Hungry EcoCities puts forward a high-level alliance between science, technology, and the arts, to effectively explore how digital technologies & applications can lead in turn to reduced food waste, more sustainable value chains, eco-friendly attitudes, and a more ethical food consumption. How can we develop ways of creating a more healthy, sustainable, and affordable agri-food system for all? In Hungry EcoCities, studios, universities, growers, and agricultural specialists team up with, artists and creative thinkers to come up with new ideas for the future food system. Hungry EcoCities will host 20 S+T+ARTS residencies and for 42 months will be working towards defining, designing, and developing AI-enabled responsible, art-driven solutions for the end-users in the agri-food industries.
The project Hungry EcoCities departs from the question how do we feed a city?. Our approach to explore this question and develop (parts of) possible answers is based on building new ideas for the future food systems in collaborative projects involving artists, scientists, creative thinkers, technologists, growers, agricultural specialists and entrepreneurs. Digital technologies are our tools on this journey, art-driven innovation is our method, 20 S+T+ARTS residencies are our pool of potential.
The food system consists of many layers and levels, therefor we decided to define a total of three directions for experimentation to channel our ambitions and objectives. Each direction for experimentation has been mostly defined by one of the partner studio’s and is carried by them throughout the project lifetime. The directions are Mega Scale, Local Conditions and City+Farming Synergies. All three directions and their corresponding fields of investigation are explained in the directions booklet and introduced by the studio’s themselves in short video’s which can be found on www.starts.eu/hungryecocities
With the directions for experimentation as our content-driver and the technical toolbox brought together by the three technical research partners in the project as our set of development tools (AI tools, Biotech tools and Digital tools), we have the building blocks in place to run art-driven innovation experiments, of which the 10 Humanizing Technology Experiments which have started on September 1st 2023 is the first batch.
This first periodic technical report covers the first year of the project; the period of preparing for the residency experiments basically. It starts with the cross-disciplinary partners building the infrastructure for collaboration (WP1) and running the first open call (WP3). Furthermore, in this period the execution of the experiments have been prepared (WP4) and the ideas on how to use and develop the outcomes have been shaped (WP2).
Hungry EcoCities keeps in mind three main objectives throughout the project:
1) Develop novel products and services in line with a human-centred & sustainability approach to innovation through dedicated art-industry collaboration in R&D projects
2) Stimulate uptake of digital technologies across the Agricultural sector through art-driven experiments to address social, business and sustainability challenges
3) Increase trust in and acceptance of digital technologies in society through art-driven design and development of digital technologies while explicitly acknowledging human values and needs and thereby enabling social inclusion and environmentally friendly innovation
