DIGITAL IST KULTUR CULTURE IS DIGITAL – DIGITAL IS CULTURE

cultural politics end and where do economic politics begin?
How can we enable a holistic approach to cultural and economic
politics? Those were some of the questions discussed
at the Forum d’Avignon Ruhr. The european centre for creative
economy (ecce) considers the Forum d’Avignon Ruhr
a starting point to continue to further the interests of culture
and the creative industries in the digital world in North
Rhine-Westphalia – also beyond the annual conference.
And there will be several occasions in 2016: In cooperation
with ecce, the Ministry for Economic Affairs of the State
of North Rhine-Westphalia will commission a study on the
digital creative industries; a hearing on industrial policies
for the creative industries will be held before the European
Parliament also in cooperation with ecce; and finally, the
European network of ecce is partner of a digital service
platform for artists and creative professionals funded by the
EU programme Creative Europe: ACE Creative (Accelerating
Creative Business).
with the help of an art experiment, the machine offers users
the possibility of seeing themselves in the body of another
person and listening to his/her thoughts inside their mind. A
machine aiming at generating empathy – with the help of digitalisation,
which is often considered the cause of flattened
or trivialised feelings. Art postulates values and orientation,
where politics are still – and have to be – searching, and
where the economy is still testing and dismissing new business
models. So we are all the more grateful that the Forum
d’Avignon Ruhr enables players from art, the economy and
politics to gather and enter into a dialogue on the future of
culture and the creative industries.
We hope that this documentation will give you an insight
into the debates and inspirations that emerge from this trinity
of art, the economy and politics.
Prof Dieter Gorny
This year’s Forum d’Avignon Ruhr was concluded by a
highlight: the award ceremony for innovations from culture
and the creative industries in Europe – the second edition
of the N.I.C.E. Award. From a total of 213 submissions
from 29 countries, the independent jury headed by Charles
Landry decided to give the first prize to the initiators of the
project “THE MACHINE TO BE ANOTHER”. This project
appears as a programmatic and pragmatic answer to the
open questions of political involvement with digitalisation:
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