This collaborative text was written for the Future of the Lab book, published by Baltan Laboratories in Eindhoven, 2010.
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Abstract
The text could begin with a small re-cap of reasons why the labtolab network was set up. Explaining why peer-learning and exchange are considered to be important tools, what were initial motives for organisations in the network to joining forces?
(Here's could be a role for initiators of the project? Texts could come from the applications)
A brief review of the results of the first meeting could be part of that: Why do we think physical presence is beneficial? Being in each others spaces, seeing hearing eachother, sniffing eachothers programs, eating the food that comes from our mutual kitchens.
What properties do the partners consider to be important assets of 'labs for media'? From different backgrounds, we have a varied set of expectations and practices. Departing from this range of different embeddings, contexts, formulas that exist within our organisations, we can open up, review, expand the notion of medialabs. What is the role of (state, private) funding, activist approaches? What are positions and desires, methods and strategies of education, participation? How do we produce, consume, remix and diffuse knowledge?
(Review the maps and organisation-schemes that we made in Budapest and are elsewhere on the wiki)
(Writing on the potentials of collaboration, networks of exchange, drawing input from the work that we have done in Kitchen)
intro
LABtoLAB is a network of exchange between 5 European organizations that work in the field of new media. The LABtoLAB project researches, maps and develops non-formal practices of knowledge sharing connected to digital creation. We noticed that we all develop within our structure an informal space dedicated to knowledge sharing, experimentation and innovative practices. The common interest in sharing this partnership starts with an observation of the particularities of the day-to-day activities of the connected organizations respecting our singular contexts (as digital artists network, activist organization, media labs) Within LABtoLAB we compare and learn from our mutual involvements and experiences with 'non formal' learning. We try to locate terrains that permit fruitful informality, cross the boundaries of what is understood as 'knowledge production' explore and expand the notion of contemporary 'media-lab'.
Between 2009 to 2011, a chain of workshops will be organized across Europe. Each organization hosts one of these workshops (Budapest, London, Brussels, Madrid and Nantes). The workshops are targeted toward learners, staff and participants of the organizations. Through practises and collective reflection, the LABtoLAB project offers an opportunity for each partner to rethink strategies of knowledge sharing, of gaining and distributing expertise and to develop non-formal learning practices. This partnership aims to project aims to collect and bring attention to 'best practices' that can be helpful as reference material for other European new media organizations.
LABtoLAB was set up by: Crealab Nantes, Area10 London, Medialab-Prado Madrid, Constant Brussels, Kitchen Budapest. During the cycle of workshops, many other organizations and individuals are invited to take part in the workshops and discussions.
cath proposal
If ways of learning seem to be shaked by the « fast and furious » developpment and integration of digital technologies in our daily lifes, they are meantime interrogated and geniously re-invented by a range of actors and citizens that could be presented as laboratory-organizations, particularly active in the field of media and socially innovative through a community of users.
LABtoLAB was set up as a small-scale project between a diversity of « labs for media » models in Europe : from private to institutional labs, artists based collective to local networked organizations.
It refers to peer-to-peer in its technical, cultural and social sens : the possibility to gather a number of autonomous peer nodes (labs), to exchange ideas and experiences for a "distributed knowledge", to create a dynamic and self regulated ecosystem (LABtoLAB).
LABtoLAB is a prototyping experience in the perspective of a network between media-labs looking for challenging fields of exchange open to a dialogue through art, education and technologies.
Subjects or problems we intend to address together
Project Methodology
How do we work to achieve goals and objectives?
From dump text below, please change
To achieve theses objectives, we agree on the practical approach 'learn by practices' through the organization of a cycle of creative workshops in each partner country. These meetings will be helpful to get to know our organizations better (by visiting other working environments, meeting and exchanging information and ideas with local staff and learners) and to share experiences and skills by mixing the contents (theory and practices) of the workshops. Nevertheless, as those practices are still 'emerging' and are not yet fully recognized, we need to document, report and map all the results and resources produced within the duration of the project. This will be helpful for each partner organization to explain their daily work to their public, local authorities etc... and could serve for other European organizations as an example of good practise.
A micro-mapping study about « organisational models and strategies for cultural education in digital art practices » - to other interested and forward planning arts organizations. Obviously the direct benefit of a European cooperation project of this kind will be through the foreseen mobilities, for each organization and each adult involved, the opportunity to get to know new working environments and new educational programs, to meet other staffs and other learners. And by proposing in each meeting « generous practise » moments through a workshop (dedicated to theory and practices about a digital art topic) and discussion (a work session aiming at sharing resources, developing models and strategies...), we would like, not only to mix the profile of adults (staff and learners) but also show that it is a reality in the field of digital art, that adults are (or easily become) « multi-tasking » persons ( manager, learner, teacher, programmer, self-learner, workshop leader, mediator etc...). The benefit of theses activities, over the mobilities, this will profit the staff and learners by also increasing their skills sets.
Targeted audience
From dump text below, please change
As each partner's organization develops specific activities for adult education, staff member profiles include : cultural operators, project managers, educational programmers, workshop leaders, researchers, trainers, artists, computer scientists, administrators, mediators.
LEARNERS : As each partner's organization develops specific activities for adults, learner profiles include : artists, designers, computer scientists, programmers, art teachers, workshop leaders, trainers, theoreticians, researchers and sometimes a more specific public (women, unemployed people, inhabitants of a certain neighbourhood, learners at a training centre for unemployed adults etc...).
Potentials, past, present
2.4 potential of media labs
One of the goals of the lab to lab meeting is to describe and enhance the media lab values.In order to understand these values we have to take into consideration the specific historical moment that we are living now: the information era.
The media lab is an outcome of different traditions and institutions originated in the past like the workshop, the artist atelier and the lab but also the museum, the civic center, the library and the school. The media lab is a cultural institution that wants to respond to the needs of the information society. These needs that the media lab responds to, can be considered from political, social, cultural and educational perspectives.
In a moment where the public space was extremely devalued the rise of the Internet and digital culture has generated big expectations. A great part of the Internet, specifically the ones linked to free culture, has become a collective lab where users can become collaborators in the production processes, where users are in charge of the contexts and the tools they are using. One of the biggest challenges of the information era is to replicate the open systems of the Internet, for example free software, in the physical space, that is in the cities. It's here where the media labs may offer an extraordinary potential as a public space for public experimentation, where the citizens can explore new ways of organization, can think together of their neighborhoods and can take more control of the contexts that define them as citizens.
From a social and cultural perspective the media lab offers a public space for knowledge sharing, socializing and experimentation. The media lab does not work as the museum as a mere content provider, the media lab is a platform where people meet to exchange ideas and experiment together in the development of prototypes. The media lab comes to enhance the citizen science, the knowledge generated by communities of doers that are not recognized experts. The media lab offers a system where recognized professional experts collaborate with amateurs, where beginners can become collaborators, where participation can be strong or weak.
At the media lab, as in the Internet, the division between fields of knowledge becomes blurred and it is the experiment, the prototype, that determines the skills that are needed in its developed. The media lab is based on doing, on collaborative prototyping. This is why media labs offer extraordinary learning contexts where participants learn by doing, by getting involved in actual projects.
What properties do the partners consider to be important assets of 'labs for media'?
* From different backgrounds, we have a varied set of expectations and practices.
* Departing from this range of different embeddings, contexts, formulas that exist within our organisations, we can open up, review, expand the notion of medialabs.
What is the role of (state, private) funding, activist approaches?
* What are positions and desires, methods and strategies of education, participation?
+
* How do we produce, consume, remix and diffuse knowledge?
An important aspect of LABtoLAB is that all partners consciously use free software (libre/open source) to work with. The use of free software tools implies that the partner organisations also use free licenses to publish their work, creating ease of distribution and greater public accessibility.
* (Review the maps and organisation-schemes that we made in Budapest and are elsewhere on the wiki) (Writing on the potentials of collaboration, networks of exchange, drawing input from the work that we have done in Kitchen)
* How do we get info from the maps that we have made in Kitchen ?
Developped and future Processes, tools, perspectives
about the potentials of collaboration, networks of exchange :
already at work in LABtoLAB :
-residency programs (Nerea from Prado 2 weeks in Kibu)
-jobshadowing (European Voluntary Service : Irene from Prado 1 year in PiNG)
-cooperation program (latin labbers)
-study visits (catherine in Pixelache Finland nov 09, Julien in Fab Lab Academy Amsterdam july 010)
-mapping medialabs in Europe (art-tech mailing list, cartography, publication)
-active participation and expertise on medialabs at a eu level (Baltan project, Labs for a more innovative Europe, ISEA etc)
others ?
and we could imagine further on labtolab.org as a cooperation platform to extend workshops, jobshadowing, residency programs, training programs, publications, summer camps etc
* notion of 'culture lab' (see Uncommon grounds) - * recall objective of being demo referencial project. * Open invitation to potentially interested partners
Source Material
TEXT DUMP FROM ORIGINAL Grundtvig APPLICATION
The LABtoLAB project will research, map and develop non-formal learning practices of knowledge sharing in the field of digital creation.
The project's common background relies on an observation of day-to-day activities of 5 organizations working with new media (network, activists, medialabs) : respecting our singular contexts, we noticed that we all develop within our structure an informal space dedicated to knowledge sharing, experimentation and innovative practices.
« Informal space » : what does it mean and who benefits from it?
It is a specific moment and environment dedicated to exchanges (theoretical and practical) about digital creation where an adult public (artists, cultural managers, philosophers, computer scientists, cultural operators, teachers, designers, lecturers, programmers, unemployed people, informal organizations etc...), whether staff and/or learner, are invited to take part.
An important aspect of LABtoLAB is that all partners consciously use free software (libre/open source) to work with. The use of free software tools implies that the partner organisations also use free licenses to publish their work, creating ease of distribution and greater public accessibility. An example of this is the webtool Wikipedia, in which much of the content is published under free licenses, Wikipedia is a useful and successful publically accessible tool that demonstrates a good working example of how knowledge sharing can operate. It is accumulative and is nuanced (on Wikipedia it is possible to state that the knowledge is not absolute - which is a good thing).
Learners becoming teachers and vice versa is also a model widely used by Linux user groups and in free software copy parties. If you want to install Linux, you bring your computer to a copy party and a group of volunteers helps you to obtain the configuration that you want. If there is a problem, everyone helps solve it - in real life and on internet forums. This way of exchanging knowledge simply works.
The partner's mutual interest through the LABtoLAB project is to confront, compare, exchange and throw light on its singular experience from a local to an European level.
From 2009 to 2011, a mobile cycle of workshops will be organized across Europe, with each organization hosting one of these workshops (Budapest, London, Brussels, Madrid and Nantes). This cycle will focus on exchanging knowledge and know-how connected to the development of the Internet, digital tools and creation and will be targeted toward staff and learners of partners' organization.
Through practises and collective reflection, the LABtoLAB project is an opportunity for each partner to build new strategies for its learning communities and in a broader sense help these emerging non-formal learning practices to gain recognition.
#1 PING
Five years ago, PiNG was created to work primarily on network projects. The nature of PiNG in itself is collaborative, closely working together with other associations, artists and public institutions involved in the field of non formal education and new media creation. PiNG supports and develops projects, both on a local and national scale.
Its team consists of 4 members : one administrator and 3 project managers working on
In 2007 PiNG initiated Crealab's network : a « superstructure » closely knitting together organizations who share the same values based on free software culture.
Keywords of Crealab are cooperation, transferring knowledge and free exchange. In 2008, through Crealab's network, PiNG started to explore an intermediate educational plan, by organizing certain activities at a regular interval : _open workshops : for adults who want to work with and talk about technology _courses : on demand - adapted to the local request, mainly from open workshop participants _interventions : in Schools (Fine Arts, Design, AudioVisual etc) and digital art festivals... _meetings : open to the public to present tools, books, projects in process lead by Crealab members or guests _workshops : where PiNG and Crealab members collectively carry out their research.
PiNG's learning community is composed of Crealab members (10 adults : artists, programmers, philosophers, unemployed people), next to that 5-10 regular participants and a wider local community according to the programme. While developing all these activities based on self-learning and free exchange, we observed that these non-formal educational experiences allowed PiNG to invent new ways of collaborating and processing contents, collectively within its learning community. These are the educational innovative practices that we would like to share with other similar international organization and let that gain in recognition. Currently, Crealab is a platform accessible to digital activists, interested in connecting a growing network of similar European or international groups.
#2 A10lab
AREA 10 PROJECT SPACE LTD: FOR THE PUBLIC BENEFIT, AND NOT FOR PROFIT. ITS PRIMARY OBJECT IS TO ADVANCE THE EDUCATION OF THE PUBLIC IN ALL FORMS OF ART THROUGH ARTIST -LED PRACTICE AND INITIATIVES ESPECIALLY IN, BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE LONDON BOROUGH OF SOUTHWARK. Registered Charity no. 1119992
Area 10 Project Space is located just on the edge of an area which has been identified as socially disadvantaged, The demographics and educational levels of this community outlined are quoted from Southwark Intervention Site Nunhead - E01004005 document. 'It has an index of multiple deprivation of 69.45 which makes it the 6th most deprived in London [...] 17% of the population is under 16 which is a very low percentage. 47.7% of the population are white, mostly British. The other main ethnic groups are Black Caribbean (16.8%) and Black African (22.9%) [...] A high percentage of the residents at the Census (34.1%) had no qualifications.' A10lab is running a series of workshops from a council residency within the identified disadvantaged area from March 2009.
A10lab is the New Media Arts platform at Area 10 Project Space. Its purpose is to foster new practices and collaborations from the community of digital and sonic artists practising in London. Additionally A10lab provides outreach services in the form of adult education in the use of digital/electronic creation. This work serves to enhance links between Area 10 Project Space and the local inhabitants of Peckham by providing workshops and fun projects that engage the local community with digital and electronic arts. A10lab aims to increase access and awareness to cheep, free and DIY methods of digital and electronic creative medias.
A10lab is made up of 5 members of staff: 2 Organization Directors, 1 Platform Manager, and 2 Project Coordinators. Our learning community consists of practising digital/sonic artist/musicians, programmers and theorists, Area 10 and A10lab volunteers as well as members of the wider local community depending upon the project.
For example the Community, environment and digital art project is made up of learners that cross all three of these categories - the project engages the inhabitants of the Cossall Estate in A10labs creative process. Using collaboration as a tool to teach new skills using digital software/hardware. Additionally our volunteers and artists are invited to collaborate with the community in this learning/sharing environment. In this way it is possible for volunteers and artists to develop new skills working with the public and for the public to benefit from more support working alongside creative practitioners and sharing ideas and skills.
Whilst the core objectives of the A10lab are all interlinked, three main areas have been identified as the focus of A10lab's attention for its development in specific areas. These are as follows:
#3 Constant
Constant is a non-profit association for arts and media, based in Brussels since 1997 and active in the fields of feminism, copyright alternatives, open source and working through networks.
Constant receives structural funding as an Artistic laboratory, and conducts research through the production of cultural works.
Our team of staff consists of five people, each working 2/5ths. In general responsabilities overlap, as we are all deal with our own work groups, so we follow up activities from A to Z. There are also collective Constant projects and tasks, where we divide amongst us. Our learners are varied in a sense that each type of Constant activity brings another public, in amount and in nature, as we always organize them in different locations. In general our learning audience consists of artists, DIY-ers, free software adepts, programmers, feminists, activists, curators, musicians, radioproducers, designers. In the coming years Constant invites artists, software designers, developers, computer and internet users to collaboratively investigate the notion of 'generous practices'.
By setting up small scale, accessible and specialised working and learning contexts that are at the same time rooted in professional practices and curious for methodologies that stimulate open and participatory work processes, Constant supports flexible and recursive forms of education. Workshops, conferences, artistic neighbourhood programs that are organised in collaboration with social, artistic and academic partner organisations offer platform for artists and cultural workers to engage in Do It Yourself hardware experiments, to reflect on the use of technology, and to exchange knowledge. Current fields of interests span the active promotion of the use of Free /Libre Open Source Software for cultural artistic work, rethinking rights of authors in the context of the internet, open hardware and network based narrative structures.
Constant bridges institutional and activists contexts and aims to bring together specialists, academics, unemployed, artists, programmers, lawyers, students, from different perspectives and backgrounds around common interests concerning open approaches to working with technology.
Constant is structured as a cluster of research groups each existing of several professionals interested in sharing their practices with colleagues and a larger audience. These groups meet on a regular basis to review modes of production, to exchange experiences and to organise public shows and events. Work groups are:
fonts, posters and other graphical output, the Open Source Publishing group has become a widely acknowledged authority in the field of design and open source.
applications of the principles of ellectr/on/ics.
tools, as well as psycho-geographical interventions and no-tech empirical exercises.
Another field of interest is the intersection between performance and software for dance, musical and bodily improvisation.
documentary makers, artists, local activists, star developers around common points of interest.
method of slow cooking to the process of learning how to build, program and maintain a server.
#4 Medialab Prado
Medialab-Prado is not situated in a specific context, but aims to be open for everyone. Through an open space, its different activities, and the role developed by 'cultural mediators', its goal is to facilitate contact, exchange and interaction between different types of learners, whom we call "users" of Medialab-Prado space and program : -local and international users -users coming from diverse disciplines and interests -users of different ages -users with diverse levels in skills, knowledge and specialization
The Cultural Mediation program is a key factor in transforming Medialab-Prado into an open space for meeting, dialogue, debate an informal learning. Cultural mediators welcome visitors in a personalized manner, attending their diverse needs and demands. They work as receptors and dynamizers who: -investigate, orient and connect different types of knowledge -foster contact among all those involved in the range of different activities. -make use of the collected documentation, the web and the exhibited projects as tools for work and reflection in and informal learning environment.
Cultural mediators working at Medialab-Prado are students and researchers in highly diverse fields - Journalism, Philosophy, Humanities, History of Art, Architecture, Fine Arts, Audio-visual Communication, Drama, Computer Science, etc.
Around Medialab-Prado there is a community of regular users with very different profiles. Through the workshops, seminars, and work groups like the one called 'Fridays openlab', they meet, share knowledge and find a complementary side to their daily practice.
People participating at the 'Fridays openlab group' are at the same time teachers and learners, as there is an on line forum to create a 'supply and demand' list through which they explain which specific knowledges and skills they can offer and which ones they would like to acquire. Based on that, a series of 'mini-workshop' is organized. Among them there are: -engineers working in education and research, who find at Medialab-Prado more creative approaches to, for example, how to teach electronics or programming. -artists and engineers developing creative or commercial activities, who seek to find partners and advise to collaboratively develop their projects. -anthropologist, sociologist and cultural managers developing studies or activities around ways of organization and around the influence of the technologies of information and communication on society.
#5 Kitchen
The spicy innovation lab
Kitchen Budapest, opened in June 2007, is a media lab for young researchers who are interested in the convergence of mobile communication, online communities and urban space and are passionate about creating experimental projects in cross-disciplinary teams.
What happens to the net once it meets the urban space? How does private space relate to the saturating wireless networks? Where does user created content gain authority? How does our use of cities alter as we get more and more real time feedback of its dynamics? What makes a home smart? Street-smart? Kitchen Budapest would like to rethink and remix the possibilities of new media in our everyday lives and to argument connections between new technologies and our society.
Being sponsored by Magyar Telekom(MT), the leading Hungarian Telco, there is a direct path where ideas and prototypes get reach larger audiences, in case MT and the project group finds ways to do so. Our aim is to build a platform where ideas are materializing and some end up in cultural context, some in the market. Kitchen Budapest offers a research lab space down town Budapest, Hungary, a basic grant for a dozen researchers, some equipment, and a dynamic work flow where sharing and helping is essential, and the freedom to capitalize any good idea. Researchers come from various fields such as art, design, engineering, IT, architecture. We have various aged people regardless of graduation.
We very intensively use knowledge sharing methods, both internally and externally. As we work together on various projects we share our ideas, competencies and learn from each other. It is a very intense and effective way of sharing and exchanging, where all researchers are involved. For example we've recently participated the Transmediale Festival with a collaborative project called Climate Hack. On that occasion an international team (Pixelache from Finland, Tinker.it from Italy/UK, Kitchen Budapest) was gathered around a chosen topic and was opened to the public of Transmediale.
We regularly organize public events where our researchers, coordinators or invited artists hold workshops or lectures.
We are aiming to spread open source software and knowledge, but also we have started to teach our proper working methods and software. Animata, the real-time animation open-source software was developed in KIBU, and has voted for the best software of 2008 by the Pixelache network. Now Animata team is travelling all around Europe for doing performances and giving workshops. The software is free to download at any platform.
Kitchen Budapest regularly organizes exhibitions to present our prototypes, as well as works or projects from related institutions and professionals. We also do open days and pecha-kucha-like events to present our new projects and make them tangible for a larger audience. We have a permanent call for researchers. The selection is based on competencies, personal properties, ability of team-working, open-mindedness. We regularly refresh the group of researchers in every 6 months. We have an artist in residency program and we work together with talented people from different places and different educational background. Kitchen Budapest is not a formal educational institute. Our aim is to operate a place where people learn from each other and share their knowledge to public. - What are the concrete objectives of the partnership ? - Explain what subjects or problems you intend to address. - What approach will you take to achieve your objectives ? - What are the concrete objectives of the partnership ?
This project has a double objective : it aims at comparing and sharing experiences based on non formal learning practices with other European organizations involved in knowledge sharing and digital creation ; in return those exchanges and collaborations should help each partner in building new strategies for their learning communities and gaining in recognition of these practices.More globally this partnership project is helpful as it can be used as an example of good practices for other European new media art organizations. Concretely this means : _to get to know other non-formal educational practices and organizations connected with digital creation in Europe through mobilities and offer opportunities to each organization to mobilize staff and/or learners according to their context _to share experiences, skills, resources by organizing a cycle of creative workshops connecting theory and practice - related to the specific context of each partner organization _to develop new strategies for learning communities by gathering, sharing and producing resources on a collective online workspace _to validate these non-formal learning practices in the field of digital creation by promoting the partnership project and disseminating results (through a publication and a video) to the various public involved (our public, local authorities, other European organizations...). Concretely, it targets for each mobility staff and learners ; who are they ?
STAFF : As each partner's organization develops specific activities for adult education, staff member profiles include : cultural operators, project managers, educational programmers, workshop leaders, researchers, trainers, artists, computer scientists, administrators, mediators.
LEARNERS : As each partner's organization develops specific activities for adults, learner profiles include : artists, designers, computer scientists, programmers, art teachers, workshop leaders, trainers, theoreticians, researchers and sometimes a more specific public (women, unemployed people, inhabitants of a certain neighbourhood, learners at a training centre for unemployed adults etc...).
Explain what subjects or problems you intend to address :
personal experience) ?
tools, practice, reflection ?
To achieve theses objectives, we agree on the practical approach 'learn by practices' through the organization of a cycle of creative workshops in each partner country.
These meetings will be helpful to get to know our organizations better (by visiting other working environments, meeting and exchanging information and ideas with local staff and learners) and to share experiences and skills by mixing the contents (theory and practices) of the workshops.
Nevertheless, as those practices are still 'emerging' and are not yet fully recognized, we need to document, report and map all the results and resources produced within the duration of the project. This will be helpful for each partner organization to explain their daily work to their public, local authorities etc... and could serve for other European organizations as an example of good practise.
Please explain the distribution of tasks between participating institutions/organisations and the competences required from each of them. Also explain how you will ensure the active involvement of all partners in common partnership activities. During our Preparatory Visit in January 2009, we have established : 1.common tasks : each partner will have to organize one workshop (part of the cycle) ; this includes the preparation of artistic and educational content for the workshop and the specific moment for collective reflection on new strategies for our learning communities 2. tasks for each partner (according to our specifications). Common and specific tasks with certain required competences are described here for each organization. PiNG _PiNG and Crealab's members will host a workshop in Nantes on the following topic : Knowledge Sharing and Digital Creation. It will be the final one and planned at a specific time dedicated to the dissemination of the project's results. _As PiNG launched the call for participation and hosted the Preparatory Visit, the structure has been identified as the coordinator. PiNG will take care of following all the project steps in terms of communication and planning activities (through an internal online workspace), global evaluation and administration (by producing the joint project and the evaluation).
Kitchen Budapest _Kitchen Budapest will host the first workshop in Budapest on the following topic : Convergence of new media, cultural experiences and new communities. To share experiences and develop strategies, there will be a work session on project management tools (groupware, free software project management tools etc...). _Relying on a strong management team, involving 15 people, Kitchen has been identified to support the coordinator on managing the project by giving advice, exchange tools and methods (that will be discussed and shared with other partners during the first workshop).
A10lab _A10lab will host the second workshop in London on the following topic : Community, environment and digital art. To share experiences and develop strategies, a working session on public (addressing questions concerning how we work with the public, how we encourage community participation in creative, digital and collaborative projects and how the transfer of knowledge occurs through a community project) is planned. _A10lab already runs an open web-platform and administrates various mailing lists ; the structure has been identified to put webtools at our disposal (server, mailing list, website) for the project. Members of A10lab will set up and administrate a web-platform where all partners will be invited to share and produce resources.
Constant _Constant will host the third workshop in Brussels on the following topic : Mapping day-to-day practices. To share experiences and develop strategies, a work session on dissemination tools (collecting and organizing resources, how to document its practices, how to choose the adapted format etc...) is planned. _Constant regularly edits publications (i.e. newspapers) to promote its project and has in its team skilful graphic designers ; the structure has been identified to coordinate a publication project within LABtoLAB's project that will help in disseminating the results and promote our experiences of the Grundtvig program.
Medialab Prado _Medialab Prado will host the fourth workshop in Madrid on the following topic : Co-Lab : creative and innovative collaborations. To share experiences and develop strategies, a working session on collaborations (how to organize a workshop open to collaborators? what are the benefits from mixing artists and collaborators practices ? etc) is planned. _Medialab Prado will work together with A10lab to set up and run the web-platform by proposing ways and methods of mediation and communication as the structure is already experienced in working online to discuss and plan actions regarding their daily activities.
Please explain how effective cooperation and communication between participating institutions/organisations will be organised. Our cooperation and communication is already based on a basic tool : an internal online work space : http://www.crealab.info/zone/labtolab This will be the space through which we will communicate and collaborate during the whole project. _PiNG as coordinator will work closely with Kitchen Budapest on project management tools and will propose to all partners methodologies and a planning. All documents and information will be available on this internal online workspace : calendars, post-workshop evaluation, mid-term and the final evaluation for Grundtvig, etc... _A10 lab will put at our disposal a mailing list in order to facilitate internal communication and will take care of its administration together with PiNG. _Medialab Prado and A10lab will work closely to make the link between internal and external web tools for the project (i.e. administrate accounts for external platform users) and will recommend to the partners some online discussions tools (chat, visio-conference) as they are already experienced in discussing and planning actions online. Meetings and calls will be planned together with PiNG. _PiNG will work closely with Constant that coordinates a publication for the project to propose effective methods and use the internal online workspace in order to collect and gather content for the final publication project.
What impact and benefits of European cooperation do you expect Partnership activities to have on persons (trainees and staff) and on the participating institutions ? This cooperation project represents a great opportunity to give added value to the daily activity of each partner organization. It is a way to bring better understanding and more visibility of educational activities in the field of digital art and innovative methods and practices that are emerging. In a global context, access and use of the Internet are changing the position of knowledge sharing in the formal education field as well as in the non-formal one, it is important that actors of this knowledge sharing accompany the public in these changes. These actors should work together to share their experiences, especially when they are represented as a minority in their territory. The digital art field is not always well-integrated or recognized either by national cultural policies or in artistic educational program policies, this in-between position is problematic and forces contemporary organizations to exchange with others partners beyond their local context and territories. This is the reason why European cooperation is needed to support our research, mapping and developing of new strategies.
Relying on « production » (thanks to resources published on a web-platform) and through « promoting materials » (videos and a publication), it will help all partnerswork to gain in recognition : _on a local/national level for each organization towards their public, other organizations and authorities. _on a national/European level by disseminating the results of the project - a micro-mapping study about « organisational models and strategies for cultural education in digital art practices » - to other interested and forward planning arts organizations.
Obviously the direct benefit of a European cooperation project of this kind will be through the foreseen mobilities, for each organization and each adult involved, the opportunity to get to know new working environments and new educational programs, to meet other staffs and other learners. And by proposing in each meeting « generous practise » moments through a workshop (dedicated to theory and practices about a digital art topic) and discussion (a work session aiming at sharing resources, developing models and strategies...), we would like, not only to mix the profile of adults (staff and learners) but also show that it is a reality in the field of digital art, that adults are (or easily become) « multi-tasking » persons ( manager, learner, teacher, programmer, self-learner, workshop leader, mediator etc...).
The benefit of theses activities, over the mobilities, this will profit the staff and learners by also increasing their skills sets.
TEXT DUMP COLLECTIVE KICHEN TEXTS
summary
Media labs represented by lab2lab are varied and they all have specific properties.
It seems important to try to describe what our view is on media labs. Without denying the past of media labs, our starting point is to review the notion of media lab. Where is it situated, how can we open up the notion of a lab ?
It seems important that we create critical approaches towards the use, implementation, logic, social embedding of media, tools, the established structures of knowledge production, in order to strecth fixed definitions, boundaries of what is considered to be a media-lab.
We think a lab structure, in all its possible varieties can propose alternative ways of learning. Some important aspects are :
A lab is a device to work in between the different established, existing practices, around which knowledge is already structured.
between specalism / amateurism teachers / students public / private academics / practicioners producers / consumers art / science
take advantage of digital technologies to accelarate border-crossing processes Lab is a special place, that can make interrelations between physical conditions, protocols, concepts, prototypes and the web.
Fields of knowledge and practice
critical notion of media lab - 'media lab' has a strong historical connotation, we should open up this term
trying to re-think the lab cross-disciplinary
lab2lab connects to the political, economical, policy makers, bureaucracy, should we open a new discipline that is called cross-discipline, without falling into the trap of having to define the media?
adminsitrative layer / reality, how budgets are structured do not correspond to lab practices of being multi / interdisciplinary
common based culture is important notion:
notion of hacking is important,
- open vs. closed technology, - activate curiosity, break passivity - support practice
fields of practice:
- observation of reality - production in forms of workshop, projects - experimentation, the role of failure - technical skills, collaboration techniques, learning
lab in cultural/economical/social/political context
proposal for field of work: digital culture
pro: can be defined in several ways, but the culture of the digital is central -> we can change perspectives: critical, technical, artistic, etc.
contra: -> does it exclude people who do not have access? who don't have a credit card? is technicalnot an over-occidental perspective? needs to be scrutinised?
header headline for a communitive text could be: equal spread of knowledge, crossing boundaries,
division between qualities of knowledge / borders are disappearing, continuous modification of definitions of fields of working
internet has created awareness for different layers of knowledge, from amateurism, cooking, sharing ephemeral, non-expert knowledge, collective knowledge.
collaboration is necessary to expand knowledge. Know
crossing borders between intellectual and manual labor: handwork, workshops, doing practical work is valued as intellectual work
commons-based culture is crucial, but economics is not solved
source of inspiration
where do learning practices occur? at home (private space for work use) what happens to professional space ? who gets paid for their production? economical reality is changing, not solved, should be quostioned learn from free software culture, but non-software production g-has speficicities social / city / internet covers needs that we had in physical space previously, we can concentrate on the important things in physical space, we should keep in mind lab should have utopian ideal with notions of public, community, shared practices
Local aspects of global developments, ebedding in local contexts
physical space ? hybrid spaces,
Crossing borders
binding factor in-betweenness
blurring of divisions - read/write - learning/doing - specialization/spread of knowledge - private/public space - academic/institutional culture/business
navigating between business, academic fiedls, established culture
even though we are effected by the discipline-approach
public spaces
public space was devaluated
a medialab should be an utopian equivalent of the public space
we have to build spaces which have the same freedom like internet, but doesn't lack the physical propertes of space, face-to-face communication.
Could medialab be a good methaphore as the physical equivalent of internet?
protocols like p2p reate public space, public space is a space for differences
defined practices and disciplines, budgets, tax categories
position in education of medialabs
open source, free software in education, in relation to art / creative practices medialabs can be complimentary
everybody is an expert in his/her own experience old type: you were educated for long years to be prepared for life, now real life and doing comes together experience-based knowledge
involve/imntegrate beginners and masters in production, before, it used to be separated, first you had to prepare/ learn, afer that you could start doing things
media literacy
multidisciplinarity all disciples are interdisciplinary
hierarchy within fields of work could be contested
important binding factor is digital tools:
book can only be located in one space; distributed nature of networks makes it posiible to have 1 documented
distributed character of networks
critical approach fed from philisophy,
References
Douglas Repetto: nerdwars: knitting nerds, comparing with other types of nerds, importance of nerds, notion of being a doer
video: http://de.sevenload.com/sendungen/tiburon-tv/folgen/Rxg71dQ-Douglas-Repetto-Nerds-weltweit-verbinden-Praesentation-in-Englisch-bei-Lift-France handscraft manifesto: through the internet techniques are exchanged, communities are formed
sennet: craftsman, the workshop as an intellectual learning site
david weinberger: everything is miscilaneous
technique in creation: Heidegge/Stiegler/Couchot
control society: Pieces & Mains d'oeuvres
COgnitive Capitalism: Ippolita
Laboratories of the inbetweeness :
LABtoLAB inbetween art, research, education and new medias
[INTRO]
The knowledge society in which we live favors and forces young people and adults to be always more mobile, flexible, and to constantly update their skills in order to « stay connected » to the world, to the larbour market. Meantime ways of learning change, shaked by the « fast and furious » development and integration of digital technologies in our daily life while Internet offers new perspectives for knowledge production and distribution.
Does this context create a need for intermediary learning spaces (that would not deliver a certification like in academic institutions neither a qualification like in a training centers) or does intermediary learning spaces (that emerges, proposing bottom-up, informal, experimental approach) generate a growing need ?
Probably both situation influenced mutually, both are worth to be considered and LABtoLAB initiative took its roots in this context.
LABtoLAB is a small-scale cooperation project set up by 5 European organizations active in the field of new media : Crealab, Nantes (FR), Area10, London (UK), Medialab Prado, Madrid (ES), Constant, Brussels (BE), Kitchen, Budapest (HU). Even presenting different organizational models (from private to institutional labs, artists based collective to local networked organizations), all these structures develop an informal space dedicated to knowledge sharing, experimentation and innovative practices. These informal spaces are the common ground on which is based the cooperation, they locate terrains that permit fruitful informality and cross the boundaries of what is understood as 'knowledge production' or 'distributed knowledge'.
LABtoLAB offer space and time for the laboratory-organizations to research, map and develop these non-formal practices of knowledge sharing connected to digital creation. Between 2009 to 2011, a series of workshops are organized across Europe, hosted by each « lab ». Through practices and collective reflection, this experience is an opportunity for each organization to rethink strategies of knowledge sharing, of gaining and distributing expertise as well as explore and expand the notion of contemporary 'media-lab'.
[PERSPECTIVES]
LABtoLAB is a prototyping experience, a demo referential project in the perspective of a network between laboratories-organizations looking for challenging fields of exchange through art, education and technologies.
LABtoLAB started in December 2009 with a 5-days workshop in Kitchen Budapest and will end in June 2011 with a European forum hosted in Nantes. This meeting is the opportunity to share the practices and reflections developed during 2 years as well as to present the potentials of collaboration and networks of exchange that could be pursued, extended. It will be open to a wide public whether professionals or amateurs, active whether in an European lab or in a local network, with an institutional or an activist background, so to reflect a diversity of laboratory-organizations. This meeting will be the final step of LABtoLAB project but will interrogate a potential, a common space, that could exist furthermore.
Regarding, after a year, the exchanges already at work out of the cycle of planned workhops : residency programs (temporary working space for artist and researcher proposed in one organization of the network), job shadowing (staff exchange/voluntary position in one organization for a year), cooperation program (LABtoLAB workshops open to other labs from Latin America), study visits (mobility grants to visit other labs and open the network), collaborative projects (different members of the network work on a specific topic, i.e mapping issues) and expertise (active participation/representation in conferences, publication on media labs issues), we could hope that all these connexions and concrete actions are potential working areas, drawing future cooperation lines.