Social
Spaces

De opleiding Communicatie- en Multimediadesign (Media & Design Academie, Katholieke Hogeschool Limburg) start in september een postgraduaat voor sociaal en participatief gebruik van nieuwe media in de sociale, culturele en onderwijssector. Het postgraduaat ‘Multimedia & Communicatie’ wil via deze vorming een stimulans zijn voor projecten in het werkveld. Tijdens de opleiding werk je onder begeleiding van nieuwe media experts, kunstenaars en ontwerpers een eigen project uit.
De opleiding is laagdrempelig en toegankelijk voor mensen die bezig zijn met communicatie, publieks werking, gemeenschapsvorming, en dergelijke. Download de folder voor meer info.
Op 10 juni wordt het postgraduaat voorgesteld tijdens de laatste puntKom van het academiejaar. Er is ruimte om vragen te stellen aan de coördinator van het postgraduaat en ook om al kennis te maken met wat het postgraduaat te bieden heeft. Het thema van de avondsessie is verhaalprojecten. Register van de Dag van Gister en de methode van Narrative Inquiry komen aan bod. Meer info over de kick- off vind je hier.

Toegang is gratis, maar je moet wel eerst registreren door te mailen
naar jessica.schoffelen@mda.khlim.be

Our Social Spaces researchers had an active day yesterday making and sharing stories about their research and personal work and experiences. We joined a workshop on Cultural Probes and a Pecha Kucha evening.

The Waag Society, a Dutch organisation that investigates social applications of networked technology, designed a “Story table” (“Verhalentafel”) a few years ago with film, music and spoken word fragments which date from the period between 1920 and 1980. Old people can digitally leave their comments on this table, so it requires an active attittude. It is a risky design, since it introduces quite advanced technology and a very hybrid collage of media in a elderly home. At the same time it plays with trust, through de design of a classical, wooden table. This table aimed at older people overcoming their fears about new technologies and breaking down their social isolation (www.waag.org/project/verhalentafel). In the meantime a mobile version, in the form a wooden suitcase, is designed adapted to changing life circumstances of elderly in Dutch society (http://www.waag.org/project/mobieleverhalentafel). We are very curious about the sequel!

Social Spaces will be present at the i-beta festival in Heerlen at the 11th of June to present MAPit, a mapping toolkit to facilitate cross-disciplinary dialogues and creation processes. The mapping kit answers to the fact that people from different profiles, backgrounds and expertise do not necessarily share the same ‘language’. Adding a visual layer, that is open and adjustable to all participants, creates a different dialogue and enables everyone to join the conversation. Via the toolkit a group of people visualises thoughts and ideas in a playful way and in that way stimulates and guides cross-disciplinary creation processes. MAPit uses an open-source set of icons indicating people, things, activities. Empty icons are also available to create new icons during discussions. In this way, icons can be added and adjusted, implying that the system is never complete and is open to iterative refinement. The MAPit toolkit also contains ‘strange’ or critical icons, like ‘bombs’ and ‘locks’, allowing people to disagree and enabling them to risk a step on uncommon ground, which is more conductive to creativity. On the i_beta event, we will discuss the role of mapping toolkits in moderating cross-disciplinary creation processes in the field of e-culture and creative industries. We will also work with our own MAPit toolkit, exploring the roles of creativity and e-culture in (the future of) the Meuse-Rhine Euregion.

More information on this project here

CALL FOR PAPERS: 2010 Conference: “Art on the Street”
The Korean Society of Art Theories, Seoul, KOREA
October 24, 2010

We seek to build upon the recent discussion on public art and community by
investigating specific examples of the practices of contemporary art in
particular contexts. We pay attention to the way in which the process of
creation, perception, and reception of the artwork relates to the formation
of a community. We invite papers on mural projects, site-specific urban
planning projects, parks, public monuments, and other types of
community-oriented projects. Discussions on a project or network of
activities that form relationships among participants and a public are also
encouraged. At the same time, we hope to explore artistic practices that
resist or negotiate in terms of everyday life, localization, globalization,
and social and cultural structures. We also encourage papers that revisit
the issue of memory of community. While proposing art as potential means of
collective empowerment, we aim to investigate art that invokes or produces a
community. All perspectives and methodologies are welcome.