On November 20 at the Skybar in the Microlab in Eindhoven, Baltan Laboratories and Creative Ring Eindhoven organised an Arts & ICT gathering. Aim of this afternoon was to invite the local ICT and art ecosystem to get to know each other and inform them about the RegionArts program.
Microlab was the perfect location for this event, as the building hosts a vibrant community of makers, creators and innovators. These are the people we want to reach with the RegionArts program. Microlab is a co-creation space that provides over 600 makers, creators and innovators with the resources they need to develop their companies and themselves. Members of the community can use professional machinery, spaces to work on bigger projects, as well as learn from and collaborate with peers.
In a short presentation Koen Snoeckx (Luscinus – Creative Ring Eindhoven) and Marlou van der Cruijsen (Baltan Laboratories) presented the RegionArts program and the opportunities this program brings for the art and ICT ecosystem in Eindhoven. Tanja Mlaker (Stichting Cultuur Eindhoven) shared her vision on the importance of collaborations between the arts and ICT companies and the connection of the two ecosystems.
The other objective of the gathering was to create a networking opportunity for the ecosystems of ICT and art to interact and get to know each other. In other words, to get these two worlds in the same room at the same time.
Analysing the potential in the local stakeholder's group !
In total there were 20 participants ranging from individual artists, ICT SME’s, business representatives, people working at cultural organisations and government representatives. To grasp who was in the room, in what way they were interested in the RegionArts program and if they were open for cross-disciplinary collaboration, we asked the stakeholders to fill-in a short survey.
We were pleased to find out that out of 20, 17 people were already involved in an arts-ICT collaboration. 11 of them wanted to strengthen this existing collaboration and 13 people were looking for new arts-ICT collaborations. This first group of people will be the start of our Local Stakeholders Group, during the program we want to keep them involved and ask their feedback on ways to improve the situation in Eindhoven regarding cross-disciplinary collaborations.
Next to individual actors, there are some key-organisations in the Eindhoven ecosystem that are important in reaching people and connect them to RegionArts. These organisations also helped to spread the word about the Arts&ICT gathering. Next to Baltan Laboratories and Creative Ring Eindhoven, these are High Tech Campus Eindhoven, Microlab, TAC, STRP, Stichting Cultuur Eindhoven, Effenaar, Gemeente Eindhoven, High Tech Software Cluster (part of Brainport Development), Hyperspace Institute and Manifestations.
Future ambitions ? Yes, of course...
With this first Local Stakeholder Group in the form of the Arts & ICT gathering, we have created an informal opportunity to connect with the RegionArts program. For now, we will focus on these first people and organisations that showed their interest in the theme and program. Within this group of people, there is a high potential for arts and ICT collaborations between Arts & ICT in the region of Eindhoven. We will gradually expand this group, keep them involved in the further development of the program and ask them for their feedback, ideas and needs, regarding policies that could both promote and support these Art-ICT collaborations.
