Labs and innovation

New means are being invented, tested and used, and people are reflecting on the significance and impact of these. E-culture organisations are centres of expertise and therefore often have laboratories or research departments working on a wide range of projects. To give a few examples: What is the best way to preserve time-based art? How can you use e-culture to create a network of dance and theatre that reaches as far as the slums of the world’s largest cities? And how can you use it to notate experimental dance choreography? How can artists put the technology behind augmented reality to better use? How can new technology be combined with fashion? How can music be used to expose a new tactile world of the way new technology is experienced? And so on. 

The Virtueel Platform and ‘The Seven’ (V2_, Steim, NiMK, Waag Society, Submarine, Mediamatic, Stichting Worm) have a similar role outside of art relating to education, the business sector, media organisations and science, by the introduction of new forms of research, in which artistic practice is endorsed as forming the inspiration for innovation. This has led to a boom in artistic research projects within and outside of (art) education such as, in lectureships and universities, the Creative Learning Lab and Kennisnet. Then there is increasing attention for the practical application of innovations from these research departments in the business, education and healthcare sectors. Many art institutions are setting up an ever- growing number of incubator programmes: sub-organisations which act as a transition zone to help young artists, experimentalists and inventors step outside the art world. Examples include Mediamatic Lab and Anymeta Training, Waagproducts, Mediagilde, Yellow Submarine, Dutch Gamegarden, Nederland Kennisland and Syntens.