Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - VERTIGO (Adding socio-economic value to industry through the integration of artists in research and open innovation processes.)

Teaser

The VERTIGO project is a Coordination and Support Action (CSA) contributing to the STARTS (Science, Technology and the ARTS) initiative of the European Commission. It implements a fresh approach, targeted specifically at the deployment of a brokerage service for integration of...

Summary

The VERTIGO project is a Coordination and Support Action (CSA) contributing to the STARTS (Science, Technology and the ARTS) initiative of the European Commission. It implements a fresh approach, targeted specifically at the deployment of a brokerage service for integration of artists in ICT research & innovation projects and promotion of synergy between ICT research & business communities, entrepreneurs, investors and arts.

VERTIGO’s activity is based on 3 main action lines:
- management of a program of artistic residencies in collaboration with research projects in the field of ICT targeted to innovation. The implementation of 45 residencies is foreseen through the project duration and a budget of 900 k€ is allocated to the direct support of artists participating in these residencies;
- development of a brokerage web platform supporting matchmaking between the stakeholders of ICT and the Arts. This platform comprises the web sites starts.eu and vertigo.starts.eu which respectively address the STARTS community and projects in general and the VERTIGO specific activities.
- organisation of an annual high visible STARTS event with international outreach bringing together the concerned stakeholders and showcasing successful interactions between industry, technology and the Arts. This event is included as part of the Mutation Creation yearly event at Centre Pompidou, Paris, featuring exhibitions and encounters on the current trends of contemporary art production in relation to science and technology.

The project started on December 2016 for a duration of 42 months, until May 2020. The consortium gathers IRCAM (Coordinator, France), Artshare (Portugal), Fraunhofer Gesellshaft – ICT Group (Germany), INOVA+ (Portugal), Association Culture Tech (France), Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne (Swizterland), Libelium (Spain). The project Coordinator is Mr Hugues Vinet (IRCAM). In addition to its core partners, VERTIGO manages an international STARTS Partners Network including 30 organisations from various countries with a budget of 320 k€.

Work performed

\"The project activity implemented during its first 24 months included:

- Methodologies and strategy : the project started by defining the project’s Co-Creation Methodology including main concepts, actors, processes and criteria. Moreover, the consortium agreed on the formalisation of VERTIGO’s strategy on its various actions. The methodology was further specified concerning the various stages of the residencies monitoring process.

- Artistic residencies in collaboration with Tech Projects: The residencies are selected in 3 successive calls, each in 2 successive stages : first call of Tech projects (technological R&D&I collaborative projects) then for artists/producers. The residencies are selected by an international high-level jury. Call #1 was launched in March 2017, selected 39 projects from which 89 artistic applications were submitted and 10 were selected. Call #2 was launched in September 2017 and extended eligible Tech projects to projects hosted in research centers and companies. In addition, an open call for Producers willing to contribute to artistic residencies was open and started to feed an evolving list of organisations. 39 Tech Projects were selected with 89 artistic applications submitted, from which 18 were selected by the second session of the high-level jury, announced at STARTS Residencies Day on June 15th 2018 and 17 were implemented. Call#3 was launched in June 2018 and was closed end November 2018. 72 Tech projects applications were selected for this call, with 164 artistic applications submitted. The results of the selection are to be announced on March 28th at Centre Pompidou.

- Events: Organisation of the launching annual event on March 2017 together with the first edition of the Mutations Creation event at Centre Pompidou for the celebration of the 40th birthday of Centre Pompidou and IRCAM, the opening of exhibition « Imprimer le monde » and the public announcement of VERTIGO STARTS Residencies Call#1.
During the second year, numerous additional events were organised, including at CeBIT’18 in June, a STARTS Corporate event at Festival d’Avignon in July and a STARTS exhibition at ICT’2018 in Vienna in December. The second Yearly Event occurred on June 15th 2018 as the first STARTS Residencies Day at Centre Pompidou together with the opening of exhibitions “Coder le monde” and “Ryoji Ikeda” and art-science symposium on “Coding/decoding the world”. This event featured presentations of residencies selected as part of Call#1, the announcement of the laureates of Call#2 and a STARTS Panel gathering high-level industry representatives. The organisation of the third yearly event was started and foresees STARTS Residencies Days on March 27-28th 2019 at Centre Pompidou.

- Web platform: incremental development and releases of the web sites «vertigo.starts.eu» and «starts.eu» gathering the corporate project communication and information on all project specific activities: calls, events, ongoing, videos, etc. The vertigo web site has been also the support of the successive project calls online applications and reviewing processes, through the interrelation, and then full integration, during the second project’s year, of the Ulysses framework. The «starts.eu» site is the support of matchmaking of the STARTS community. It gathers information and news provided by the STARTS pillars. It references registered users and provides community management features, including the possibility for organisations to use the platform as a support for their own artistic residencies calls.

The dissemination strategy was supported by tools such as the website, brochures, newsletters, press releases, and numerous public and private events. VERTIGO actively and increasingly contributes to the common dissemination efforts of the STARTS Initiative.\"

Final results

The activities of VERTIGO aim at the formation of new relationships, that are at the essence of co-creation processes and have the power to change collaborative innovation models in Europe. The VERTIGO STARTS residencies program organises these collaborations at an unprecedented scale.

The feedbacks from the first already started residencies teams during the second year of the project are promising. They evidence fruitful and productive collaboration processes: in most cases the artist’s contribution is very appreciated by Tech Projects and open new perspectives, on the exposure of the technology to the general public, in some cases catalysing community engagement, or even bringing unexpected ideas to the research processes. On the other side, involved artists have access to the state-of-the-art of technological research, as a new source of inspiration and stimulation, and to various public exposure situations. This win-win situation is a necessary condition of a balanced co-creation process.

The next challenges of the last project’s period are, as its 3 main calls are over, to implement the full range of its residencies program, to extend the exposure of these new processes to all the concerned stakeholders, in particular to boost their potential impact to the industrial and innovation worlds, and to contribute to the extension and matchmaking of a growing STARTS community.

Website & more info

More info: http://vertigo.starts.eu.