Today, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is becoming integral to our lives. It is changing our social habits and altering our perceptions of both ourselves and the world around us –
impacting on human behaviour as we know it. Art does exactly the same, but art does more. It can provide unexpected representations of the world and thereby provoke new insights. ICT and science can create accurate representations of the world, but works of art can provide unexpected, or even imaginary, representations and hence offer new insights into the way we order and understand our world. ICT can enhance our capacity to sense the world, but art, in its many forms, can reach audiences on intrinsic, emotional levels. A conscious dialogue between art and ICT could stimulate novel solutions to challenges in technology and society. It could lead to new designs for ICT. Such a dialogue could also provide a new conceptual base to discuss technology and its role in society. Equally, ICT could herald a new era of global artistic communities through new mediums of creating and experiencing art.

ICT and Art Connect: Engaging Dialogues in Art and Information Technology event, was held on Thursday April 26th 2012 in Belgium. During this meeting scientists and artists from across Europe spoke about their work connecting art and ICT, and their motivations and expectations for doing so. The event started with presentations which took stock of ongoing collaborations, presentations from artists outlining their motivations, and from institutions that already have made dialogues between art and science part of their agenda. The aim of this was to help formalise the processes needed for creative collaboration.

More pictures for the event are available here.

The event posting on this wesbite is avaiable here.