BPN 1442 The close of Scienar (1)

The EU project Scienar is about to end. By the November 2, 2010 the two-year project will come to a legal and administrative stop. For the occasion Amsterdam has been chosen to have the final consortium meeting. And as the consortium members will be there, it looked a good idea to tell the world about the results of the project.

Scienar was started up as an EU project in 2008. The project has been divised by dr Mauro Francaviglia for the scientific side and dr. Marcella Lorenzi for the artistic side. The project takes into account the links existing between Science and Art; it has used the innovative possibilities that new media and ICT offer for a better Visualization and Communication. Visualizing and Communicating theoretical achievements of present Culture is by no means simple; moreover, presenting them in an innovative way is a fascinating challenge dictated by new trends of Society. ICT allow us to explore and represent these fruitful relationships in a way unthinkable before.

All the consortium members were present. There were two representatives of the University of Calabria in Italy, two representatives of the Slovak Technical University in Slovakia, a representative of ITC in Romenia and a representative of the UK company Virtual Image and myself on behalf Electronic Media Reporting from the Netherlands. Today we have a closed meeting to talk through the last details of project administration, a look back at the project achievements and the future of the project. Project administration is dull, but it has to be done, filling out forms and excel sheets and account for the costs.

Looking back at the results is more interesting. The project started during November 2008. Since that time happenings have passed: the conference for mathematician, Aplimat 2009 and 2010 in Bratislava, where every year a special session was held on science and art. An exhibition was held in Bucharest (Romenia). And also an exhibition and conference was held in Cambridge (UK). Next week an exhibition will be held at the university of Calabria in Consenza/Rende (Italy). But in Amsterdam seminar, consortium members will report on their contribution in the project.

With this Amsterdam meeting the project is closed. But in principle the project Scienar is dead, long live Science and Art. So we discussed about the future and how the consortium would continue their co-operation. Easy points of reference are of course the Aplimat conferences in Bratislava (Slovakia). But on the other hand the consortium should be seen as a movement which promotes the study of science and art. So participation should not be limited to a few people, but open to other interested people, as we believe the study of science and art is interesting for teachers and students, artists and interested people. So the consortium will continue after the project to co-operate. An open site is foreseen.

BPN 1442