Trip report on Pistoia 1: European Workshop on Culture & Technology Fattoria di Celle, Pistola March 22-24 2002 Lynda 26 March 2002 Note that the official document reporting the weekend can be found as http://www.cwi.nl/~media/trip-reports/PISTOIA_REPORT_-_Final.pdf I'm not sure that I would go so far as to say that this event changed my life, but it was close. Around 20 people were invited to go to the workshop. It was an event designed to give the participants the opportunity to influence the strategy in the 6th framework. It was at least one step before the organization of a workshop to help formulate a call for proposals. I could report on the questions of the workshop and the result, but that was actually the least interesting aspect. The aspects of interest are: the people I met; the environment in which we met; the use of the environment for structuring the discussion; the roles of creativity, culture (and technology) in our own work (entitled "So why am I confused?"). The people ---------- Lizbeth Goodman, director of the SMARTlab centre at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London I asked if she knew Maja (Kuzmanovic, www.f0.am for those who don't know her - normally a silly question, but Maja gets around...) and she had heard Maja give a very good talk about STAR lab and why it ended up closing. Lizbeth knows Ken Perlin, which is why she invited me to the workshop. Lizbeth is a "blond version" (unfortunately bottled :-) (I'm just jealous) of Maja - she is bright and full of ideas and goes around getting things done. I'm not quite sure of her technology-side projects (there is a butterfly that Ken created for one of her projects with autistic, I think, kids), but she is also involved with performance art and role-playing and improvised dance (and dancing with technology). Am I painting a clear picture of the sort of person she is? l.goodman@csm.linst.ac.uk She is heading the Radical project, which is about involving creative people in EC projects ("deliverables" are: digital seedbed for creative arts practice (I'm only quoting, I don't now what it is either), software prototypes, interactive website + database, guides to good practice in the field of creativity for the IST programme). There is a project event/meeting/workshop 8-10 July, London, which may be interesting to go to. http://www.get-radical.net Carol Strohecker, Media Lab Europe, Dublin (the interesting people were women - that's why we were invited :-) The lab was set up officially a couple of years ago, although it was only really beginning to get started last summer (2001). It's structure is similar to CWI, with about 6 "themes" in an institute of 50-60 people. I have asked Carol to come over to give us a talk, meet CWI and have her tell us about the Lab and her work. (Particularly relevant for our E-learning strand - she doesn't like the term E-learning...) stro@media.mit.edu Philippe Poncin, INA, Paris Philippe did no work all weekend. His main priority was to hang around as many females at a time as he could. (Not necessarily a bad objective in life.) However, in his working week he is research director at INA - taking over what Bruno Bachimont used to do. He is now Bruno's boss. Bruno is now working partially at the university as well as a more scientific role at INA. It may be interesting to organise a Paris trip, see Gwendal and catch-up with what INA are up to. We can at least show them the demo now. (I would have to join in the trip, to keep the female count sufficiently high ....) Chris Barlas, Rightscom Ltd., London Nice chap. Used to be an author. Wrote screen plays for TV too. Got so frustrated with the technology (this is my rationalisation) that he now works as a consultant on the technology side - mostly about rights management. He wants to come up with a positive system (you can take everything you want until you start exploiting the system) rather than a negative one (you can only have this if you have paid first and logged in and signed an NDA etc..). One of the guys he works with (also a consultant) is a member of the WebOnt working group. He and I could swap MPEG-7 and MPEG21 secret messages :-) Unclear as to whether the colleague will be coming to Amsterdam in April for the WebOnt face2face. chris.barlas@rightscom.com Gunther Schauerte, Berlin museum Victoria ?, Tate gallery Seamus Ross, Humanities Computing & Info.Mgt., Glasgow University David Clarke and Val Duncan, National Museum of Scotland Jean Francois Grunfeld (one of the charming Frenchmen), museum portal http://www.museumexperts.com Maurice Benayoun, artist and prof at Universite de Paris Pantheon Sorbonne Stephanie ??, journalist The environment --------------- was absolutely stunning. Beautiful Italian country villa (I had to leave before the drinks up at the house itself) kitted out with a beautiful circular meeting room (seated about 50) looking like a chapel, but without the religious trappings. Every room was covered in 2D art or had 3D art set up in the rooms - each 3D piece was designed for its setting. Mr. Gori paid for our stay. Bernard Smith (the EC guy) was just the excuse to organise the meeting and invite everyone to go. Prof. Vita Cappelini (one of Stefano's old profs!) was the go-between (EC and Mr. Gori.) Mr. Gori pays for artists to come to the estate and build an art work while they are there. 20 years has so far been spent on this, and there are 30 or so sculptures in the grounds. When designing a sculpture it has to fit into the existing environment. So basically, there are beautiful (fairly natural) gardens with trees and streams grassy spaces and almost everywhere you look (between the trees, in the water, in the original buildings, in the clearings) a piece of sculpture. (I liked most of them, and considering it afterwards, they were nearly all very "technological" and geometric. One in particular deviated from this, and was much more emotional. Many of the other participants liked that one best.) The use of the environment -------------------------- Our schedule was tight. There was little time between breakfast and lunch and between lunch and dinner to fit in the coffee breaks and bus trip to the villa from the hotel. We thus had to work efficiently. A plenary session in the meeting room, followed by a small group discussion in the gardens, with another plenary discussion at the end of the day. The problem here was that when walking you can't discuss in a group, and when sitting you saw only one sculpture, and even then, you can't discuss and concentrate on a sculpture at the same time. So while we were in this amazing environment we didn't really have the opportunity to benefit completely, and it interfered with the job in hand (the dicussion about culture and technology - we had trouble remembering too...). (In this sense, Dagstuhl is better for concentrating the mind on matters in hand. Ask Frank, Jacco, Lloyd or myself about Dagstuhl.) What _was_ good is that when we wandered around we chatted to different people - so if there is (for me) a seriously positive outcome it is the new, interesting, people I met. I would also jump at the chance to go back to the villa. So, why am I confused? ---------------------- Our research is carried out at CWI, a scientific institute. Doing SMARTlab stuff, and even Media lab stuff, doesn't quite fit in the mould. On the other hand, good research is driven by high levels of creativity (in addition to sufficient intellect and hard work). Can we make some symbiotic mix of our technical strengths and input from "creative" sources which would inspire us along the way? I would like to spend some time discussing this, perhaps even a leesklub? One concrete step to take would be to get involved with writing an EU research proposal including, say, Carol Strohecker (DEMUS+++ for example), and if the workshop ever has any influence then we could even write more way-out projects with Lizbeth (but we are talking 2 years down the line - if at all). There is an EVA (Electronic Imaging, the Visual Arts and Beyond) event in London at the Victoria and Albert musem (25-26 July plus surrounding workshops etc.). There is also COSIGN this year in Augsburg - Frank Nack's very own variety of mixing art with technology. A number of people, Stephanie in particular, were interested in the conference. Perhaps I can advertise it to a few people on the attendance list - the EVA people in particular (they hold 6 events a year). Summary of Conclusions ---------------------- I think I was working at the weekend, but am not sure. We can invite Carol Strohecker over to give a talk and cross-fertilize ERCIM/Media Lab. If we are considering getting involved in an EC project, then there are some very useful contacts in my list. Do we want to go to some of the "creative" events? ---***---