Europe’s Lab of Labs

Published in

Arts and Technology Pilot Programme

4 min readMay 23, 2016

Callum Lee from BOP Consulting, and formerly of the European Creative Business Network, led the recent study visit to Amsterdam. Here he reflects on the increasing interest in arts and technology innovation across the EU.

Arts, Tech, Business

Across Europe, governments are putting greater emphasis on the potential benefits that collaborations between art, technology, and business can bring. This includes investigating and investing in the work of some world-leading institutions.

Culture is seen by governments of all levels as one of the Europe’s key strategic advantages, and a unique shared European asset. Reflecting this, there has been significant investment in various arts programmes from the European Commission, largely to support culture in addressing economic or social goals. More recently this has begun to embrace the role of the arts in supporting technology innovation. The European Commission’s engagement and support for the arts now ranges from the STARTS Platform to ICT & Art Connect, both of which aim to develop the capacity and networks within the sector. This is based on an understanding of the importance of creativity in innovation. One frequently repeated quote is from Guenther H. Oettinger, the commissioner in charge of the digital agenda, who says: “In the age of digitization, art and engineering are no longer contradictory modes of thinking.”

European Labs

These funding programmes build on a long-standing tradition of these collaborations across Europe, led by some unique and distinctive organisations. Leading this group is the Waag Society (one of the highlights of the programme’s Amsterdam tour). An “Institute for art, science and technology”, the Waag runs six “labs” including, for example, Future Heritage Lab (that analyses the role technology plays in our heritage) and the Open Wetlab (that focuses on the life sciences and the design and ethics of life).

Another high profile organisation, Ars Electronica, was founded over 35 years ago in Linz, and addresses “interlinkages and congruities, causes and effects between art, technology, society.” It has seven research areas including Creative Catalyst (impact of digital technologies on creative processes) to Robotinity (functions, appearances and perceptions of innovative social robots). It also runs a high profile international prize — Prix Ars Electronica.

More recently, the Medialab-Prado in Madrid was founded in 2002 and is heavily influenced by the MIT Media Lab. It is a “citizen laboratory” which aims to create an open platform for collaboration, which it does through Open Calls, a programme of workshops and events, and with its own space which is dedicated to a culture of “encounter, cooperation, and exchange.”

These are just the tip of the iceberg (we’ve included a long list below for further research). But we think they highlight some important insights in how these work.

First, policymakers across Europe take these initiatives seriously, as shown by the funding committed to these programmes. The Waag has an annual budget of EUR 3.1 million — 30% of which is direct public funding from the City. The Medialab-Prado is part of Madrid City Council and kept its funding despite the harsh Spanish financial crisis. And despite the rigours and bureaucracy required by government funding, these organisations manage to occupy a space which is both inspirational and experimental.

Second, they all have a diverse range of research interests. The Waag has six key themes; Ars Electronica has seven. There is a clear strength in coordinating a diverse range of research interests, which benefits the whole.

Finally, they all have strong, outward facing networks. The Medialab-Prado describes this as becoming “the Lab of Labs”, where they link up and engage with existing practice.

These are extraordinary organisations. The most recent blog post in this series discussed the importance for arts and technology collaborations in navigating the space outside of traditional disciplines. These organisations can show the way.

Callum Lee and Marta Moretto, BOP Consulting

Centres and research institutes

Aalto University http://www.aalto.fi/en/

ART+COM http://artcom.de/en/about/

CREW http://www.crewonline.org/

IMAL http://www.imal.org/en/page/about-imal

iMinds https://www.iminds.be/en

MediaLab Prado http://medialab-prado.es/article/que_es

SMARTLAB http://smartlab-ie.com/

Kitchen Budapest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Budapest

TEKS http://teks.no/

Transmediale http://transmediale.de/content/history-transmediale