New media arts mini-summit held in Singapore

IFACCA, 07 August 2008

On 24-26 July 2008, the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) and the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA), in partnership with ISEA2008 (International Symposium for Electronic Arts), co-hosted a mini-summit on government support for new media arts practice in Singapore.

The event brought together 54 artists, researchers and policy makers from 26 countries to develop an overview of the key issues impacting on new media arts practice and to create a policy framework and some key points for action. The group represented 10 Asian countries, 12 European countries and four observer countries.  Approximately 20 percent of the delegates were from government agencies.

Pre-summit input from speakers and organisers is available here and images from the mini-summit are here.

The mini-summit linked back to the 2004 mini summit co-hosted by IFACCA, the Arts Council of Finland and m-cult which coincided with ISEA2004 and focused on policies to support media arts and new media culture. Debate at the 2004 mini summit resulted in the publishing of the ‘Helsinki Agenda’, which outlined the values of new media culture, set out key principles for new media arts policies, and made recommendations for further action. It also linked to The Delhi Declaration of a new context for new media, a meeting of an International Working Group on New Media Culture hosted by the Open Cultures Network - a network created by the Waag Society, Amsterdam, Sarai-CSDS Delhi and Public Netbase, Vienna.

In preparation to the 2008 mini summit IFACCA and ASEF initiated a D’Art research question to identify policy issues and to locate key people to invite to the mini summit.  The draft conclusions of the research as well as responses by delegates to a small questionnaire are be available online. A final report will be published soon at IFACCA's new media arts topic page.

Four topics identified by the event’s artistic director, Rob van Kranenburg, were addressed during the meeting:
•  Ambient intelligence, web 2.0 location based media, leapfrogging
•  Creative research, iterative design cycles, academic research and creative communities
•  Open source and open networks: the role of small independent new media labs
•  Media education, media, civil society

The key actions that arose from the discussion are published on a blog and will be further elaborated in concrete policy recommendations.  A report on the mini-summit is currently being compiled for publication in October.  IFACCA and ASEF and delegates will circulate the report internationally to their networks.

For further information see www.asef.org and http://singaporeagenda.wordpress.com  or www.ifacca.org

Some participants’ comments about the mini-summit:

Atteqa Malik (Pakistan): ‘I was in a place where there were many people who were not only dedicated to their professions but were also amazing human beings. I was struck by the fact that even though most had viewpoints that clashed on many grounds, the willingness to listen with a desire to understand was present.’

Andrew Donovan (Australia): ‘There are, not surprisingly, many issues in common between Europe and Australia when developing inter-cultural media art projects in the Asian region. But I think these types of discussion pave the way for meaningful and conceptually sound projects to be implemented.’

Muid Latif (Malaysia) ‘This summit helped to create more understanding between different practices of our profession and industry and what we can do to help others, especially to give alternative solutions to help the new generation for a better future.’

Peter Tomaz Dobrila (Slovenia) ‘I had amazing time during very intensive discussions and respectful presentations as I found splendid moments we had in between lunches and dinners. We made excellent relationships although many of us met for the first time and I'm sure we'll turn them into long lasting connections and even collaborations to make our world kind and pleasant place.’

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