While en route to Finland from
Sounds Like Graffiti art project launch in Bradford, UK (I will write about this interesting art experiment later), Supreet and I decided to stop on the way two weeks of leisurely workshops in Estonia and Latvia. The workshops - titled
New Media and Innovation Management: Workshop in Creative Industries - professes ambitiously to take a deeper look at how the
creative industries can act as drivers for economic growth.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="332" caption="Dr. Benedikt von Walter - head of MTV's digital research team for Northern Europe"]
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So as expected: there has been quite a lot of the usual hooblah and blaahblaah about innovation and digital technology and other such buzzwords that everybody seems to spit out these days (what do these words even mean anymore?). I guess when you have worked in this area as long as I have, the intellectual output of such workshops is seldom the main point any more. Rather, such workshops provide us with the best way to experience the different kinds of creative energies and experiments that are going on in regions such as the Baltic States. So despite some of the usual recycling of American cliches of digital openness, participation and digital revolution plus a few good speakers, the best part of the week so far has been the guided visits to the local incubators, art collectives and cultural centres such as the
Culture Factory Polymer where probably the most interesting art/technology/business synergies are happening today.
The first week in Estonia is now done. Now looking forward to seeing a few more of such places in the lovely town of Riga.
Breach Candy Group (BCG) specializes in the use of future media technologies for commercial, social and artistic purposes. Our objective is the research, development and artistic exploration of these technologies as well as helping organizations and institutions innovate on their products, strategies and services.