| layout |
|---|
page |
What
The European Commission is publishing a call for proposals one of whose objectives is to fund environments for creative content. Funding for these projects may go from one to several million €'s and last from 24 to 48 months.
Deadline for proposals is in March-April 2008.
http://cordis.europa.eu/ist/kct/fp7.htm
How
Partners from at least three European countries and a written description that will be evaluated for funding. The written proposal usually ranges 100+ pages and is divided into well-structured work packages.
A work package includes:
- 1 leading partner and other contributing partners
- a goal for innovation
- history, description and references to other similar initiatives
- different, well-described tasks that make up the package
- proof-of-concept
- deliverables, either open-source software or report
- future goals: spread of knowledge and profitable spin-offs after the project is finished
- risk analysis + contingency plan: alternatives when the tasks do not live up to the goal
- detailed budget (people, hardware, software, ...)
- timeline with milestones
EU project manager Stefano Bertolo has a PDF on funding strategies.
Integration with previous FP projects is highly encouraged, take a look at:
http://cordis.europa.eu/ist/kct/fp6_projects.htm
Who
The NodeBox research group is looking for European partners to enter a proposal. We are interested in institutes and people with an expertise in (generative) art & media, creativity, graphics technology, Python programming, AI, computational linguistics, and EU projects.
A team of partners submitting a proposal is evaluated on how well they are expected to cooperate and their past / joint experience. Different partners need to have complementary expertise. Important players in the European field cannot be omitted from the team.
Current partners:
- Belgium: L. Nijs, F. De Bleser, T. De Smedt | NodeBox | St. Lucas School of Arts, Antwerp
- Belgium: L. Menschaert | NodeBox | St. Lucas School of Arts, Antwerp
- Belgium: W. Daelemans | MBSP | Department of Computer Linguistics, University of Antwerp
- Belgium: L. Lechat
- Belgium + Netherlands: J. Gielis | Superformula | Genicap
- Belgium: Transmedia Postgraduate Program in Arts + Media + Design, Brussels (unconfirmed)
- Finland: University of Art and Design, Helsinki (unconfirmed)
- Italy: TODO interaction & media design, Turin
- Italy: Gillian Crampton Smith | IUAV and formerly IVREA
- Spain: Ricard Marxer Piñón, FP6 participant (if starting in 2009)
- Sweden: Fredrik Lundh | Python Imaging Library | Secret Labs AB (unconfirmed)
- Germany: Fabian Theis | Computational Modeling in Biology | GSF
- Germany: Michael Schmitz
- US: Marius Watz | generator.x (unconfirmed)
- US: Mark Meyer
Reviewers:
- Boudewijn Rempt | Krita | KDE
- Anne Adams | University of Antwerp
- Maarten Vinkers | KD, Antwerp
Our aim is a modular project in which tasks cooperate in a building-block-style - independent parts constitute a well-defined whole.
What
I've bundled the things we discussed roughly into three topics. There is no joint goal yet but the main topic is the enhancement of creativity and creative content.
Creativity for all.
We are looking to develop tools that allow a broad range of people to express their creativity without being limited to a) what a user-interface defines, b) programming skills, c) artistic skills. The starting point is the Gravital extension developed for NodeBox.
- Users should be able to express creativity in natural language (i.e. plain English).
- Users can play around with building blocks in a node-based interface that produces visual output.
- Techniques used in artificial intelligence aid users in formulating creative concepts.
- Networks of commonsense data and design-related knowledge aid the AI-algorithms.
- A library of realistic vector models tagged with keywords.
- Physical interfaces, moving away from the mouse and keyboard.
Grand unified generative art.
We want to establish a standardization of generative art. The right way to write code for graphic output, rules on how color and composition work, API guidelines on how new libraries are coded (simple example: PEP 8).
- A cross-platform application.
- One standard API addresses OpenGL/PDF/sound or whatever else the given assigment requires.
- The core graphics engine is enhanced with libraries for color theory, grid composition, typography, image finding, symmetry, ... The field of graphic design is unambiguously mapped to algorithms.
- Python Applet?
Evolving community.
We want to create and promote a central place to share experience and creativity. A place that gathers knowledge, expands it, adapts to reflect new needs.
- An application that can talk to other applications (cfr. OSC).
- Automatic publishing and sharing of user code and output.
- Trends and machine learning: if all the experience is centralized, we can look at who is making what at a given time period in a given context. The system can adapt and improve (genetically?) based on this information.
- Involving the Python community.
- Workshops. Establishment of a new educational institute for generative art (cfr. IVREA)?
Why
Computers enhance creativity yet current user interfaces and programming skills prove to be an obstacle. There is a need for new software that allows everyone and anyone to benefit from computational power.
People with the expertise in generative art are scattered and isolated across Europe. It is essential to streamline their expertise.
The obvious alternative, Processing focuses on aesthetic visual output rather than semantic and conceptual creativity.
There is a need in science for good data visualization tools.
Partners in our proposal can share their ideas here. With your login you can edit this page, create links to new pages or leave comments.