Adding socio-economic value to industry through the integration of artists in research and open innovation processes.

Project Information

VERTIGO

Grant agreement ID: 732112

DOI

10.3030/732112

Project closed

EC signature date 29 November 2016

Start date 1 December 2016

End date 31 May 2020

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 4 258 418,75

EU contribution

€ 3 998 517,50

Coordinated by

INSTITUT DE RECHERCHE ET DE COORDINATION ACOUSTIQUE MUSIQUE - IRCAM
France

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - VERTIGO (Adding socio-economic value to industry through the integration of artists in research and open innovation processes.)

Reporting period: 2018-12-01 to 2020-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The VERTIGO project is a Coordination and Support Action (CSA) contributing to the STARTS (Science, Technology and the ARTS) initiative of the European Commission. It implements a fresh approach, targeted specifically at the deployment of a brokerage service for integration of artists in ICT research & innovation projects and promotion of synergy between ICT research & business communities, entrepreneurs, investors and arts.

VERTIGO’s activity is based on 3 main action lines:
- management of a program of artistic residencies, STARTS Residencies, in collaboration with research projects in the field of ICT targeted to innovation. 45 residencies were managed and a budget of 900 k€ was allocated to the direct support of artists participating in these residencies;
- development of a brokerage web platform supporting matchmaking between the stakeholders of ICT and the Arts. This platform comprises the web sites starts.eu and vertigo.starts.eu which respectively address the STARTS community and projects in general and the VERTIGO specific activities.
- organisation of an annual high visible STARTS event with international outreach bringing together the concerned stakeholders and showcasing successful interactions between industry, technology and the Arts. This event is included as part of the Mutation Creation yearly event at Centre Pompidou and Centquatre, Paris, featuring exhibitions and encounters on the current trends of contemporary art production in relation to science and technology.

The project started on December 2016 for a duration of 42 months, until May 2020. The consortium gathers IRCAM (Coordinator, France), Artshare (Portugal), Fraunhofer Gesellshaft – ICT Group (Germany), INOVA+ (Portugal), Association Culture Tech (France), Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne (Swizterland), Libelium (Spain). The project Coordinator is Mr Hugues Vinet (IRCAM). In addition to its core partners, VERTIGO manages an international STARTS Partners Network including 62 organisations from various countries with a budget of 320 k€.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

"The project activity included:

- Methodologies and strategy : the project started by defining the project’s Co-Creation Methodology including main concepts, actors, processes and criteria. Moreover, the consortium agreed on the formalisation of VERTIGO’s strategy on its various actions. The methodology was further specified concerning the various stages of the residencies monitoring process and published in several documents and articles.

- Artistic residencies in collaboration with Tech Projects: The residencies were selected in 3 successive calls, each in 2 successive stages : first call of Tech projects (technological R&D&I collaborative projects) then for artists/producers. The residencies were selected by an international high-level jury. Call #1 was launched in March 2017, selected 39 projects from which 89 artistic applications were submitted and 10 were selected. Call #2 was launched in September 2017 and extended eligible Tech projects to projects hosted in research centers and companies. In addition, an open call for Producers willing to contribute to artistic residencies was open and started to feed an evolving list of organisations. 39 Tech Projects were selected with 89 artistic applications submitted, from which 18 were selected by the second session of the high-level jury, announced at STARTS Residencies Day on June 15th 2018 and 15 were implemented. Call#3 was launched in June 2018 and was closed end November 2018. 72 Tech projects applications were selected for this call, with 164 artistic applications submitted and 20 residencies were selected.

- Events: Organisation of the launching annual event on March 2017 together with the first edition of the Mutations Creation event at Centre Pompidou for the celebration of the 40th birthday of Centre Pompidou and IRCAM, the opening of exhibition « Imprimer le monde » and the public announcement of VERTIGO STARTS Residencies Call#1. The second Yearly Event occurred on June 15th 2018 as the first STARTS Residencies Day at Centre Pompidou together with the opening of exhibitions “Coder le monde” and “Ryoji Ikeda” and art-science symposium on “Coding/decoding the world”. The organisation of the third yearly event took place as STARTS Residencies Days on March 27-28th 2019 at Centre Pompidou together with exhibition ""Designing the living"". The last yearly included STARTS Residencies Days from February 28th to March 1st 2020 at CentQuatre, Paris featuring the presentation in various forms of more than 30 STARTS Residencies, and an international symposium at IRCAM on March 2-3 2020 on ""Art-Science Residencies : Methodologies and Experience Feedbacks"". A total of 217 events with a cumulated audience of 244,000 persons was organised in relation to VERTIGO.

- Web platform: incremental development and releases of the web sites «vertigo.starts.eu» and «starts.eu» gathering the corporate project communication and information on all project specific activities: calls, events, ongoing, videos, etc. The vertigo web site has been also the support of the successive project calls online applications and reviewing processes, through the interrelation, and then full integration, during the second project’s year, of the Ulysses framework. The «starts.eu» site is the support of matchmaking of the STARTS community. It gathers information and news provided by the STARTS pillars. It references registered users and provides community management features, including the possibility for organisations to use the platform as a support for their own artistic residencies calls.

The dissemination strategy was supported by tools such as the website, brochures, newsletters, press releases, and numerous public and private events. VERTIGO actively and increasingly contributes to the common dissemination efforts of the STARTS Initiative."

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The activities of VERTIGO aim at the formation of new relationships, that are at the essence of co-creation processes and have the power to change collaborative innovation models in Europe. The VERTIGO STARTS residencies program organised these collaborations at an unprecedented scale.

The feedbacks from the residencies teams were globally very positive. They evidence fruitful and productive collaboration processes: in most cases the artist’s contribution is very appreciated by Tech Projects and open new perspectives, on the exposure of the technology to the general public, in some cases catalysing community engagement, or even bringing unexpected ideas to the research processes. Concrete advances on technology enhancement, even on new products in some cases, or evolution in internal R&I processes in concerned companies, could be identified on involved Tech Projects. On the other side, involved artists had access to the state-of-the-art of technological research, as a new source of inspiration and stimulation, and to various public exposure situations. This win-win situation is a necessary condition of a balanced co-creation process.

VERTIGO also broadly contributed to the international exposure of STARTS through its many public events, its communication and the success of its pioneering residencies program which is a source of influence of further art-science residencies programs.

VERTIGO logo

VERTIGO image - ©Joris Laarman