.(7) Donna Haraway. Situated Knowledges: The scienceQuestion in Feminism and the Privilege of partial Per-

spective. Feminism and Science. Editors, Evelyn FoxKellor and Helen E. Longino. Oxford UniversityPress, 1996. P.259.(8) Marc Garrett, Ruth Catlow, DIWO: Do It WithOthers - No Ecology without Social Ecology. 2013. Firstpublished in Remediating the Social 2012. Editor:Simon Biggs University of Edinburgh. Pages 69-74.www.furtherfield.org/features/articles/diwo-do-it-oth-ers-–-no-ecology-without-social-ecology(9) Ruth Catlow. "We Won't Fly For Art CultureMagazine", special themed issue Paying Attention:Towards a Critique of the Attention Economy byPatrick Crogan and Samuel Kinsley. Special Issue ofCulture Machine Vol. 13, 2012.

Marc Garrett is a Net artist, curator, writer,street artist, activist, educationalist and musi-cian, emerging in the late 80's from the streetsand exploring creativity via agit-art tactics. He has made use of unofficial and experimen-tal platforms such as the streets, pirate radio,net broadcasts, BBS systems, performance,intervention, events, pamphlets, warehouses,and gallery spaces. Co-director and co-founder, with artist Ruth Catlow of the Netarts collectives and communities - further-field.org, furthernoise.org, netbehaviour.org.

Furtherfield.org is a London-based, non-profitorganisation for the creation, promotion, andcriticism of adventurous digital/Net art worksfor public viewing, experience, and interac-tion. Furtherfield events and projects incorpo-rate a strong participatory element and breakaway from conventional approaches to con-temporary art. The projects are often live,real-time, collaborative artworks, facilitatingand documenting unrestrained interactionand communication between artists andonline audiences.

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Zombie TriptychRemix (found footage),Marc Garrett, 2012.

http://www.furtherfield.org/programmes/exhibitions

http://www.metamute.org/editorial/lab/about-post-media-lab

http://www.furtherfield.org/features/articles/diwo-do-it-oth-ers-%E2%80%93-no-ecology-without-social-ecology



Carte Blanche / DigiCult> INNOVATION


Mute Magazine, founded in 1994 byPauline van Mourik Broekman and SimonWorthington, was set up to discuss therelationships between culture, politics andnetworked digital technologies. Alongside

this editorial vehicle, Mute also developeda sister project called OpenMute. This isthe area where the organisation experi-ments in modes of cultural production;researching and re-distributing knowledge

(Art of Digital London, Hybrid Publish-ing Lab(1)), adopting innovative servicesin the production of the print products(Print on Demand, ePub) and site devel-opment, and where there is a gap, even

VALUE ANDINNOVATIONin contemporary artand cultureThere are wealth of cases to support the statement that digital innovation in the culturalsector is of great importance. In this article I will explore the factors that affect innovation in particular, digital innovation in the UK’s cultural sector at the present time, and see how a consideration of sector specific conditions can better devise modes of production that aidthe rate of change. Within this frame, I will also consider the types of values that cultural activities create and the systems of exchange that affect levels of digital innovation. Although the article is focused on occurrences within the UK, the situation is indicative of a broad pattern in digital culture production worldwide.


building new tools (Progressive Publish-ing System(2)). Having grown up with thefree culture movements associated withthe nascent, critical net culture of the1990s and 2000s, OpenMute's initiativesadvocate for open standards, non-propri-etary systems and working in collabora-tive communities.

Sites of (cultural) production are the groundsfor constant negotiation. The majority ofproducers function on low budgets and insmall, diversely-skilled teams. In order toensure the long-term financial viability oftheir projects they must battle to maintaina level of critical activity whilst finding waysto maintain low overheads, draw audiencesand generate revenue. OpenMute lookstowards digital technologies to provide such

solutions, seeing them as creating spaces inwhich productive artistic, social and politi-cal reconfigurations occur.

2009 saw an important moment in the recenthistory of digital innovation in the UK whenDavid Cameron released the Digital Britainreport(3) — a strategic vision to put the coun-try at the forefront of the global digital econ-omy. As a result, public funders set new agen-das to encourage the widespread adoptionof digital technologies across all the artforms.OpenMute was commissioned in the sameyear by Arts Council England to launch Artof Digital London (AoDL). This was aresearch and live events programme around‘digital strategy in culture’ that ran in vari-ous formats until 2013. The objective wasto facilitate the establishment and mainte-

nance of a London network investigatingthe relationship that public arts organisa-tions and independent producers have todigital technology. This was a unique effortat the time, that gathered workers from bothcultural and tech communities to bringattention to the sector specific adoption ofdigital technologies in the creation, pro-duction, distribution and marketing of artis-tic programmes.

At the time it was felt that the digital worktaking place in the cultural sector neededgreater exposure as visible examples weredrawn predominantly from the commercial,tech start-up and media sectors. The impor-tant work carried out in Media Arts remainedcontained within those communities andany examples of work that did come from >

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Art of Digital London, Meetup Crowdfunding event, held on 17 August 2012 at The Photographers’ Gallery, London.

Carte Blanche / DigiCult> INNOVATION


the cultural sector came from larger insti-tutional organisations. What Art of DigitalLondon sought to do was to create a com-munity platform where cultural workerscould highlight key works, share ideas, artic-ulate their position, raise awareness of theissues and advocate for support for digitalexperimentation in the sector. Importantly,it sought to do this from the perspective ofsmall organisations and independent pro-ducers and using open techniques.

During the 5 years that AoDL was in oper-ation, the programme highlighted hundredsof digital projects, all of high calibre, thatwere produced within the cultural sectorduring that time. They evidenced a level ofexpertise and critical engagement that isunique to the field and through which someof the most interesting applications of digi-tal technologies have been brought about.Much of the research is available online,however, for the purposes of this article, I would like to pick out a few personal high-lights mostly centred on video:• Digital Archives: LUXOnline, Pad.ma, Siob-han Davies Archive, UbuWeb• APIs: BBC APIs List(4), BBC Digital PublicSpace(5), Culture Grid (Europeana), Muse-ums APIs List(6), Tate GitHub(7)

• Digital Copyright: CREATe, Cornelia Soll-frank’s Artistic Research into Copyright-Crit-ical Practice interview series(8)

• Online exhibition spaces: Tank.tv, Vdrome,KALEIDOSCOPE Videoclub• Live Streaming events: Auto Italia LIVE,ICA Online Talks(9), NT Live• Documenting the arts: Art21, Artplayer.tv,Arty ok, Frieze, MOCAtv, Tate, Video inCommon, the Miro Player tool(10)

• On-Demand: BFI Player, Digital Theatre,TheSpace, MUBI, • Curating the web: Network Awesome

Digital technologies have had a fundamen-tal and profound affect on how we operatein the world. The pace of invention and usein the commercial markets is somethingmuch quicker than could be absorbed oracted upon in any meaningful or sustain-able way by the cultural sector, for reasonsI will elaborate on below. When AoDL beganthere was a general panic within the sectorfed by persistent calls from funders for ‘inno-vation’, ‘employing creative approaches’ and‘spiriting entrepreneurial attitudes’, all whilefunds were being cut in wake of the 2008financial crisis. Good ideas are one thing butthe means to bring them about is another,that is, innovation is defined by and pro-duced through the operations of the sector’sinfrastructure.

AoDL recognised this and took to investi-gate how digital technologies were affectingcultural production from the ground up. As we mapped the areas (publishing, video,audio) and the issues (tools, copyright, cul-tural policy) the dialogue initiated revealedthe complexity of cultural production byexploring the support structures that affectreal innovation and change; technical knowl-edge, skills development, acknowledgementof the types of value creation, business mod-els and, above all, the individual attitudesof cultural directors and funders who playvital roles as advocators.

In addition to the discussions of AoDL, animportant reference for the following state-ments is the research conducted by the Com-mon Practice advocacy group in London andtheir two position papers, Size Matters: Notestowards a Better Understanding of the Value,Operation and Potential of Small Visual ArtsOrganisations and Value, Measure, Sustain-ability: Ideas Towards the Future of the Small-Scale Visual Arts Sector.

Cultural producers, I mean small publiclyfunded organisations, operate on modestannual incomes made up from a mixture ofpublic grants supported by a level of saleablewares and services. In the majority of cases,budgets are predominantly dedicated to coreprogramme costs (artists fees, exhibitionfees), staffing and overheads. They run lean,finely balanced organisations and there islittle or no room for accumulating reserves,training staff or research and development(11).The playing field for innovation is thereforegreatly reduced.

At the time of writing the tech sector in Lon-don is booming, the many startups basedaround Silicon Roundabout attract a steadystream of funding and investment, the labourforce is highly skilled and in demand, mean-ing that wages are competitive. Any negoti-ations on wage are generally made with startups in exchange for company shares. The tech development skills level is lowacross the board in the cultural sector asmany employed have naturally gone throughsome sort of formal arts and humanities edu-cation. Any skills are picked up out of neces-sity and so, when working on technical proj-ects or site upgrades, organisations tend tohire outside commercial-rate companies.However, in producing their core pro-gramme, the cultural sector relies heavily onalternative economies of exchange and in-kind. Therefore the cash outlay in experi-mental tech development (labour and services) is beyond the means available.

Experimentation by an individual organisa-tion, even if done at a low level on an itera-tive basis, is risky. In addition to this, thelarge cash outlay at the beginning and con-tinuing maintenance costs of any technicalproject cannot be recouped at a quick enoughrate; markets are small, products are nicheand the resulting rate of return is slow andlow. In many instances, organisations do notsee the value of their efforts return in full asSarah Thelwall has described through hertheory of Deferred Value Creation.

Digital innovation is an unattractive activi-ty for most individual organisations due tothe lack of knowledge and understandingof the flexibility of new technologies, theneed to outsource to commercial companies,the unpredictability of development timesand therefore costs, the disjoint in rates ofpay and the lack of alternative exchange sys-tems between cultural and tech workers.This was evidenced through the demo-graphic that attended AoDL when it beganin 2009, as a large proportion of attendeesheld roles in marketing. In the main organ-isations choose to focus on the scope of dig-ital technology in relation to organisationaldevelopment with emphasis on income gen-eration. The web is viewed more as a spacefor promotion and commerce than as a spaceto be curated. This is due to the pressure onorganisations to become self-sustaining, ie:monetise assets, but also because develop-ing these types of projects can be more eas-ily contained and there are many more func-tioning examples to draw from in the (smallscale) commercial environment. The under-lying aim of digital strategy is in the widerspread of cultural knowledge and exchangethrough an increased visibility of core activ-ities, remote access to events occurring with-in the physical space and the opening up ofarchival material.

To encourage the work in digital innovationin the cultural sector the challenge is on oneside to increase the level of technical knowl-edge and confidence in approaching digitalprojects across the cultural sector and to allstaff roles, and on the other to establish newrelationships with those in the tech sectorthat see development happen through alter-native economies. AoDL certainly sought tobuild links between the two communitiesbut other notable events have been a seriesof hackdays presented by Culture Hack(12),National Archives or Rewired State, resi-dency programmes Sync Geeks in Residence,Wikimedians in Residence and in researchpartnerships as The Arts Catalyst havedone(13). Such events have proved success-

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ful due to their interdisciplinary nature,bringing tech developers into organisationsotherwise working without them; enablingthem to build relationships with staff andsharing knowledge in a focused, boundariedenvironment.

A way to spread the risk involved in digitalproduction would be to work in collabora-tion with other organisations, educationalinstitutions and tech partners, as the Digi-tal R&D Fund for the Arts launched in 2012was set up to do. In identifying a commonproblem or line of enquiry, groups can worktogether, sharing knowledge, skills andresources. The outcome of which can thenbe captured and widely spread. A particularproject to highlight, that is similar to thisbut conducted independently of the DigitalR&D, is Video in Common. This is a digi-tal video production and training networkconsisting of seven small visual arts organ-isations in London. It exploits economies ofscale to increase the digital capacity of theentire group to better describe, promote andcontextualise their art and public pro-grammes using the medium of online video.The issues were identified and the projectplan was developed from discussions heldby Common Practice. It was led by Muteand the research gathered was disseminat-ed to the wider public through the Art ofDigital London events programme.

To conclude, small arts organisations and indi-vidual artists create many forms of value; artis-tic, social, societal and fiscal. Networked dig-ital technologies enable the enacting of thesevalues on a broader stage beyond the reach of

the physical gallery space. Digital technolo-gies are being employed in the cultural sec-tor to great effect, to create deeper levels ofaudience engagement, generate incomestreams and distribute knowledge. As I haveoutlined innovation in this area is complexand occurs only through a long process ofenabling the correct infrastructural condi-tions. To enhance the likelihood of more inter-esting work in this area there must be a con-sideration of the modes of production and arecognition of alternative means of exchangewithin the small scale arts sector.

Caroline Heron

(1) http://hybridpublishing.org(2) www.metamute.org/services/r-d/pps-private-beta-online-.docx-and-google-docs-conversion-to-ebook(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Britain(4) www.bbc.co.uk/developer/technology/apis.html(5) www.collectionslink.org.uk/discover/sustaining-digital/1095-bbc-digital-public-space-diagram(6) http://museum-api.pbworks.com/w/page/21933420/Museum%C2%A0APIs

(7) www.tate.org.uk/about/our-work/digital/collection-data(8) www.postmedialab.org/GWYDH(9) ICA have been using the Google Hangouts tool toconduct online talks with a group of remote speak-ers, steaming live and then archiving the content forfuture use http://www.ica.org.uk/video/online-talk-lutz-bacher(10) In 2009 Openmute used the Miro Player tool togather the available video RSS feeds of cultural organ-isations in London. The test of which can be viewedhere: http://aodl.mirocommunity.org(11) "The financial dynamics of small visual artsorganisations", in Size Matters: Notes Towards a BetterUnderstanding of the Value, Operation and Potential ofSmall Visual Arts Organisations, p14-23, Sarah Thel-wall, Common Practice, 2011.(12) The National Archives ran a special event, ‘Hakon the Record’ in 2012http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/hackon12-we-came-we-saw-we-didnt-sleep-much/ (13) Lisa Haskel is currently undertaking a 4-yearfull-time placement with The Arts Catalyst as aResearch Engineer, this which is conducted in a tech-nology partnership with the University ofBournemouth Centre for Digital Entertainment.

Caroline Heron lives and works in London. She is currently Project Director of Video in Common,that she established with Pauline van Mourik Broekman. She is also part of the Mute Magazine Editori-al Group, after stepping down from her role there as General Manager in 2014. From 2009 to 2012together with Simon Worthington, she has been the Project Co-ordinator of Art of Digital London.During this time they have ran the AoDL Digital Salon & Surgeries and published TheKnowledgeonline and print resource. In 2012-2013, together with with Jo Healy, she has been the Organiser ofthe Art of Digital London Meetup series. http://video.commonpractice.org.ukhttp://metamute.orghttp://theknowledge.aodl.org.uk/index.php/Digital_Salon_and_Surgeries http://theknowledge.aodl.org.uk/index.php/Frontpage www.meetup.com/Art-of-Digital-London/

Sarah Thelwall, Size Matters,Notes towards a Better

Understanding of the Value,Operation and Potential

of Small Visual Arts Organisations, Common

Practice, 2011. Practice, 2011.

Art of Digital London, TheKnowledge, Peer Learningfor Digital Strategy in Culture,

OpenMute, 2012.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Britain

http://www.bbc.co.uk/developer/technology/apis.html

http://www.collectionslink.org.uk/discover/sustaining-digital/1095-bbc-digital-public-space-diagram



http://museum-api.pbworks.com/w/page/

http://www.tate.org.uk/about/our-work/digital/collection-data



http://www.postmedialab.org/GWYDH

http://www.ica.org.uk/video/online-talk-lutz-bacher

http://aodl.mirocommunity.org

http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/hackon12-we-came-we-saw-we-didnt-sleep-much/

http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/hackon12-we-came-we-saw-we-didnt-sleep-much/

http://video.commonpractice.org.uk

http://metamute.org

http://theknowledge.aodl.org.uk/index.php/Digital_Salon_and_Surgeries

http://theknowledge.aodl.org.uk/index.php/Frontpage

http://www.meetup.com/Art-of-Digital-London/



Innovation strategies inspired by artistsand designers This text seeks to explore if and how innovationin industry can be driven by creatives, namelyartists and designers, and which of the creativeprocesses spanning from ideation, experimen-tation and rapid visualizing, prototyping, test-ing and fabrication, often facilitated by radicalcollaboration and crowd sourcing, could bedeveloped on a larger scale for the industry toadopt and to invest in.Some of the following examples are derived frommy own professional experience as a design edu-cator and as an artist, designer and entrepreneur,contextualized with a series of interviews, whichI conducted with top creative leaders from awide range of disciplines for my MBA thesis TheUn-Agency: A Quest for the Creative Self-Rejuve-nation Gene.

Be a learning environment

I hate doing new stuff, but I know if I don’t, I’m going to be just another boring old fart.

Erik Spiekermann, Principal, Edenspiekermann, Berlin(2).

The conventional notion that learning environ-ments are mainly made up of academic institu-tions is a thing of the past. Dynamic learningenvironments combine the best attributes ofschool, laboratory, agency and nomadic network.They can help to effectively expand the creativepotential of individuals and corporations tobecome more resilient in times of great techno-logical and societal shifts. Teaching design todayis like training performance athletes for theOlympics — yet without telling them in whichcategory they will be competing.

The philosophy of Art Center College of Designin Pasadena, California, as a school of teachingprofessionals rather than of professional teach-ers, encourages entrepreneurship among facul-ty and staff. With its informal network of design-ers, artists and fabricators who can shareknow-how and creative resources, the schoolserves as a hub for the local, national and inter-national creative community.

As the Chair of the Graphic Design departmentat Art Center, I was given the opportunity toredesign how graphic design is taught in timesof uncertainty, ambiguity, and great potential —primarily because of the convergence of differ-ent visual media formats, and radical shifts inmedia literacy and use across the population.The creative industry is demanding designerswho can athletically stretch their skills across awide range of analog and digital media formatsto create communication design solutions suc-cessfully cutting through the white noise of ourconvoluted visual environment. Given an aver-age of four years for an undergraduate designeducation, there is no way of fully predictingwhat the world of media will look like once astudent, who is starting his or her educationtoday, graduates.

Creating an effective, relevant and stimulatinglearning environment in such a shifting worldcalls for a very delicate balance of educationalofferings: excellent foundational craft skills, deepconceptual abilities and — at the same time —a very broad understanding and facility in theever-expanding spectrum of existing and emerg-ing media formats, as well as a very broad under-standing of their underlying business principles.

Transmedia Design and Mediatecture are the termswe use to describe our approach to teachingCommunication Design as an essential, multi-faceted and interactive tool for communicatingthe four-dimensional experience of a place, prod-uct, service or personality in every imaginable

NEW INDUSTRIESHow agencies look at digital artistsand designers?

We are living in an age of exploding complexity, rising ambiguity and overall uncertainty, framed by an unprecedented speed of scientific discoveries and technological advances. In this highly volatile environment, digital creatives and artists have a window of opportunity to put their skills and strategies to work, not only in what they can do, but also in how they identify opportunities and approach challenges. John Maeda, author, designer, scientist and current President of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD),writes in his book Redesigning Leadership: Art and design are poised to transform our economy in the 21st century like science and technology did in the last century(1).

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context. Transmedia means working across allmedia, Mediatecture activates the built environ-ment from a human scale to the urban scale.

Successful learning environments challenge theboundaries between learning and teaching; theyare becoming more and more fluid. Petrula Vron-tikis, an Art Center colleague, states that “To teachor work in this way is very different. It must beokay to not know and to not be the expert. It mustinclude a high degree of receptivity and emotionalIQ. It must include the physical and mentalstrength to withstand the chaos of outcomes influx and everything up for grabs”.

Collaborate with industry, across disciplines and be nomadic

Make it a call to action: an invitation — andmake sure the end result reflects that there’s adesigner/problem-solver in all of us.

Roshi Givechi, Design Director and Associate Partner, IDEO(3).

Art Center’s learning environment is profound-ly enriched by collaborations with industry andacross disciplines. The school has pioneered anddeveloped robust sponsored project opportuni-ties in collaboration with leading global brands,

which turn to the school for inspiration andfuture-forward thinking. Over the past years anentire suite of different corporate engagementmodels were developed, from 2-day Designstormswith various ideation and rapid visualizationcomponents, to semester-long transdisciplinaryprojects that yield fully developed user scenar-ios and prototypes. The creative teamwork acrossthe school’s different art and design disciplinesis further enhanced by closely collaborating witha tight network of engineers and scientists hail-ing from leading institutions like Caltech andJet Propulsion Laboratory/NASA.

Parallel to creative collaborations with the indus-try, the school is conducting Social Innovationwork through its Designmatters program(4) —combining the desire of young artists and design-ers to create beautiful artifacts, with a missionto make these designs work for the greater good,it built a bridge between aesthetics and rele-vance.

In 2003, Art Center became an official Non Gov-ernmental Organization (NGO) with the Unit-ed Nations(5). Art Center is the first design schoolto carry such a title, which created instant atten-tion for Designmatters and for the entire school.This program has become a distinguishing fea-ture and asset in the competition for the most

talented students: Millennials who not only wantto make a living in the creative industries butwho also want to make a difference in the world.

Evolution strategy: creating a nomadic learning environmentIn a traditional international student exchange,or in a collaboration with a partner school, stu-dents usually just move from one sheltered class-room setting to another one - this is what I callbox to box. A studio abroad project is designedto deliberately remove the students from anyschool setting and move them into the atmos-phere of a pop-up design office, organized andoperated like a professional creative agency, running for a limited time of one semester (14 weeks), and organized by faculty and stu-dents. A network of high-caliber members ofthe local creative industries (communicationand design agencies, architects, artists) supportsthe studio as dedicated mentors.

The most important player in this creative col-laboration, however, is the urban environment— Berlin, in this case. The German capital, withits thriving cultural and subcultural life, pro-vides inspiration and raw research material fornew creative solutions. At the same time, thecity is a unique urban testing ground for sce-narios and prototypes. >

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Artist/Creative Director: Nik Hafermaas. Artist/Executive Producer: Jamie Barlow. Artist: Dan Goods, Visual Strategist at NASA’s JPL, dMIRROR. BMW Flagship Store, Avenue George V, Paris. > http://uebersee.us/projects/dmirror/

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http://uebersee.us/projects/dmirror/



In the testlab Berlin studio model, insights aregenerated through participatory research and pro-totyping, and the making informs strategy, whichcan lead to genuinely unexpected creative solu-tions. In the past years, testlab Berlin has gener-ated fundamentally new insights for corporatepartners like Johnson&Johnson (The Future ofHealth & Wellness), Sennheiser (The Future ofthe Retail Experience) and Berlin Partners (TheFuture of Mobility), to name just a few.

Transformative learning experiences like testlabBerlin help students to advance through cultur-al immersion, exploration, experimentation andprototyping: veterans from this program are stillcollaborating with each other on projects beyondthe school. Through their shared experience theyhave become like the friendly version of a SWATteam(6) which could be parachuted into virtuallyany environment: they would land on their feet,set up camp and get to (design) work. Lately,incubator labs and entrepreneurial start-up ini-tiatives have been developed to further extendthe Art Center learning experience and to openup new avenues for students and graduates toenter gainful careers in the professional world.

The state of design thinking in the industry,the rise and fall of the CCO.

The making of real things has been bleachedout of our kids’ minds.

Jim Patell, co-founder of the d.school at Stanford University(7).

Tim Brown, CEO of the design firm IDEO,describes in his 2008 TED Talk(8) Design Think-ing as an integrative creative methodology tosolve problems and to create new opportunitiesacross the full spectrum of human endeavors.Success stories range from re-imagining hospi-tal environments to retail experiences and bank-ing products. At the d.school and other reputableacademic institutions — such as Harvard andESADE — business executives pay hefty tuitionto learn in executive workshops the creativemethods of Design Thinking — mainly: how tosee, imagine, and visualize the world again, justas they did when they were kids. Jim Patell,d.school professor and co-founder, relates thedecline of the US global thought leadershipdirectly to the necessity of re-learning hands-oncreative processes, the skill of making things.

Meanwhile, other prominent voices alreadyrefer to Design Thinking as a "failed experi-ment". Bruce Nussbaum talks in his article pub-lished in Fast Company in April 2011(9) aboutwhat he calls the end of the Design Thinkingdecade: Design Thinking originally offered theworld of big business — which is defined by a cul-ture of process efficiency — a whole new processthat promised to deliver creativity. By packagingcreativity within a process format, designers wereable to expand their engagement, impact, andsales inside the corporate world. Companies werecomfortable and welcoming to Design Thinkingbecause it was packaged as a process. He con-tinues: There were many successes, but far toomany more failures in this endeavor. Why? Com-panies absorbed the process of Design Thinkingall too well, turning it into a linear, gated, by-the-book methodology that delivered, at best, incre-mental change and innovation.

Over the past decade, some major corporationshave embraced the concept of creating valuethrough design and creativity by implementingthe position of Chief Creative Officer (CCO)among their executive ranks.

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http://airfieldsculpture.com


The CCO often reports directly to the CEO orto another high-ranking member of the execu-tive suite. Together they form a creative leader-ship team, complementing each other’s differentbackgrounds in design and business, law or engi-neering. Creatives in leading positions, and theirempowering superiors, are often joined at thehip, so if the boss resigns, the CCO often fol-lows suit.

Therefore, the role of creativity in the corporateworld is a fickle one - big brands like Procter &Gamble, which only a few years ago pridedthemselves as pioneers to embrace Design Think-ing, have recently fallen surprisingly quiet onthe topic. What was celebrated as an irreversiblemove towards practices that are better for prof-it, for people and for the planet (the triple bot-tom line, as coined by John Elkington in 1994(10),seems to have vanished together with the depar-ture of Claudia Kotchka, the former Vice Pres-ident of innovation, design and strategy and hervisionary boss, CEO A.G. Lafley(11).

Prototype in public, co-create and fabricate

Few companies understand the principle thatyou should reward failure, because if youreward failure, then you reward risk taking.

Yves Béhar, Founder, Fuseproject(12).

To be a true learning environment, a creativeorganization must encourage risk taking andexperimentation. Experiments, however, areprone to fail—it is the very nature of any itera-tive process to produce scores of failures until asuitable solution is found. Corporations usual-ly try to protect themselves from product andmarketing disasters through conducting focusgroups: a form of qualitative research in whichgroups of people are asked about their percep-tions, opinions, beliefs and attitudes toward aproduct, service, concept, advertisement, idea,or packaging. However, this process often leadsto nondescript products that appeal to the low-est common denominator of taste and imagi-nation. The Focus Group2.0 is actually the audi-ence out in the world: an audience of passionatesupporters that lends its expertise to co-devel-op and refine the product. Focus Group2.0 meanstesting products and services in the market andhaving consumer feedback help to refine thecreation.

The next level of consumer co-creation is actu-ally the open source(13) model — a term that wasoriginally referring to any software programwhose source code is made available for use ormodification as users or other developers see fit,but is now also referring to a widening range ofproducts that are developed based on sharedintellectual property (IP). Don Tapscott andAnthony D. Williams made the concept of masscollaboration, open-source technology andshared IP widely popular in 2006 with their bookWikinomics: How Mass Collaboration ChangesEverything. I expect that Focus Group2.0 collab-oration and open source models will dramaticallygain relevance in the coming five to ten years,propelled both by sophisticated production toolsbecoming more widely accessible to the gener-al population, and by greater user feedback andco-creation involvement.

Be an instigator

Your brain is making new patterns only if it’spushed. I think the brain is pretty lazy.

Brian Collins, Principal, COLLINS, New York City(14).

Traditionally, most design offices and creativeagencies are in the service consulting businessto their commercial clients. This paradigm, how-ever, is shifting: former creative service providersare beginning to develop products for sale (eitherdirectly selling these goods or licensing them)and/or are creating client engagements that arecompensated by profit sharing or for the socialgood. I call these proactive creative agenciesinstigators: instead of waiting for the phone toring or for a pitch to be won, these design entre-preneurs initiate their own projects from scratch.

The creative business of the future cannot relyon traditional pitching for sustainability, becauseclients are not willing to make the long-term com-mitments that were common in the past. Instead,it will be more creative and ultimately more prof-itable to channel that effort to produce apps, cam-paigns, technological tools, and events that pro-voke and instigate meaningful dialogue in thepublic realm. Self-initiated projects I call Pitch-ing2.0: These projects often require risk-takingand entrepreneurial chutzpah. However, they canpresent a viable alternative to the wasteful prac-tice of creative pitches and spec work(15).

Nikolaus HafermaasWWW.TRIAD.DE/EN

HTTP://UEBERSEE.USWWW.ARTCENTER.EDU/DOT/TRANSMEDIA.PHP

HTTP://TESTLABBERLIN.COM

(1) John Maeda, Redesigning Leadership (Simplicity:Design, Technology, Business, Life), MIT Press, 2011(2) http://edenspiekermann.com(3) www.ideo.com(4) www.designmattersatartcenter.org(5) www.ngo.org/ngoinfo/define.html(6) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWAT(7) http://dschool.stanford.edu(8) www.ted.com/talks/tim_brown_on_creativity_and_play.html(9) www.fastcodesign.com/1663558/design-thinking-is-a-failed-experiment-so-whats-next(10) www.economist.com/node/14301663(11) www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOn-Design/archives/2008/05/claudia_kotchka_1.html(12) www.fuseproject.com/yves_behar.php(13) www.opensource.org/osd.html(14) www.collins1.com(15) www.aiga.org

Professor Nikolaus Hafermaas is an award-winningartist, designer and educational leader. With twopartners he founded one of Germany’s leading designfirms, Triad Berlin as former principal and chief cre-ative officer of Triad Berlin. His Los Angeles basedartist platform UEBERSEE conceives and producesdata-driven art installations converging digital mediaand spatial experiences. As the Graphic DesignDepartment Chair at world-renowned Art Center

College of Design, leading a faculty of over 40 profes-sional designers and 300 students, he has created anew curriculum, fusing print and packaging, motionand interaction design into Transmedia Design. This innovative program is razing traditional barriersseparating designer, artist and curator. As the Execu-tive Director of Art Center’s Berlin Satellite Program,he prototypes new learning models in Europe’s mostcreative metropolis.

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Nik Hafermaas, Dan Goods & Aaron Koblin, eCLOUD. San José International Airport, North Concourse / City of San Jose Public Art Program, 2010. IDEA Award IDSA, 2011. AIGA 365 Design

Effectiveness Award, 2011. > http://ecloudproject.com

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWAT

http://dschool.stanford.edu

http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_brown_on_creativity_

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663558/design-thinking-is-a-failed-experiment-so-whats-next



http://www.economist.com/node/14301663

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOn-Design/archives/2008/05/claudia_kotchka_1.html

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOn-Design/archives/2008/05/claudia_kotchka_1.html

http://www.fuseproject.com/yves_behar.php

http://www.opensource.org/osd.html

http://www.collins1.com

http://www.aiga.org

http://ecloudproject.com

Carte Blanche / DigiCult> MEDIA CENTER


Marco Mancuso: Ars Electronica Festi-val — the Prix of competitions honour-ing excellence — was born in 1979, toshowcase and observe the growing im-pact of technologies on contemporaryart and society. The Centre as a mu-seum and the FutureLab as an R&D department, with a set of private technological partners investing on it,came soon after. From a historicalpoint of view, why, did it happen andhow did it develop? It seems like ArsElectronica led a process of change interms of art and culture production,

with few other examples around theworld to share and compare with atthat time, following paths that hadrarely been previously explored inmedia art and culture. How did thisprocess work and what difficulties didyou face?Gerfried Stocker: In 1979, the Festival forArt, Technology and Society was foundedtogether with the Linzer Klangwolke (Soundof Cloud). The Prix Ars Electronica came in1987. In the late seventies Linz had a bigneed to reinvent itself. As a city that wasdominated by the fast growth of heavy steel

industry after WWII, Linz had a lack of cul-tural infrastructure and was only known asa polluted industrial city. At that time itbecame clear that melting iron to steel wasnot giving the city a bright future.It was at this point that the director of thelocal television station, together with an artistand a scientist, developed the idea for thefestival with the belief that the computerwould soon become much more than just atechnical instrument – it would not only bea driving force for new technologies and neweconomies, but would also have a big impacton culture and society. This was remarkable

ARSELECTRONICAInterview with Director Gerfried Stocker

In 1991, Gerfried Stocker, a media artist and telecommunications engineer founded x-space, a team formedto carry out interdisciplinary projects and produce installations and performances featuring elements of interaction, robotics and telecommunications. Since 1995, Stocker has been the artistic director of Ars Electronica, the organization founded in 1979 in Linz, Austria, which is behind the festival for art,technology and society of the same name. From 1995/96, he headed the crew of artists and techniciansthat developed the Ars Electronica Center’s innovative exhibition strategies and set up the facility’s in-houseR&D department, the Ars Electronica Futurelab. He has been responsible for conceiving and implementingthe series of international exhibitions that Ars Electronica has staged since 2004 and, beginning in 2005,for the planning and thematic repositioning of the new, expanded Ars Electronica Center.

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considering the very early time Ars Elec-tronica was founded. Even more remarkablewas that they understood that it would havenot been enough to make a sophisticatedfestival and conference but that it also need-ed something that was able to reach out toall the people.Since then, this has always been our mainprinciple: looking at the topics and devel-opments that are defining our future, try-ing to understand them with the help ofartists and scientists from all over the world,and communicating it to the people.Throughout the years we have created avery strong chain of activities — with thefestival, and in particular the Prix, as asource for inspiration and ideas; the cen-tre as a platform for education where peo-ple can encounter the themes and tech-nologies of the future in a stronglyparticipatory and creative way; and theFutureLab as a think tank and melting potfor creative professionals, artists, techies,developers etc. — that allow people to useall this input and experience to create newideas and prototypes. At the same time, we

also have a division that is developing exhi-bitions for places all over the world and wehave Ars Electronica Solutions where weare transforming all of these creative ideasinto products for the markets.So you can see that the integration of Art,Technology and Society has become muchmore than just a nice wording but really theleading principle of all our work that hasbecome more and more suited to coping withthe challenges and changes of our technolo-gy-driven time.The one thing that is under-lying in all these activities is the artistic pointof view, the artistic way of approaching things.This makes sure that we are always very closeto the needs of people, that we never losesight of the importance of developing tech-nology according to the users and that we aremuch better prepared to tackle the negativesides of the recent developments.

MM: Ars Electronica is a project fundedboth from public (Upper Austria, Ministries of Austria) and private part-ners, as can be seen on the relatedpage on the website. From the vast

literature and experiences chronicledabout Creative Industries it is cleartoday how industries of the twenty-first century will depend increasinglyon the generation of knowledgethrough creativity and innovation(Landry, Charles; Bianchini, Franco,1995, The Creative City, Demos). What is not totally clear — probablybecause it is less direct — is why pri-vate industries invest in a centre likeArs Electronica, what exactly they lookfor and what is the potential "come-back" (use "feedback" or "throwback"depending on what you are trying tosay). In other words, which economical– cultural – production model couldeventually be applied on a smallerscale?GS: Please don't consider me impolite orarrogant, I just want to be clear and honest,but I have to say that it is ridiculous to expectan answer to THIS QUESTION in a few lines.I just could write some more of these mean-ingless statements that have already ruineda lot of the credibility of creative industries. >

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State-of-the-art lighting technology illuminates the approximately 5,100-m2 glass shell that enwraps the Ars Electronica Center. The LED strips mounted behind the 1,100 glass panes that comprise the façade are individually programmable. Brightness and color mixture

can be fine-tuned. There are a total of 40,000 diodes—a quarter each emitting red, green, blue and white. In normal nighttime operation, 3-5 kilowatts of electrical power are all it takes to produce innovative special effects.



It took us many years to develop a practiceand it would take hours to talk about it insufficient depth. It is a highly complex andmulti-layered ecosystem that has to be main-tained to establish a working and sustain-able partnership and collaboration betweenthese areas and the people working in them.At the end, the reason why companies areworking with us (not sponsoring but work-ing and co-developing) is that based on our35 years of experience we have found a fewmethods to facilitate or to moderate thisexchange.

MM: At Ars Electonica Centre you workon exhibiting liminal and expressiveart-forms: from biotechnology to ge-netic engineering, robotics to pros-thetics, interactivity to neurology andenvironment technologies to syntheticbiology. Do you think there will be spe-

cific territories for media art produc-tion that will be close to industrial in-vestments? And again, how are the ArsElectronica Centre exhibition activitiesrelated to the strategies and invest-ments of your industrial investors?GS: So far we have never chosen topicsfor a festival or for exhibitions because ofthe investment of companies. One of thesuccess factors (or maybe survival-factorsof AE) is that we have always been a cul-tural institution run by the city of Linz.This means that we always have our basicfunding for our core tasks and responsi-bilities. Of course we could stronglyextend our range of activities and impactdue to our collaborations with the privatesector but we would always survive andstill be able to do our core-business with-out them. However, we never could sur-vive very long if we just went for money

from the industry because we would loseout strength and credibility and thereforeour access to creative people and theirideas… understand it as an ecosystem andnot as business model!!!!!

MM: With regards to the Ars Electron-ica Futurelab, the Lab works on re-search topics like FunctionalAesthetics, Interaction Ecology, In-formation Aesthetics, PersuasiveTechnology, Robotinity and the won-derful Creative Catalyst. Can you ex-plain why you consider these specifictopics to have potential both from anartistic point of view and for businessfocused on research and technolo-gies? Do you think these matters willbecome part of our daily life, some-thing to which media artists will referand something that will bring about a

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Project Genesis – one of the exhibitions at the Ars Electronica Center – extends through two levels of the building. The works are grouped into four thematic clusters: Biomedia, Synthetic Hybrids, Genetic Ethos and Citizen Science.


productive culture and artistic valueuntil it is honoured with an Ars Elec-tronica Prize?GS: Yes of course these things are alreadybecoming defining parts of our life, cultureand society. It is only by approaching themthrough strategies like catalytic creativitythat we have a chance to do it properly.Think about the difference between Robot-ics and Robotinity, this is not just a word-play, it's a completely different approach tounderstanding the challenges and changes.

MM: The Ars Electronica Residency is aNetwork of excellence with partner or-ganizations including institutions ofhigher education, museums, culturalorganizations, R&D facilities in thepublic sector as well as private initia-tives and companies. You say there isthe desire to conduct an artist or re-

searcher-in-residence programme,each one of which concentrates on aspecific thematic area in which therespective partner has unique expert-ise. Could you give me a real exampleof how a specific project was born,from where the initial input came(from schools, cultural organizationsor private initiative), how the processworked, howstudents/schools/artists/companieswere put in contact? Do you think thecreation of an artwork, the value ofthe research on a specific technologyand the expressive language could re-main totally free and independentfrom any pressure from corporate andprivate investments? How could ArsElectronica prevent any possibleprocess of massification / marketifica-tion of media art?

GS: Again I have to refer to the ecosys-tem! To benefit from creativity withoutexploiting it you have to work like afarmer, if you don't nurture your soil youwon’t be able to harvest. The artist-in-residence network is a strategy to feed backinto the pool of creativity. It is a wonder-ful way to connect people and institutionsthat have similar ideas, to bring techiestogether with artists, etc, etc. On how toprevent the sell out maybe I can use againthe comparison with farmers. It is not asin to sell the products of your farm butif you sell your land instead of the prod-ucts you can grow on it with all your spe-cial experience you become a real estateagent and all your skills experience andculture will vanish.

interview by Marco MancusoWWW.AEC.AT/NEWS/

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The Ars Electronica Futurelab’s quadcopter swarm was the main attraction at the 2012 voestalpine Klangwolke. An audience of over 90,000 was on location to witness a world record: the first outdoor formation flight of 49 quadcopters. In the meantime, the quadcopters already made

appearances in London, Bergen, Ljubljana, Brisbane and Umea. And they are also capable of light-painting.



Since 2007 he has been Founding Directorof Science Gallery an innovative culturalspace bridging art and science at TrinityCollege Dublin (TCD). Currently, he is alsoAdjunct Associate Professor of Engineer-ing and Computer Science at Trinity Col-lege Dublin, and Director of the TCD IdeaTranslation Lab, a collaboration betweenTrinity College and Harvard University, fos-tering cross-disciplinary innovation inundergraduates. He is Coordinator of theStudioLab project, a major European proj-

ect bridging art, science, and experimentaldesign. He has been Lecturer in Science,Technology and Society at Stanford Uni-versity, and has held postdoctoral fellow-ships at Harvard University, Stanford Uni-versity and MIT.

Marco Mancuso: Help me give a defini-tion of what Science Gallery is today,outside the usual grammar of officialcommunication. Science Gallery is ba-sically an exhibition center, not prop-erly an art gallery or a media center, itcould seem like a place for exhibitingscience but it’s much more than this. Itis also an educational center, but it’snot an official school or a media lab forworkshops or seminars. It’s also thehub of a worldwide network. How doesthis liquid structure help ScienceGallery to be unique working withartists and students on the one handand attracting industrial investmentson the other hand?Michael John Gorman: We think about Sci-ence Gallery as a meeting place for ideas, asort of particle accelerator for colliding peo-

ple from different disciplines, a sociable spacefor creative and critical conversations acrossboundaries. We find that broad themes suchas INFECTIOUS or STRANGE WEATHERnaturally draw together artists, scientists,engineers, medics, entrepreneurs and stu-dents into new kinds of conversations. Let me give you an example – in our INFEC-TIOUS project we involved immunologistsand epidemiologists, but also economistsworking on bank runs and viral media peo-ple like Jonah Peretti and Ze Frank of Buz-zfeed. We did research experiments on thepublic, including a digital epidemic simula-tion run with the Fondazione ISI in Turin,leading to published research outputs, and also had artists exploring contagion.When we develop a theme, it works like agiant funnel for ideas, attracting new proj-ects, commissions, student projects, researchexperiments and proposals for workshopsand events. A theme will also suggest poten-tial industry collaborators. The flexibility ofScience Gallery means that everything isconstantly changing and we are able to tapinto current concerns and engage withunfolding events in science and technologyin real time.

SCIENCE GALLERYInterview with Dr Michael John Gorman,CEO, Science Gallery International

Michael John Gorman is CEO of Science Gallery International, an initiative created to develop a global network to inspire youngadults to engage with science, technology and the arts, foundedwith support from Google.


MM: Science Gallery is one of the firstand few art venues which is supportedby a network of partners that are notinstitutions or funding, but industriesand PI. Science Gallery develops exhi-bitions and generates a wide range ofoutreach initiatives involving othervenues, centres, labs, universities, de-pending on the investments of playerslike Google, Deloitte, Icon, NTR Foun-dation, and Pfizer. What is their busi-ness model? Why do they invest moneyin such liminal territories of cultureand art? What is the main comeback inbeing in contact with the cultural-artistic network created by ScienceGallery?MJG: Private industry has had a long-stand-ing connection with the territory at the inter-section between art, science and technolo-gy. For Bell Labs in the 1960s, artists couldprovoke questions about emerging technol-ogy that would push boundaries of the tech-nically possible, leading to the experimentsof E.A.T. which Arthur Miller describes inhis new book Colliding Worlds. Right now,digital artists like Scott Draves and AaronKoblin work within Google, which also hostsSciFOO and other events bringing artists,scientists and techies together. Motivation

for companies to become involved stems inpart from a self-interested goal to developtheir own long term "talent pipelines", seek-ing more flexible, creative employees, and inpart from the point of view of corporate socialresponsibility in terms of their contributionback to the community. Companies benefit in various ways frombeing close to the creative community andresearch community that flow together atScience Gallery. Importantly Science Galleryis not a free-standing entity but a "porousmembrane" connecting a research universi-ty with the city, allowing for less formal typesof connections between companies and uni-versity research and students. These aspectsare often far more important than the more"transactional" benefits such as brandingand space use. In the long term, the role ofScience Gallery as a public platform forengagement and innovation is evolving, andI am sure that the value companies get fromearly access to the new ideas and people par-ticipating in the gallery will probably emergeas the most important long-term benefit tothe companies involved.

MM: In 2011, you received a gift fromGoogle to launch the Global ScienceGallery Network – a network of eight

Science Gallery locations developed inpartnership with leading universitiesin urban centres worldwide by 2020. In addition to Dublin and London,other locations include New York, Bangalore, Singapore, and Melbourne.Could you tell me more about theGlobal Science Gallery Network? What could be the mutual cultural andeconomical advantage on the chain"students / artists / industries"? Give me an example if you can, or apossible scenario that might happen…MJG: The vision for the Global ScienceGallery Network emerged from interest wewere receiving in the model of ScienceGallery, as a new approach by universitiesto cross-disciplinary public engagement andinnovation. The idea is that each gallery willbe generating different programmes, work-shops, events and exhibitions drawing fromits local artistic and scientific context, andthat some of these can be shared throughthe network. We are excited about the ideaof diversity of emphasis in the different gal-leries, for example the gallery planned atKing’s College London will have more of ahealth and healthcare focus. In several prac-tical ways a network of university-linkedgalleries makes sense. >

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Typographic Organism by Adrien M / Claire B as part of ILLUSION, at Science Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin.



For example, rather than the Dublin galleryhaving to develop four exhibitions fromscratch every year, the Dublin gallery willbe able to develop two major themes indepth every year which can then tour glob-ally and bring in two or three shows fromother network members. There are alsoexciting opportunities for collaboration andco-production — for example if both Lon-don and Bangalore are really interested in atheme such as BLOOD, and decide to devel-op a project together, linking researchers,artists and designers in both cities.

MM: Talking about the exhibitions. All your shows and exhibitions work onthe subtle border between art, designand scientific research. How importantis this idea of inter-disciplinary interms of relationship between publicfunding and private investors on theone hand and audience coming to theexhibitions, artists and scientistsworking together on the other hand?And again, how do the subjects/titles

of these exhibitions are chosen accord-ing to a new idea of culture that seemssometimes far from the standards ofcontemporary art market and/or sci-entific research?MJG: The contemporary art market andcurrent scientific research are often veryimpenetrable to the uninitiated, for slight-ly different reasons. In coming up with atheme for a Science Gallery project, we seekto identify themes that bring together allsorts of different types of practitioners —scientists, artists, designers, architects, engi-neers, etc. to explore areas of common con-cern, so the language tends not to belongexclusively to any one area. Themes likeINFECTIOUS, STRANGE WEATHER orFAIL BETTER are powerful — allowingcontributions from very diverse areas andopening up the conversation to those out-side the worlds of research or contempo-rary art. As well as bringing together cre-ative practitioners themes of exhibitionsalso need to connect with our core targetaudience of young adults.

MM: Science Gallery is part of severalEuropean Community networks, suchas StudioLab, Places City Partnerships(CPs) and KiiCS. Incubation seems tobe the keyword for you: a processwhereby industrial and private in-vestors are networked with artists,scientists, researchers, designers, aca-demics, students or amateurs to worktogether with mentors, overcomingconventional and institutional obsta-cles. What are the advantages and therisks of such a production model of anart/culture object? Could you tell mesomething about the creative and theproduction processes through a tangi-ble example?MJG: I think incubation usually involvesprovision of certain types of supports to ear-ly stage projects. In the tech world, thesesupports often include modest financial sup-port, access to mentors and provision of co-working space, and access to potentialinvestors. It is well known in the tech start-up world that start-ups require multidisci-

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Helen Pynor reanimates a heart for The Body is a Big Place at the launch of OSCILLATOR, at Science Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin.


plinary teams — engineers and designers.In the past decade or so, a number of whatyou might call "cultural incubators" haveemerged, bringing together interdisciplinaryteams in new collaborations, which can leadto the creation of new artistic projects, butalso to new social projects and commercialproducts and to new scientific research. These range from residency programmessuch as SymbioticA in Australia to Ars Elec-tronica FutureLab in Linz, Le Laboratoirein Paris and MediaLab Prado in Madrid, andScience Gallery, and all have slightly differ-ent approaches to incubation — specialworkshop formats, residency structures,selection processes, opportunities for invest-ment and so on. In Science Gallery we real-ized that one thing we have that tech incu-bators don’t generally have is 350,000 visitorsper year coming through the space andengaging with new ideas, whether they areartworks, research experiments, prototypeproducts or speculative designs. This offersan incredible opportunity to harness publicfeedback on early stage ideas, and I thinkwe are only beginning to tap into this feed-back potential, and learning from each oth-er as we try out different models. The incubation process is often less formaland not linear — for example a prototype forsolar disinfection of water developed by Trin-ity College engineering students was shownin our exhibition SURFACE TENSION: TheFuture of Water. A QR code beside the proj-ect allowed it to be crowdfunded by visitors.They raised over 25,000 in their crowdfund-

ing campaign and were able to implementthe system in three villages in Kenya. The type of incubation that is appropriate forartistic projects is often different from for newproducts or research experiments. Sometimesaccess to labs, and researchers, funding, andexposure are important.

MM: Let’s finally talk about the exam-ple of the Cool Jobs. It is a networkingevent to engage with students, artists,investors and other enterprises, forg-ing links between education and indus-try with a focus on creativeapproaches on both areas. How impor-tant are these moments in which dif-ferent players can meet, share ideasand projects and understand how towork together? How Internet plat-forms can help this process and howyoung students, artists and designerwill manage possible copyright riskson their works, ideas, and creations?MJG: Facilitated sessions and workshopswhere ideas can be developed and proto-typed in a supportive environment are huge-ly important. Science Gallery does not claimany intellectual property stake in ideas devel-oped by artists or scientists in the gallery —the originators retain all IP in their projects,we just have the right to show the works.We find it important to educate studentsdeveloping collaborative projects about IP.It is interesting to see different “cultural incu-bators” adopting different philosophiesaround IP. Some of our collaborators are very

strong advocates of an open source approach,whereas others are very focussed on the cre-ation of patentable IP. I think for any workshop or meeting wherenew projects and ideas are being discussed,the important thing is to be very clear aboutthe rules of engagement up front (I like TimO’Reilly’s concept of the “FrieNDA”, to treateveryone as you would your friend, and notto disclose any ideas that may be sensitivewithout seeking their permission) and I alsofeel that educating students about IP is alsoan important part of our mission. In termsof online collaboration, to be honest we havefound that a key strength of Science Galleryis the opportunity for face to face interac-tion, and so far we have had limited successwith purely online collaborative projects,though the opportunity for combining offlineand online feedback on early stage projectsis an area of focus for us now. Science Gallery is not a VC or a tech incu-bator – however we form part of an ecosys-tem which includes, in addition to the uni-versity and the arts community, the techstart-up community in Dublin, the multi-nationals, the incubators and investors. For us it is important that we are involvedas a platform and connector for projects thathave potential for further development, mak-ing introductions to mentors and potentialinvestors. We like existing in this space ofemergence.

interview by Marco MancusoHTTPS://DUBLIN.SCIENCEGALLERY.COM

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The Invisible Eye by Alistair Burleigh

and Steph Tyszka as part of ILLUSION,

at Science Gallery,Trinity College,

Dublin.

HTTPS://DUBLIN.SCIENCEGALLERY.COM

Carte Blanche / DigiCult> LAB


His research examines digital architectureand the convergence of physical and virtu-al spaces. In 2011 he was named BerkmanFellow and Faculty Associate at the Berk-man Center for Internet and Society. The project head, Alex Barchiesi, is a cre-ative physicist with a PhD in ParticlePhysics, researcher at the European Organ-ization for Nuclear Research (CERN ATLASexperiment), and Associate professor ofnew media art and informatics at the ArtAcademy in Rome. His artistic work hasbeen presented around Europe, includingthe IRCAM, the Centre Pompidou in Paris,

and the Auditorium Parco della Musica inRome, and he has received several inter-national awards.

Marco Mancuso: The SINLAB wasfounded as an experimental stage labo-ratory combining disciplines such asperforming arts, architecture, science,engineering and technology. The labora-tory is funded with a grant by Sinergia,a platform for inter- multi- and uni-dis-ciplinary projects run by the Swiss Na-tional Science Foundation). I would liketo know more about the origins of theproject: What vision and what urgenciesgave life to the original idea? What areits developmental strategies?Jeffrey Huang & Alex Barchiesi: The ideaof setting up a hybrid-culture Lab meantsomething different to everyone in the coreteam. It can be read as the natural prosecu-tion of the idea of building a third cultureback in the 1960s by lord CP Snow who sug-gested that a new "Third Culture" wouldemerge and close the gap (Snow, 1963). It consists of those scientists and other thinkersin the empirical world who, through their workand expository writing, are taking the place ofthe traditional intellectual in rendering whoand what we are (Brockman, 1995).The SINLAB project aims to develop a longterm strategy for building a Creative Arts,Technologies, and Culture Network at theheart of Europe, catalysed by EPFL togeth-er with the other partners. We can identifya number of key points that oriented thedesign of the framework: The University as a catalyst for change andcreativity, practices, and exchange of ideasand expertise.The Practitioner – extending the traditionalacademic mission to include those who cre-ate and will be the practitioners in existingand new artistic forms, and creative and cul-tural enterprises.New "offspring" of Students with a broaderskillset to produce interdisciplinary com-petencies coming from a programme con-necting the Arts and the Sciences.New Connectivity – encouraging a majorchange in the approach to the Arts, the Sci-ences, new media, and technologies creat-ing a platform that will be a catalyst fornew ideas, new forms of connectivity with-

SINLABExperimentalStage LaboratoryInterview with Jeffrey Huang & Alex Barchiesi

The SINLAB is a unique experimental laboratory in Switzerland, situated at the intersection of Performing Arts,Architecture, Science, Engineering and Philosophy. Its director, Jeffrey Huang, is a Full Professor at the Facultiesof Architecture, Communication, and Computer Sciences at the EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne)where he heads the Media and Design Laboratory.

Jeffrey Huang and Alex Barchiesi, SINLAB opening.

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in the disciplines and between the univer-sity and the territory.We intend to: promote a dynamic collabo-rative and extended network of learning andpractitioner-ship between EPFL and othercultural institutions.(re)connect relevant disciplines and digitaltechnologies in the Sciences with the cre-ative Arts and Culture that will produce(graduates and PhDs) engineers/scientistsskilled in the Arts, or artists and humanistsskilled in Technology.Develop the holistic paradigm of educationand research into a LAB which would be onenode of a network encompassing all activi-ties across Europe and operating potential-ly under a global umbrella to really makeSnow’s "Third Culture" a reality.

MM: At SINLAB in particular you areusing technologies originally developedfor other fields, mainly industrial ones:from robotics, telematics and light

technologies to biomedical interfaces,interactive architectures or computa-tional acoustics. For this purpose, youhave a long list of partners coming fromthe industrial world. How do you decideto work with a specific partner? Why are partners interested in workingwith SINLAB?JH&AB: Let us not forget that the target isnot a single artistic project, but the processof creation itself which is the focus of theparadigm change that we are exploring.SINLAB is both conceived as a bridge andas a source, thanks to established academ-ic strengths in the university. A number ofLabs and partners were singled out for thefirst phase of the initiative because of theirpotential connections with creative prac-tice and their interest in extending the fieldof their research towards "an alliancebetween performing arts and science". A well understood cultural dimension isoften neglected in projects where technol-

ogy or science are only instrumental tohumanities and performing arts. The motor driving our choices towards apartnership is the possibility of exploring afield so as to push the limit of our under-standing and to share a vision. We aim atmaximising the porous interface which rep-resents the creator/practitioner domainbetween the university core disciplines andcultural institutions and the creative indus-tries. It is the area of greatest opportunityfor development in terms of creator/practi-tioner programmes in education andresearch. Interconnectivity is the most impor-tant ingredient of this concept. The practi-tioner's activities form an evolving web ofinterlinked creativity and collaboration, con-tributing to a kaleidoscope of new ideas.

MM: Could you tell us the story of aproject you have developed (or you’restill working on) at SINLAB? How doesSINLAB facilitate a process of encoun- >

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Performative colour environment (reacting to body tracking).

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ters between artists and scientists en-couraging artistic, scientific, and tech-nological research?JH&AB: Mostly everything happens in themost diverse and natural way: we havedesigned a framework that can host multi-ple paradigms of collaborations. It partiallyis the scientific lab framework where allmembers first talk together and then, inworking groups, refining the subject of brain-storming sessions into prototypes and inves-tigations that usually launch a chain ofresearch projects and often refine the direc-tion of current works also catalysed by exter-nal inputs and investigations. For examplePablo Ventura came with his dance compa-ny and pushed the experimentation by usinggesture tracking devices, which was inte-

grated and reflected into students' (includ-ing PhDs) projects, and influenced MarkConiglio’s formalization of his swarm-likepiece later on. The last collaboration with the French the-atre director Gildas Millin drove him to atheatre script and some interesting devel-opments. We met with him about one yearago to talk about the script he wanted towrite. The result was CYBORGAME wherethere is an interesting approach to the con-cept of super-human and the conflicts of ahybrid individual, influenced by an aspectof neuroscience coming probably from ourinitial debates. Formally the "mise en scène"matched our interest in immaterial archi-tecture and Gildas' need of an immaterialcage for his show drove to the creation of a

machine (used on stage) which was the gen-eralization of the initial interest catalysed bythe director. The prototype was able to dig-italize and control an immaterial fog struc-ture and involved a wonderful cross-disci-plinary research between fluid dynamics,chemistry, optics, engineering and electronicsand required a long work of aesthetic inte-gration and customization at the momentof deployment for the stage environment.The overall process lasted for some monthsand gave an extraordinary results in termsof mutual inspiration.

MM: How do scientific and technologicalskills coming from the industrial part-ner are transferred to the artist? How does the collaboration between an

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Digital clouds, detail of the machine.


artist and SINLAB influence the devel-opment of market use of that technol-ogy? How is even possible to createnovel possibilities of expression in closeconnection with scientific and techno-logical research and development? JH&AB: History has proved time and againthat technological innovation leads to newcultural practices and new ways of perceiv-ing and conceptualising the world. Performing art has always broached the issueof technological development in a doublesense as a creative instrument and a reflec-tion topic. It is difficult for the performingarts to create novel possibilities of expres-sion in close connection with scientific andtechnological research and development,while scientific and technological researchremains mostly deprived from opportuni-ties to engage in a cooperative, artistic driv-en research. We read the lab as a bridge to initiate aprocess that facilitates systematic encoun-ters between artists and scientists, encour-aging scientific and technological researchin tune with the needs and constraints ofboth sides. Of course if you want to seri-ously push research towards this intersec-tion you need to embody the tools, whichtranslates into a technology able to extendthe capabilities of the human body or thebrain towards more complex or completelydifferent domains. This is the edge whereinteresting research (also from a culturalpoint of view) takes place. This is the motordriving our choices and generating the cul-tural impact and the possibility of openingup towards new fields.

MM: In the structure of SINLAB re-searchers from different fields work to-gether with local theatre performersand students, in close collaborationwith various EPFL Labs and partner in-stitutions (ZHdK, LMU, Tsinghua) as wellas external artists in the performingarts. This collaboration creates a net-work of professionals, students, localinstitutions, and industries that seem tobe the future of economical investmentsin the arts and culture, particularly inthese times of crisis and cuts. Accordingto your experience, which are the strongpoints, the difficulties and possible fur-ther developments of this strategy?JH&AB: Research at SINLAB means explo-ration with the goal to produce knowledge,from a theoretical, practical or aesthetic pointof view. We explore these research dimen-sions through a strategy that combines iter-ative prototype development and theoreti-cal investigation on mediatisation anddigitalisation within the context of per-

forming arts and stage. It is a delicate mis-sion to be in between disciplines that arethemselves in a delicate relationship. The greatest danger is for artists to seek inter-pretations of scientific data in theoretical cir-cles and then further reinterpret their ver-sions without checking back with scientists. This is to suggest that any working rela-tionship needs to be based on mutual respectand dialogue. The other danger facing thoseworking "in between", on creating 'some-thing else' is the general assumption (bothpresent in humanities and science) that the-ory is above practice. At this stage the free-dom to make assertions beyond rationalityis intrinsic to the practice of art. Our recipeentails a practice informed by theory, utilis-ing a methodology which makes it accessi-ble to both worlds. Our work largely depends on an active dia-logue with scientists and humanists whileperforming the important function of bridg-ing and synthesising many worlds to com-pose something else. The challenge is to learnthe language of various disciplines withoutlosing the intuitive, wild aspect. What wehave learned is that if scientists want tobridge both cultures, they have to get usedto a lot of noise and more than a fair shareof nonsense. More seriously, bridging thegap cannot mean extending the results ofscience everywhere but discovering a cre-ative side of science. Without a market thisis most naturally discovered within envi-ronments that encourage experimentation.

We think of these environments as labora-tories and we have developed the SINLABkeeping this in mind.

MM: On the SINLAB website is writtenthat theater has been one of the promi-nent cultural sites reflecting the im-pact of cultural changes. As amicrocosm of reality, theater has al-ways broached the issue of technologi-cal development in a double sense:technology has been used as an instru-ment for expression as well as a topicto be investigated aesthetically. How do you think the inner structure ofthe SINLAB reflects the contemporarysociety in which we live in?JH&AB: We do not support the specialisa-tion of knowledge and particular attentionto this idea of "art and science" could benonsensical. But it is not. In recent years,environments where artists and scientistscollaborate to produce unusual works of artand design have appeared in many cities andcontexts. What we want is to overcome thedivision of the fields of knowledge, to makeculture evolve towards a new Renaissancewhere research could be one and where thereis no need to make a "creative vs science"distinction. Interdisciplinarity is spreadingin every field nowadays, nevertheless whatwe are doing here is intrinsically differentfrom what is happening in our society, whichis akcnlowledging the usefulness of singleexpertises working together. The CreativeScience approach is the simultaneously imag-inative and analytical process that underliesall creative thought. Creativity is hard totransmit in the classical way of teaching. Thedivision of knowledge is still a pillar of oureducation and society. We embrace a creative process that mixestwo ways of thinking that we encourage indifferent settings. The first one is an aestheticprocess – we embrace uncertainty and com-plexity, indulge in ambiguity, induce andpursue the non-linguistic logic of images.This especially thrives in artistic environ-ments. The second one is an analyticalprocess — we simplify a complex world,reduce its challenges to resolvable problems,deduce, pursue the logic of equations. This prospers in scientific environments. We fuse both within the SINLAB intellectu-al who dreams and embraces complexity andsimplifies our intricate world into a prob-lem we can solve. This hybrid intellectualof a new renaissance belongs to the future,where we see an increasing turnover ofinvestments in culture.

interview by Marco MancusoWWW.SINLAB.CHPH

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Interactive light and fog wall in the form of a Bezier curve.

Carte Blanche / DigiCult> URBANISM


The MIT SENSEable City Laboratory aimsat investigating and anticipating how digi-tal technologies are changing the ways peo-ple live and their implications at the urbanscale. Director Carlo Ratti founded theSENSEable City Lab in 2004 within the CityDesign and Development group at theDepartment of Urban Studies and Planning,as well as in collaboration with the MITMedia Lab. The Lab's mission states that itseeks to creatively intervene and investigatethe interface between people, technologies,and the city.

Marco Mancuso: What is the MITSENSEable City Lab workflow? Where do projects come from? Whichare the topics studied and which are theemergencies? Which are the skills cov-ered by the inside team and when/whydo you decide to work with external creative people?Carlo Ratti: In the SENSEable City Lab a lotof different ideas circulate. Over 40 people,coming from all over the world, composethe team. Each researcher has a different per-sonal history, different skills and a different

cultural background. Most of them comefrom architecture and design, but we havealso mathematicians, economists, sociolo-gists, and physicists. I think that "diversity"is a really important aspect in any team activ-ity. I’m noticing more and more, also in oth-er fields. For example, different authors withdifferent origins write the most quoted arti-cles of an important magazine such asNature.Regarding the projects, I try to build on theresearchers' suggestions; it is very importantto be open to everyone's ideas. Together we

MIT SENSEable CITY LABInterview with Architect Carlo Ratti

Carlo F. Ratti is an Italian architect, engineer, inventor, educator and activist who teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. Founder of CARLO RATTI ASSOCIATI, a rapidly growing architectural practice based in Torino, Italy, with branches in Boston and London. Drawing on Carlo Ratti’s research at the Massachusetts Institute of TechnologySENSEable City Lab, the office is currently involved in design projects at different scales and in different continents.


decide what are the main problems facingcitizens, we focus on how we can addressthis and we develop a project aiming to bea solution. During these last years we haveconcentrated on topics like energy use, traf-fic congestion, health care and education.But we also develop technologies that couldbe useful to generally solve different prob-lems and we integrate them within the urbanenvironment, collecting data and informa-tion.

MM: How important are the supportingrole and the collaborative actions of private investors and industries to workon and develop a new project? Do youusually search for specific industries according to the project or, on the contrary, does the project input comefrom an industry subject/proposal? How do the MIT professional networksinfluence and help the creation of a positive synergy?CR: It’s very important to work with indus-tries and private investors, because they usu-ally give us all the instruments we need forour project, so that we only have to think

what’s the best way to develop the research.It doesn’t matter how the synergy with theindustry begins, if the input comes from usor from them; what it’s truly important forthe team, it’s to do exciting research. Our aim is always to focus on civic empow-erment, so we need to be free to investigateproblems and to start giving answers.

MM: In some projects like CopenCycle,The Wireless City, but also The Con-nected States of America, United Citiesof America, Trains of Data, you workedwith real-time technologies to visualizeand study human behaviours in publicplaces, cities, and transportations.Artists and hacktivists faced the samesubjects in recent years (Traves Smal-ley, Constant Dullart, Heatch Bunting,Etan Roth and others). Don’t you think itcould be interesting to work also withthem in the idea to have a more criticalreflection about the topics studied?CR: Surely, we actually often collaboratewith artists and we are really really interest-ed in synergies between different fields. However, I must say that we believe in the

autonomy of the built environment – asposited, among others, by John Habraken –and in the autonomy of the 'artificial world'in general (as Herbert Simon would haveput it). As such, we believe that the issuesof adoption and critical reflection should beleft to society. The idea that it should bedesigners, engineers or artists to decide whatis good and what is bad is utterly arrogant.

MM: The theme of Open Data is today avery hot topic and it will surely affectsour lives in tomorrow’s hi-tech and net-worked cities. So, why do private indus-tries, investors or even Municipalitiesshould be interested in investing in aproject like Wiki City? How could artistsand designers work on web platform forstoring and exchanging data that are lo-cation and time-sensitive? The recentexperience of Salvatore Iaconesi, oreven Christian Nold’s emotive maps arequite interesting and potential…CR: Based on our experience, I believe thatcivic institutions all over the world are inter-ested in collecting and sharing real-time data.We strongly believe in a bottom-up approach >

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Ciudad Creativa Digital. A project for Guadalajara Ciudad Creativa Digital A.C. on behalf of the Secretaría de Economía, ProMéxico, SHF, Gobierno de Jalisco, Canieti and the City of Guadalajara. Developed by Carlo Ratti Associati, together with Prof. Dennis Frenchman, Accenture, Arup, Engram Studio, Fundación Metrópoli, Mobility in Chain,

MIT Senseable City Lab and Studio FM Milano. > www.ccd-guadalajara.com > http://youtu.be/SGv1jcNMG34

http://www.ccd-guadalajara.com

http://youtu.be/SGv1jcNMG34

Carte Blanche / DigiCult> URBANISM


and urban data can provide citizens withinformation that empowers them to takebetter informed decisions or even have a rolein changing the city around them, whichresult in a more liveable urban condition forall. For instance, the Boston municipality ispromoting the "New Urban Mechanics"project, which gives citizens rapid access tocity government information and services,as well as the ability to report about every-day issues. These systems tend to evolve intowiki-like information repositories that allowcitizens to team up and take urban action.

MM: Network & Society, Current City,NYTE, Kinect Kinetics are all projectsfocusing on large-scale digital data setsand urban life, digital networks, com-munications and people behaviours. It could sound obvious to think aboutsoftware artists and graphic designersable to draw beautiful 2D big data visu-alizations/animations in which private

industries and agencies are interested.Have you ever imagined a further devel-opment on this topic? And, what do youthink about 3D visualizations and theso-called "urban internet of things"?CR: Again, I prefer to focus on citizen empow-erment. Visualizations are important, as theyallow us — and citizens in general — to "puttheir hands into the data". We have justinstalled at the National Museum of Singa-pore our "Data Drive", an installation bySENSEable City Lab Live Singapore’s team:an intuitive, accessible software tool for visu-alizing and also manipulating "urban bigdata". Like a big iPad the installation revealsdata and the hidden dynamics of the city, andalso becomes an interactive instrument.

MM: Talking about energy and environ-ment. I can trust that industries, agen-cies, investors, start-ups, and media areplacing big budgets and investments onenergy and waste management and sus-

tainability. You worked on projects likeFuture Enel, CO2GO, Local Warming,TrashTrack in which real-time sensingtechnologies, pervasive mobile tech-nologies are used to create a direct con-nection between citizens andenvironment. I imagine a society inwhich institutions, scientists, localbusiness and artists work together oncross-disciplines commissioned projectsthat could visualize, share and exposedata and behaviours for a better under-standing of the energy and the wasteproblem. What do you think about?CR: Our research aim, among others, is tocollect and to diffuse data, to discover andto explain what happens in our world, inorder to make the citizen more conscious ofthe process that goes on in the places inwhich they live. This is really importantwhen we speak about problems linked toenergy and waste as it can promote "behav-ioural change"…

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Digital Water Pavilion, Zaragoza 2008, a project by Carlo Ratti Associati, with Claudio Bonicco, Matteo Lai, MIT Media Lab / Smart Cities Group - William J. Mitchell, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning - Dennis Frenchman, MIT SENSEable City Lab, ARUP, Agence Ter, Studio FM Milano, Typsa, Lumiartecnia International and Siemens.> www.carloratti.com/project/digital-water-pavilion/

http://www.carloratti.com/project/digital-water-pavilion/


MM: In the "expanded cities", publicinteractive services, community infor-mation and entertainment systems,geotagging and drones technologies,robotics applications and embeddedsystems are applied to everyday lifeand problems. EyeStop, Smart UrbanFurniture but even SkyCal, Geoblogor Flyfire, Makr Shakr are all exam-ples of these practices. How impor-tant is a growing merging of skills andapproaches to the subject, both fromthe world of architecture, design, artand innovation? How do Hi-tech andICT industries could be able to talkand work with such complex profes-sional networks?CR: First, I was not chosen to lead the lab,but actually I was given the task to start itup. So it is well possible that my biases arereflected in the ones of the lab. More gen-erally, our field is at the intersection of bits,space and people. Hence the disciplinesyou need to bring together are architectureand design, science and technology and —last but not least — the social sciences. Suchdiversity is a key characteristic of our lab.Technology should never be in the drivingseat: we think that technologies mustalways start from addressing everyday lifeand problems.So, while researching, we always worktowards concrete applications. If we arenot able to do this, technical skills are total-ly useless. Another important thing is tobe convinced that we can truly "invent ourfuture", as Alan Key would say. Finally, wedevelop projects with networks of profes-

sionals (companies, cities) because we needthem to make an impact at the urban scale.And they need our lab, as a catalyst of ideasand urban actions.

interview by Marco MancusoWWW.CARLORATTI.COM

HTTP://SENSEABLE.MIT.EDU

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Future Food District, curated by Carlo Ratti, Director - MIT Senseable City Lab and Partner - Carlo Ratti Associati, in collaboration with Favero & Milan Ingegneria, Capatti Staubach Landschaftsarchitekte, Systematica, ecoLogic Studio, Cesare Griffa Studio, ENEA and Ceres srl. > www.carloratti.com/project/future-food-district/

The Copenhagen Wheel, available toorder from Superpedestrian, a projectdeveloped by MIT Senseable City Lab.

> www.superpedestrian.com > http://youtu.be/S10GMfG2NMY

HTTP://SENSEABLE.MIT.EDU

http://www.carloratti.com/project/future-food-district/

http://www.superpedestrian.com

http://youtu.be/S10GMfG2NMY

Carte Blanche / DigiCult> MEDIA LAB


Philip Dean worked as a freelance photog-rapher, journalist and editor until 1993 whenhe was appointed to lead the developmentof the new Media Lab department at TaiK,a relatively new school at the University ofArt and Design in Helsinki, Finland. Todaythe Media Lab is a renowned unit in theDepartment of Media, within the School ofArts, Design and Architecture as part of thenew Aalto University (www.aalto.fi/en/). The lab provides education and researchframeworks for studying digital media prod-ucts, contents and technologies, their design,development and the effect they have on

society. The work is characterised by the col-laboration of people from a wide variety ofdisciplines and cultures, with students andstaff coming from all over the world.

Marco Mancuso: You estabilished theMedia Lab back in 1993 with the missionto explore and study digital technolo-gies and their impact on art, design andsociety. At the same time, you are thehead of Aalto Media Factory with theaim of being on the productive side ofthe Network itself. Could you explainhow the whole system works, if you hadthe whole vision since the very begin-ning and how everything is related withthe world of industrial and scientific research?Philip Dean: The Media Lab was establishedoriginally as a separate unit of the Univer-sity of Art & Design Helsinki in 1994 (ear-lier known as University of Industrial ArtsHelsinki) and in 1998 was given full depart-mental status. When the Aalto UniversitySchool of Arts Design was created in Janu-ary 2010 — from the merger of the Univer-sity of Art & Design, The Helsinki Schoolof Economics and the Helsinki Universityof Technology — there was a reorganisationof departments and the Media Lab became

part of the new Department of Media. In Jan-uary 2012 our school was joined by theArchitecture department (originally in anoth-er School of Aalto) and was renamed as theAalto University School of Arts, Design andArchitecture. The Media Factory is a relatively new Aaltoinitiative, a cross-school platform of Aaltouniversity which gives resources for multi-disciplinary academic and artistic activity inthe broad area of Media. The Aalto ‘facto-ries’ are not production platforms, they aremerely units which attempt to create bettercollaboration between the schools of Aaltoand the surrounding society and industries. When Media Lab was launched in 1994 wedid not really have any models to work to.We were at the forefront of a new field ofstudy within an academic art & design con-text and were pioneers in Finland in thedevelopment of our own education andresearch. At that time it was difficult to pre-dict what would become of our efforts, andmaybe it still is! In the days before the inter-net, the industry was uncertain as to whichof the new digital technologies would havehad the most profound effect on our lives.At that time we realised that our role wasmore than dealing with the ‘digitilation’ ofprofessional practices in any media field;we knew that the new digital possibilities

AALTO MEDIA FACTORYAalto Media Lab at the Department of Media interview with Professor Philip Dean

Philip Dean is currently Headof the Department of Media, Director of Aalto Media Factory,and Professor of New Media Management within the Department of Media at Aalto University, School of Arts, Design & Architecture.

http://www.aalto.fi/en/


would actually result in new forms ofmedia, new creative practices and alliances,and new forms of business. From the pointof view of professionals in the visual arts,many of the initial realisations of our newmedia were unconvincing. Film makerswould laugh at the first QuickTime movies,moving images only a little bigger than apostage stamp! Where is the future in that?,they were asking.We developed our initial research opera-tions alongside the new MA in New Mediaprogramme that we had launched in Sep-tember 1994. Our initial exploration wasmade as part of applied research involvingFinnish companies and, because of theinfluence of Nokia, we quickly gained valu-able insight into the coming world of broad-band and mobile media. Our students werealso very active in the development of theFinnish New Media industry in those ear-ly years. This closeness between our edu-cation, research and the new media-relat-ed industries in Finland enabled us toensure we were a future-oriented commu-nity with a valuable role in our country asthe voice of design within an otherwiseengineering-dominated effort.

MM: As part of the Aalto Media Lab andMedia Factory ventures, you give impor-tance to the idea of creating a virtualplatform in which the educational world(students, professors, researchers) canbe in contact with private investors onone side and professionals (artists, de-signers, hackers, fabbers/ curators, fes-tival and cultural events organisers) onthe other. How important is the conceptof an open platform whereby projects,research and ideas can be shared, inwhich investments are made in specifictechnologies as a tool to give life toartistic and cultural projects and allparticipants and industrial/scientificnetworks can be involved in the creationof "value"?PD: In the case of Media Factory we do notreally have any direct action in whichinvestors are looking to be part of ourefforts. Aalto University is a big institutionand has separate service units dealing withmany specific functions, including indus-trial relations, fundraising, entrepreneur-ship, research support, alumni relations etc.In the factory we also try to make linkswhenever needed between students and

faculty that are working with us and any ofthese service units. So, for example, if agroup of students comes up with a brilliantidea which could lead to a new product orbusiness, then we can advise them to speakto the experts at Aalto who have the bestknowledge and experience to help themmove forward. However, we are also able to work inde-pendently, like in the case of our collabora-tions with the various organisations andmovements related to open knowledge, opendesign, open source etc. As an Aalto-levelunit we were able to bring together all thelocal expertise needed for us to successful-ly host the Open Knowledge Festival 2012,for example. So, Media Factory can be under-stood as an open platform not only herewithin Aalto but also nationally and Inter-nationally. It’s all about enabling people todo valuable, worthwhile things, accordingto the Aalto mission: combining art & designwith business and technology.

MM: How does Aalto Media Lab and Fac-tory work with industries and privateinvestors on specific projects? Accord-ing to your experience, how has the >

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Media Factory AV production team producing web videos to promote university research groups and their projects.

Carte Blanche / DigiCult> MEDIA LAB


manner in which cultural works are cre-ated within the Universities changed?Are the curriculum and classes orientedaccording to specific commissions orneeds of industrial partners?PD: This is quite a complex question andthere is no easy, black and white answer. In Finland the funding of cultural activitiesis handled at many levels, by public and pri-vate institutions and agencies. Universitiescannot apply for all such funding as, forexample, charities. The Finnish Arts Coun-cil typically provide funding for individualartists and artistic groups, not to universi-ties or their departments. In technology,research and development funding is typi-cally aimed at industry, universities andresearch institutions, not to individuals.National and EU funding differ in how theyprovide it for work like ours which typical-ly involves both artistic and technologicalefforts. Our approach in the Media Lab has beento organise our research into multi-disci-

plinary research groups who apply forfunding either in the name of our Univer-sity or as individuals, depending on thefunding agency in question. We have a veryactive role in doctoral education in ourSchool. Our Doctor of Arts degree is equiv-alent to a PhD in other fields and typical-ly involves both the writing of a scientificthesis as well as the production of an exper-imental and creative production or art-work. So, research groups apply for majorproject funding from relevant national orEU R&D programs and any doctoral stu-dents working within the groups may alsoapply for funding from the more cultural-ly oriented agencies in support of their per-sonal productions etc. Direct funding from industry is rather rarein our research-oriented context as thenational technology funding agency,TEKES, provides very good support forindustrial research into which the indus-trial partners contribute approx. 20% andTEKES 80%. There is also an increasing

demand on universities to cover part oftheir own contributions but, due to the highlevel of overhead costs at universities, com-panies are not very interested in providingdirect research funding to universities out-side of these national programs for obvi-ous reasons.In our educational activities we do attemptto work directly with companies and exter-nal organisations. The scale of funding inthese is much lower than in R&D and wehave several producers on our staff who helpto build projects, often according to the briefof an outside partner. We have strict rulesas to the legal conditions for this work, IPRand other issues of ownership and exploita-tion. Our students are protected and the aimis for these projects to be mutually benefi-cial and for the potential future employmentof our students after graduation.During theseeducational projects it is important that theindustrial partners play a strong supportingrole throughout, taking part in workshopsand feedback sessions etc.

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Local school children from Helsinki on a week long robot design workshop in the Aalto Fab Lab at the Aalto Media Factory.


MM: I would like to know more aboutthe Funding and Projects section. You say that all faculty members andstudents from Aalto University are wel-come to propose media related projectsfor our consideration at any time. The idea behind our seed funding is tohelp the kind of novel multidisciplinaryactivities which may not currently becovered financially by existing budget-ary frameworks of Aalto University.Where do the budgets come from forthese projects?PD: In general a reasonable amount ofstudy projects in our school’s BA and MAprogrammes are funded internally by theannual departmental budgets and do notneed additional funding. The Media Fac-tory is geared towards helping those withmulti-disciplinary projects involvingdepartments of two or more schools, exper-imental projects or projects that might havemore risk involved. In the other Schoolsof Aalto it had previously not been so com-mon to work on real-life practical projectsduring studies at Bachelor and Masters-levels. As the Aalto strategy stresses theneed for more inter-disciplinary collabo-ration it’s also a challenge to know how tocreate the context for multi-disciplinary,project-based studies in many departments.The Aalto Media Factory and Design Fac-tory both clearly support efforts to increaseproject-based studies. Media Factoryreserves part of its annual budget derivedfrom Aalto-level strategic funding, towardsthe seed funding of educational andresearch projects.

MM: Would you describe two or threeprojects in which the relationship be-tween industries, investors, researchand artworks can be clearly demon-strated - which you believe could havethe most potential for cross-bordertechnological research between educa-tion, art, design, science and industrialinvestments, that you have yet to de-velop or that you feel could find morepotential in the future of media art?PD: I’d prefer to just offer a few links inanswer to this question. In reality we haveover 20 years experience of working withindustry in research and creative contexts.Many of our students and alumni have beeninvolved with major local industies (Nokia,Finnish Game companies etc.) and we alsowork with public organisations, agenciesand city administrations. Media Lab Helsin-ki projects via: http://medialab.aalto.fi - lookunder "works" and also links from researchgroups’ pages. Media Factory project exam-ples here: http://mediafactory.aalto.fi/fund-ing-and-projects/

MM: Finally, how is the role of art pro-fessionals (artists, curators or critics)changing in terms of management ofartistic and cultural projects accordingto growing industries relationship, so-cial communication systems, technolog-ical and scientific development? And, how could the educational pro-grams, from schools and academies,drive the social change of paradigm?PD: These questions might require a bookto answer them properly! The concept of"creative industries" is one starting point forthese considerations. We could, and should,make distinctions between artistic practice,design, the applied arts, and even artistic orpractice-based research. There are a myriadof contexts and conditions that need to beconsidered and the mapping of these fieldsmight need to be done from many points ofview: local, regional, national, EU, interna-tional etc. As our world becomes increas-ingly dependent on new technologies I believe it is incredibly important that peo-ple, i.e. the citizens, have a role in develop-ment - in deciding what sort of future worldthey see as desirable. There are a huge amount of challenges to betackled and we know that technology aloneis not the answer. The worst case scenarios,

for example those stemming from the recentSnowdon revelations, require that techno-logical and scientific development is alsounderstood as a central theme of the politicsof democratic countries around the world.There are clearly some massive dilemmaswhich need to be tackled for the sake of "the99%". Artists, designers and related researchersneed to have a role in the critical debates sur-rounding technological development and glob-alisation. The existence or requirements forthe efforts of creative professionals and relat-ed scholars within strategic research efforts,nationally and in EU, is one of the pre-requi-sites for avoiding overtly technocratic devel-opment policies and implementations. I believe that, for example, the leading art& design schools around the world are activein standing up to the current challenges andin ensuring that their education is developedso that their graduates are capable of deal-ing with real-world challenges. The Cumu-lus International Association of Schools ofArt & Design, of which we are foundingmembers, has been a global forum for muchof this debate during the last years.

interview by Marco MancusoHTTP://MLAB.TAIK.FI

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Aalto Media Factory is designedto provide an open

and cosy place where students

of all departmentscan meet and

work together.

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http://mediafactory.aalto.fi/fund-ing-and-projects/



HTTP://MLAB.TAIK.FI

HTTP://MEDIAFACTORY.AALTO.FI

Carte Blanche / DigiCult> NEW MEDIAS


ART+COM was founded as a non-profitorganization to explore new media-appliedpotentials in the fields of art, design, scienceand technology. Ranging from artistic instal-lations and design-focused projects to tech-nological innovations and inventions,ART+COM’s work includes different kindsof formats (autoactive, reactive and inter-active objects and installations, and media-based environments and architectures). In 1991 Joachim Sauter has been appoint-ed Professor for New Media Art and Designat the Universität der Künste Berlin, UdK(Berlin University of the Arts) and, since2001, he has been Adjunct Professor atUCLA, Los Angeles.

Marco Mancuso: ART+COM is a cross-disciplinary group of professionals com-ing from media arts, design, science andhacking backgrounds, with the aim toexplore digital technologies possibilitiesin contemporary creativity, expression,communication and research. This atti-

tude is pretty much clear and coherentin all your projects: the aesthetic factoris not merely a tool for visual satisfac-tion but it’s a principle for an integratedartwork that is a piece of design and, atthe same time, a territory of technologi-cal research. So, how a new commissionborn at ART+COM, such a liquid struc-ture, such an hybrid attitude to cre-ation, is attractive (and represents apotential) for industries researchingand investing in technologies, comput-ing and sciences?Joachim Sauter: It’s true that ART+COM is"hybrid" and interdisciplinary in that all ourprojects are developed in small teams whichinclude designers, engineers and program-mers. In this close collaboration, creativethinking can expand across the borders ofthe single discipline. It’s this kind of free-thinking creativity that our research part-ners in industry and academia are lookingfor, and not classic technological researchor design work. In fact, it’s quite simple: com-panies and research institutions that come

ART+COMInterview with Professor Joachim Sauter

Joachim Sauter is a German media artist and designer. From the beginning of his career he has been focused on digital technologies and has experimented how they can be used toexpress content, form, and narration. Fuelled by this interest, in 1988 he founded ART+COMtogether with other artists, designers, scientists and technologists of the Berlin University of the Arts and hackers from the Chaos Computer Club.

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ART+COM, River Is…, Yeongsan, Corée du Sud, 2012.


to us for joint research, can’t do it by them-selves: They are in need of somebody whopushes their own boundaries and extendstheir imagination. The light fixture MantaRhei is a good example.

MM: Manta Rhei is a project from 2012born as a result of a collaboration be-tween the ART+COM studio and Selux,a light fixture manufacturer operatingwith OLED technologies. I’m curiousabout how a joint project between astudio and a technological partnercould be born without any mediation.Did they contact you or vice-versa?And how were the brief and the projectdeveloped ?

JS: In this case, Selux contacted us directly.The company had just begun to employOLEDs and was looking for a new kind oflight fixture that could feature the qualitiesof this innovative light producing technolo-gy. Selux objective was to develop an extraor-dinary light fixture – a prototype that woulddemonstrate the potential of the OLED tech-nology for interior design and that wouldgenerate attention in the media. The kinet-ic luminaire Manta Rhei achieved that aimwhen it was presented at the Light+Buildingfair in Frankfurt in April 2012.

MM: Technically, how did you workwith their technologies and why, ac-cording to you, your work was impor-

tant for them in terms of R&D (re-search and development) on that spe-cific technology? How did the creationof Manta Rhei result from a coherentcollaboration between you and theirtech-department?JS: We worked in close collaboration withSelux, but on separate "work packages":ART+COM designed the fixture includingits behaviour and mechatronics, while Seluxdealt with the light control. We then inte-grated everything in the software. There isa lot of technological competence atART+COM, so we can speak the same lan-guage as the Selux engineers, and the processwas smooth and beneficial for both partnersin terms of knowledge transfer. >

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ART+COM, Mobility, World Expo Shangai, 2010. Mobility is part of the permanent exhibition at the Ars Electronic Center in Linz, Austria.

Carte Blanche / DigiCult> NEW MEDIAS


MM: In the last 25 years you have beeninvolved in many different projects,from independent ones to more institu-tional (and corporate?) commissions,from private to public, from art to com-munication. How does the research andcreative process change due to a rela-tionship with a private investor? How isthe artist/designer free to express hiswork and creativity and message? How can the research stay coherentwith the original idea without any inter-ference by the investor itself? JS: Maybe the word "interference" already points in the wrong direction. At ART+COM we believe in debate and theculture of constructive controversy. In allour areas, research, art and communica-tion, we want a dialogue with the peoplewe work for and with. The projects thatemerge from these conversations are resultsof an inspirational process which clearly

bears our signature and spirit. The con-versations, though, have changed withinthe past 25 years because technology hasbecome an integral part of the design work.This development not only simplified thecommunication within the ART+COMteam, but also with our research partnersin technology.

MM: You and Selux are planning to de-velop an entire family of kinetic lumi-naires based on this design concept.Could you give me more details aboutit? And, again, what’s the difference be-tween receiving a commission from anindustrial investor and working to-gether with it, i.e. developing projectsand researches together? What doesART+COM give to Selux and what doesSelux give to you?JS: Indeed there is the idea to develop morekinetic luminaires whose design are based

on animal bevahiour patterns, or more gen-erally movement patterns in nature. The existing one obviously took its cuesfrom a manta ray. Others that we sketchedremind of a swarm of birds’ orchestratedmovements or combine the shape of asnake with the glow of fireflies. To answerthe second part of your question: With ourresearch partners we collaborate on a tech-nological level, whereas with our clientswe collaborate on non-technologicalaspects. Take for instance the work we dofor museums: Usually we work closely with the museum’s scientists who provideus with the content of the installations.They are experts in their discipline as muchas we are in ours, which makes it possiblefor both parties to work on a par with eachother.

MM: Which technologies and/or re-searches could be functional to a new

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ART+COM and Selux, Manta Rhei, 2012.


kind of creative expression in media art, design and science?JS: I’d say that the two areas that currently interest us most are com-putational robotics and optics. We have some valuable knowledge ofmechatronics, since all our kinetic installations involve the precise andchoreographed movement of physical objects in space. Robotics takesthis one step further and means more complexity both in hardwareand software. Due to this complexity, robotics has not yet been muchexplored as a mean of expression and communication. Our interest inoptics also stems from our first explorations of this science throughworks like River is… which is based on caustics, the way light refractson water, or Mobility which quotes an almost forgotten method of long-distance communication using mirrors and sunlight. Through the com-bination of computational design and optical phenomena, surfaces andobjects can be turned into narrators which tell stories or convey mes-sages.

MM: As a professor and educator, do you think the new culturalproduction chains (investor - agency - academy - professional -artist) are changing the way in which technological and scientificart pieces are produced, comparing to the classic ones (institu-tion - funding - academy - artist)? How can institutions workwithin this new cultural system? How can curators and produc-ers supervise the production and exhibition of art projects, alsotaking into account the opportunity to use new public spaces likenew airports, commercial buildings, public squares, etc? JS: The fact that companies nowadays act as commissioners of art piecescertainly expands the spectrum of contemporary art. Art museums andcollectors follow very much the canon of fine arts as theory and thetraditional art market define it. Our art installations however grow inthe interspace between art and design and cannot be ascribed easily toone of the practices only, and our clients don’t seem to have a problemwith that. So while there is a lot of openness for technology-based artin the private sector, the fine art institutions are still hesitant to embracethis kind of work. In this situation, strong curators play an importantrole. It’s their credibility as art experts and their voice that is heard inpublic commissions, and that will help to overcome the old categoriesin the long-run.

MM: In conclusion, I’m also interested in your feedback on theway the international scene of media art events is changing.From the classic format of big happenings like Ars Electronica ortransmediale, a new typology of media art meetings is emerging,in which digital media are also considered as tools for profes-sionals to work commercially (on the border) between art, de-sign, communication and creativity. I’m talking about eventssuch as Offf or Future Everything or Resonate more recently, notso far from pure marketing events like the Ted Conferences,Momo Amsterdam, Seed Design series and so on…JS: Ars Electronica and transmediale have been there for a long timenow, and they were truly important for the development of the artis-tic practice with new media. But with technological progress and pro-liferation naturally comes differentiation. These new festivals and con-ferences target special audiences such as the computational designscene, and cover particular aspects of the new media. They are so suc-cessful because there is obviously still a strong desire for a personalexchange that is not mediated by a keyboard or a screen, and becausethey give practitioners the rewarding feeling of belonging to a specialcommunity.

interview by Marco MancusoWWW.ARTCOM.DE/EN/HOME/

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