Pioneering Dutch IRMA app points the way for new European digital identity

Users keep full control of their personal data

• Tuesday 22 June 2021

Earlier this month, the European Commission set out a framework for a European digital identity. The plan envisages an e-wallet for every European citizen, resident and business, enabling them to validate their identity and share all kinds of digitally authenticated documents. So that, whenever you need to show something like a driving licence and educational qualification – or demonstrate your medical status in a situation like the current pandemic – you'll be able to do so using the new system. The European Commission will provide the legal framework (based on eIDAS) and the technical standards for interoperability. Individual member states and commercial players will then ensure that, for example, a Dutch ID app works in France and a French citizen can prove their identity in the Netherlands. 

Various ID apps are under development around the EU and beyond. But, in IRMA, the Netherlands already has a working app that's ready for large-scale rollout now. IRMA does exactly what the Commission is suggesting the European Digital Identity should do. You could even say the Commission has completely embraced the philosophy underpinning the Dutch IRMA app.

Read the full article: https://bit.ly/3adqUSY

The algorithmic beauty of plant

Wednesday, June 1, 2022 from 19 - 21 hours in DDAMA (Dutch Digital Art Museum Almere) opening of two new exhibitions that are related to the theme of the Floriade: The algorithmic beauty of plants and Glitched Lovescapes. In the Euro-tower (now Rabo) next to Almere CS, Landdrostdreef 124, 2nd floor, 1314 SK Almere (The Netherlands).

DDAMA has been around for more than five years and is like a young, ever-blossoming plant that has to survive without the care of the municipal parks department. Perhaps it is because of the rarity, the exotic, the newness, there are only a few in the world, that this young striking flower does not yet get the attention it deserves. We, Dutch, cling to our traditional tulips and daffodils or get palms and cacti from afar and have little eye for a spontaneously generated local new variety. Unknown makes unloved.

In the exhibition with the theme The algorithmic beauty of plants local artist Jan Coenen is represented with three works with the subject "growth" and with the theme of the Floriade, "growing green cities", in mind. Two of these works are projections of digital algorithms and the third is a combination of a watercolor of 4.5 by 1.5 meters with a video based on an algorithm. When visiting the Floriade at Almere do come and visit DDAMA.

Growth is change. Growth is becoming, not being 

People, flowers, plants, forests, cities and museums grow.

The artworks on display depict the laws of growth. One can see how simple mathematical formulas underlie the growth of plants, of nature, but also of cities. These mathematical models (fractals), like growth in nature, have the property of repeating endlessly within limits without being the same.

After centuries of development, during which man has freed himself from the whims and dangers of nature, there is now a growing realization that we are part of nature, that we should not spoil nature, that we should not continue to look on from a distance, but that we should merge back into it. The works are also about looking, about perceiving nature and art, about distance and involvement.

© 2022, Jan Coenen