Research project sponsored by the Funding Programme H2020-MSCA-IF-2015. See the project on CORDIS.
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- Abstract:
This project addresses the theoretical and methodological questions of embodied interaction through body movement and the use of mediation technology, in the context of multimedia installation art. The long-term goal is the definition of a framework for the preservation of interactive artworks, ensuring future re-use and flexible access.
Most multimedia artwork produced since the 1990s is lost due to the lack of adequate preservation methodologies: as a result, the European cultural asset is impoverished and its potential for economic growth is drastically diminished. The intrinsic interconnection of multimedia art with information technology requires a multidisciplinary approach to preservation, involving high-profile cultural and scientific competences.
With this project I intend to integrate my years of experience in the field of audio preservation with advanced competences from user-oriented studies in embodied cognition research, in order to bridge the gap between the world of the arts and multimedia preservation. Qualitative data, obtained with targeted questionnaires and interviews, will be processed and analysed in combination with quantitative data, obtained with state-of-the-art sensing technology (bio-sensors, motion capture, etc.).
Ghent University (BE) is a world-wide reference for embodied cognition research, social music interaction concepts and studies on user feedback, besides providing an innovation-friendly environment where I can broaden my professional network and establish myself as an independent researcher on the European level. During the secondment at the Dutch Institute for Sound and Vision (NL), a trendsetting audiovisual archive and house to PrestoCentre, the EU competence centre on digital audiovisual preservation, I will receive additional training on the virtuous liaison between the world of multidisciplinary reserach with that of the creative industries.
This project contributes to the Work Programme H2020 by (1) canalizing advanced competences on the safeguard and the promotion of European cultural heritage, and by (2) bridging the gap between cutting-edge scientific-technological knowledge and the world of the arts, facilitating interdisciplinary innovation and strengthening the competitiveness of the European cultural and creative sectors (Official Journal of the European Union, L 347/225, Artt. 3a and 5.1). - The acronym: DaphNet is the union of the words Daphne and Network. Daphne refers to the Greek myth, while Network refers to the network of artists and organisations that is the backbone of the project and a precious resource for my research (see Network).
- Apollo and Daphne: Apollo and Daphne is a life-sized Baroque marble sculpture by Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, executed between 1622 and 1625. Housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, the work depicts the climax of the story of Daphne and Phoebus in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
According to Greek myth, Apollo chased the nymph Daphne because of her beauty. But just before being overtaken, Daphne pleaded to her father, who transformed her into a laurel tree thus preserving her virginity: "a heavy numbness seized her limbs, thin bark closed over her breasts, her hair turned into leaves, her arms into branches, her feet so swift a moment ago stuck fast in slow-growing roots, her face was lost in the canopy. Only her shining beauty was left." (Translation by A. S. Kline, 2000)
This is my favourite of all Bernini's works. I am dazzled by the mastery with which he represented the dynamic moment of Daphne's transformation from human being to cold marble: her arms turning into branches and her hands turning into leaves, with Phoebus at her back. I think that this sculpture, 500 years old, provides a well-suited metaphor for the preservation of interactive art, where the main problem concerns the transitory nature of art and the static freeze-frames imposed by most archival practices. We have to answer this question: is the representation of a dynamic artistic process possible at all? Or is an interactive artwork meant to be "turned into a tree" in order to be preserved, just like Daphne? - Host institution: IPEM research center of Ghent University, Belgium. IPEM (Institute for Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music) is the research centre of the Department of Art, Music and Theatre Studies of Ghent University, Belgium, since 1963. IPEM carries out pioneering research in the cultural and creative sector, with a special focus on the relationship between body movement and new technologies. With an interdisciplinary group of 20 researchers, IPEM's application domains range from music education and performance, health and sports, multimedia, archiving and gaming. IPEM has in-house technical and administrative staff. Visit IPEM's website: https://www.ugent.be/lw/kunstwetenschappen/ipem/en
- Partner institution: Dutch Institute for Sound and Vision, Hilversum, NL. The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (NISV) is an advanced and trendsetting audiovisual archive that has successfully made its way into the digital realm. It maintains and provides access to 70 per cent of the Dutch audiovisual heritage, comprising approximately 750,000 hours of television, radio, music and film and web video, making Sound and Vision one of the largest audiovisual archives in Europe. The institute operates as a visitor attraction aimed at the general public and is visited by over 200,000 people annually. It is also engaged in Europe's largest-scale digitization programme Images for the Future. Sound and Vision has made available thousands of hours of archive footage online for various end-user services, including dedicated services for the creative industries, education and research. Sound and Vision is a highly valued partner in a wide range of research projects. It has been active in the European research arena for over 14 years. Sound and Vision is also active in the international organisations FIAT/IFTA, IASA, EBU and UNESCO and home to PrestoCentre, the competence centre on digital audiovisual preservation. Visit NISV's website: http://www.beeldengeluid.nl/en
- Network: The network of people and organisations is the backbone of the DaphNet project. Sharing knowledge and experience is key to achieving ambitious goals in life as well as in research. I have started the network in mid-2014, and it currently [2016] counts over 30 members. All agreed to provide case studies, knowledge and/or logistics support for dissemination events. Forty-five of the people involved are women (see Gender Equality).
I am actively expanding the network by reaching out to new members: I have visited Belgium several times in 2014 and 2015 to meet curators, artists and organisations (mainly in Antwerp, Brussels and Gent). [I remind you this text was published before the beginning of the project: a lot has happened since!]
Name Role Location Info Guillaume Bijl Artist Antwerp, Belgium http://www.guillaumebijl.be/ Timothy Segers Artist Antwerp, Belgium http://www.timsegers.com/ Guy Rombouts Artist Antwerp, Belgium http://www.azart.be/azartstart.html S.M.A.K. Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art Ghent, Belgium http://www.smak.be/ Pierre-Yves Desaive Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium Brussels, Belgium http://www.fine-arts-museum.be/en LI-MA International platform for sustainable access to media art Amsterdam, Netherlands http://www.li-ma.nl/ BOZAR Maison d'art Bruxelles, Belgium http://www.bozar.be/ Herman van Veen Arts Centre Arts Centre Soest, Netherlands http://www.hermanvanveenartscenter.com/ Acatia Finbow PhD candidate at Tate Museum and Univ. of Exeter London, UK http://www.tate.org.uk/ Brecht Declercq Digitisation and Acquisition Manager Ghent, Belgium https://www.linkedin.com/in/brechtdeclercq Johannes Taelman Independent developer Ghent, Belgium https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9yBebl8-vk Tim Vets Artist Ghent, Belgium http://www.timvets.net/ AXOLOTI Audio-oriented HW/SW platform Ghent, Belgium http://www.axoloti.com/ Marijke Seresia Photographer and Cultural Manager Antwerp, Belgium http://www.marijke-seresia.be/ Teun Voeten Photojournalist and Anthropologist Antwerpen, Belgium http://www.teunvoeten.com/index.html Florina Speth Artist Berlin, Germany https://soundcloud.com/florinaspeth ARGOS Centre for Art and Media Brussel, Belgium http://www.argosarts.org/ Chia Longman Academic Researcher (Gender Studies) Ghent, Belgium https://biblio.ugent.be/person/801001185982 Silvana Badaloni Academic Researcher Padova, Italy http://www.dei.unipd.it/~badaloni/ Marina De Rossi Academic Researcher Padova, Italy http://didattica.unipd.it/offerta/docente/ Gynaika Association Cultural Organisation (Arts and Gender) Antwerp, Belgium Sofie Ruysseveldt Collection Manager Brussel, Belgium http://www.argosarts.org/ Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision Cultural Organisation Hilversum, Netherlands http://www.beeldengeluid.nl/en Verbeke Foundation Arts Centre Kemzeke, Belgium http://www.verbekefoundation.com/en Piazza dell'Arte Cultural Organisation Antwerp, Belgium http://www.piazzadellarte.be/ Bram Walraet ICT Manager for Art and Media Brussel, Belgium http://www.argosarts.org/ Grazia Toderi Artist Torino, Italy http://www.arte.rai.it/articoli-programma/grazia-toderi Simona Barbera Artist Italy/Norway http://www.simonabarbera.com/ Space 4235 Art Gallery Genova, Italy http://www.space4235.com/ Laura Maes Artist Oostende, Belgium http://laura.annaville.net/ Godfried-Willem Raes Artist, arts manager Ghent, Belgium http://www.logosfoundation.org/index-god.html Steven Op De Beeck Director of Contour Biennale Mechelen, Belgium http://www.contourmechelen.be/ Philip Janssens Artist Brussel, Belgium http://www.philipjanssens.org/ Logos Foundation Arts centre Ghent, Belgium http://www.logosfoundation.org/ Ad van Buuren (family) Artist Netherlands http://heartofmagic.nl/advanbuuren/ Contour Art Biennale Art Biennale Mechelen, Belgium http://www.contourmechelen.be/ IPEM Centre Research Centre Ghent, Belgium http://www.ipem.ugent.be/ Cel Diversiteit en Gender Research Office Ghent, Belgium http://www.ugent.be/nl/univgent/waarvoor-staat-ugent/diversiteit-en-gender Centro di Sonologia Computazionale (CSC) Research Centre Padova, Italy http://csc.dei.unipd.it/ - Gender euqality: My genuine interest in women's perspective on the world of art and science1 motivated me to integrate gender analysis at macro, meso and micro levels throughout the project cycle, ensuring gender equality in both the research process and research content.
In Horizon 2020 Gender is a cross-cutting issue and is mainstreamed in each of the different parts of the Work Programme, ensuring a more integrated approach to research and innovation. [Source of the quote]
An extensive study on the representation of women in the world of the arts (as artists, curators, promoters, etc.) is currently missing. By carrying out my research on interactive installations, I intend to address the problem by:- collecting quantitative data and statistics from the cultural institutions involved in my project and the members of the project network;
- monitoring significant indicators withfocused questions in interviews, life stories and questionnaires.
- making sure that at least 40% of the participants involved in the experiments are women;
- in the selection of artworks, assigning a priority to women's works - granted that the characteristics of the installations meet the requirements of the study.
A number of communication activities have also been planned around this topic, especially involving the Gynaika Association (based in Antwerp, Belgium). Also the Verbeke Foundation embraced this topic so much that the artistic director decided to dedicate the next temporary exhibitions to women artists and interactive multimedia installations.
Experts. During the preparation of this project, I have personally contacted a number of experts in this field, whom have already agreed to give their contribution. I would like to list them here and thank them for sharing their knowledge and experience with me:
- Prof. Chia Longman, Associate Professor in Gender Studies at the Department of Languages and cultures, and Director of the Centre for Intercultural Communication and Interaction of Ghent University;
- Dr. Sigried Lievens and Dr. Tine Brouckaert of the Policy Unit for Diversity and Gender of Ghent University;
- Prof. Marina De Rossi, Associate Professor at the University of Padova and President of the Office for Equal Opportunities of the University of Padova;
- Prof. Silvana Badaloni, Full Professor at University of Padova, coordinator of the EU project Gender Time and member of the European Platform of Women Scientists.
- Gynaika Association, Anwerpen, Belgium.
Documents. In order to better understand the definition of gender mainstreaming ("an innovative concept, encompassing much more than 'traditional' equal opportunities policy")2, I have studied the following documents:
- EU Commission. Manual for gender mainstreaming. Employment, social inclusion and social protection policies, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, April 2008.
- EU Commission. She figures. Gender in research and innovation. Statistics and indicators, EU Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, 2013.
- UN WOMEN. Guide for the evaluation of programmes and projects with a gender, human rights and intercultural perspective, A. Faundez and M. Weinstein (eds.), March 2014.
- UN WOMEN. Annual report 2013-2014.
1 The DaphNet project fostered my involvement in gender issues: I have participated in the annual conference organised by the Italian Association Women and Science on 12-14 November 2014 in Trento, Italy.
2 EU Commission. Manual for gender mainstreaming. Employment, social inclusion and social protection policies, 2008
This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 703937
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