Take Home Experience 72h Digital Missiò in Netherlands and Belgium with Catalan Arts

From June 19 to 21, 2024, I had a really nice opportunity to participate in a 72-hour digital mission to the Netherlands and Belgium organized by Catalan Arts, encompassing four cities: Rotterdam, Brussels, Leuven, and Namur. This mission aimed to internationalizied Catalan digital sector by deepening our understanding of the Dutch and Belgian digital ecosystems, including their concepts, emerging technologies, and business models. It also sought to build connections with key players in these ecosystems and showcase the capabilities & potential of the Catalan digital sector to key stakeholders.

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Below i'll be sharing some that caught my interest from XR Designer POV.

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The mission began in Rotterdam, where we visited innovative digital art centers. At V2_Lab for the Unstable Media, I was mostly impressed with their focus on creating an archive of ideas on their platform. As an XR Designer, I found their platform arrangement incredibly inspiring and useful, as it serves as a good source of creative ideas. One of their residents' projects, "Realities in Transition," particularly caught my interest. This project combines art, design, cultures, education, and mixed media in XR.

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Followed by Nieuwe Instituut, as showcased by Ramon, their senior researcher of digital culture, is highly research-based and innovative. I was particularly taken with their research center and its small bibliotech. The center itself seems architecturally designed to support a serene environment conducive to deep thinking and innovation.

Though I did not see any projects specifically involving XR during the visit, which is understandable given that XR research is just beginning to reach the hands of designers and researchers. Given their focus in their centre , i see more projects like architectural visualisation, some cultural preservation and eduction through AR scavanger hunt within museums , simulations of physical space to optimise user interaction , a UX studies of Human Computer Interaction could be some of the project that can be born with XR. I'm particularly interested in the UX Studies , a centre to keep in mind definitely for me .

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Gluon was the first place we visited in Brussels, a platform that connects artists with scientists and technologists to foster interdisciplinary innovation.

One of their research methodologies for understanding user acceptance in the market was very inspiring to me. During our visit, we were introduced to their scenario matrix, a tool used to map out potential futures based on technological progress and consumer acceptance. This method helps to visualize different scenarios and strategize accordingly.

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Thanks to Gluon, inspired by this approach, that same night, I try to applied a similar methodology to \ identifying opportunities in the market for freelance designers like myself and SMEs in the XR industry.

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Currently, in Catalonia, we are slowly shifting from the top-left quadrant to the top-right quadrant. Meanwhile, the industry oscillates between the top-right (Enthusiastic Early Adopters) and bottom-left (Users Overwhelmed by Rapid Technological Advancements) quadrants. Could going deeper into user-centric design be the solution to accelerate this transition? Possibly. For me, this offers valuable insights on how to approach projects both locally and internationally. As a freelance XR Designer like myself , it's essential to adapt to these market trends rather than  rigidly to a single approach, for flexibility and responsiveness to evolving user needs.
I'm also putting a shout out to an artist whom the project i really like : Roel Heremans wo works alot on Neurofeedback and Adrien Lucca whom specilised in color, light, and perception.

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Next at iMAL , found a project called " The Tipping Point " - a kinetic installation that combines data, light, sound, and movement. This artwork showcase the critical risk of the climate system and the impacts on the global climate, ecosystems, and human societies.The metronomes are driven by historical, current, and projected future environmental data related to five major climate tipping points.  As the beats become more intense, it symbolizes the escalating urgency of the climate crisis. Realy inspiring example of transforming a research paper into data visualization, art, and an immersive user experience . PS : At the moment, I'm experimenting with visualizing current and historical summer data here in Catalonia in colleration of l'hort quality for virtual reality experience .

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Also introduced to Creww, a company that works with embodiments iredefine the role of performer, and audience in XR performance and got to undersand better about what they do through their technical collaborator, Haryo. who also happened to be another indonesian, so it was nice catch up in my mother tongue. :)
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In SHIFT, saw a name of VR Artist who happened to mentor over there , reminded me of a project that i found some years go, where he happened to be the artist behind it , on embodiment in cultural experience - The West Flemish Pub Experience - interactive VR experience that takes us to a cozy virtual pub like there is one on every corner of the West Flemish countryside, with a custom translator function for those who have a slight difficulty with understanding the authentic West Flemish dialect. Super interesting project, for language learning on activity based. i really like it because of how simple, relevant but super scalable the project is.
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Reaching the end of the 72-hour mission, on the last day we visited KIKK Galaxy in Namur, which included a tour of TRAKK and their digital creation center. We all had the chance to present our work one by one.

The participants from Catalonia included Blit.studio, Desilence, Eyesberg, Gabriel Casanova, Grup Lavinia, Hamill Industries, Insectotròpics, Mouawad Laurier, Mutacions, New Art Foundation, Sínoca, Tigrelab, Alice Production, and Zertifier. Representatives from Catalunya Media City and the DG for Innovation and Digital Culture were also part of the mission. Booklet Digital on the profiles

For me, it was great to see their work one by one and get to know the ecosystem and which of some of them have started to venture into XR and made some good connection with some for potential future collaboration.

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Personally, this mission was intense for me for a couple of reasons. As someone who thinks a lot, every experience serves as input, sparking ideas for projects and collaborations. This constant mental activity clashed with our tightly scheduled daily visits. Additionally, the mission involved multiple languages—Catalan among our group, English for the visits, French presentations, and some Dutch reading materials. While I understood them all, the constant language switching was mentally exhausting. However, it was gratifying to see my daily practice of Catalan paying off :)

About the mission itself, I noticed a significant approach of integrating art with science, environmental issues, and sustainability among contemporary and digital artists here. The art projects were less self-centered and more community-focused, aiming to solve real-world problems and drive social change. This experience has inspired me for future projects, especially in using new technologies like XR.

I am incredibly thankful to Catalan Arts for this opportunity. They thoughtfully took care of every detail. We made valuable contacts, and I hope this visit leads to future collaborations

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Thank you for the experience :)

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