"The Next Renaissance" is a special initiative of The European Institute of Innovation and
Technology, Culture & Creativity (EIT C&C)
As a member of the EIT C&C, Streaming Museum has contributed articles to the publication and has been working on program plans with a special team of international artists, educators, a global arts festival, and placemaking and technology experts. Our team specializes in creating international programs in public spaces, communities, festivals, diverse venues, online, XR and cross-reality spaces, and what is to come.
EIT Culture & Creativity is the ninth Innovation Community by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union. It is designed to strengthen and transform Europe’s Cultural and Creative Sectors and Industries (CCSI) by connecting creatives and organisations to Europe’s largest innovation network. It takes a holistic and open approach to innovation – from tech to artistic driven innovations, from business to citizen driven – and reinforces the appreciation and anchoring of European values and identities and facilitate the Triple Transitions in Europe – green, digital and social..
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THE NEXT RENAISSANCE initiative
Publication and website:
The creative and cultural sectors, and especially the blending of scientific, technological, cultural and artistic knowledge, can be a catalytic driver to both imagine and realise possible futures. nextrenaissance.eu
Exhibition and symposium partners:
ZKM Center for Art and Media Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany - “Renaissance 3.0” exhibition
ZKM's exhibition establishes a base camp for new alliances of art and science in the 21st century.
March 25, 2023–February 25, 2024
Catalog of exhibited art
Scientification of Art
The mathematization of the world has long since taken hold of art as well — a development that looks back on a long history. More than 1000 years ago, the Arab-Islamic Renaissance (800–1200), also known as the Islamic Golden Age, had already produced amazing (musical) devices and robot-like automatons, amongst other things.
The Italian Renaissance (15th to early 17th centuries) initiated immense civilizational innovations with the invention of perspective, the measurement of space, and the construction of complex mechanical machines. The basis of the 3rd Renaissance is that artists and scientists use comparable tools in the digital age. In addition to the current politicization of art, there is also a tendency towards its scientification. This becomes visible in the exhibition.
A common »pool of tools«
For a long time, art and science diverged. Art was primarily oriented toward things that could be perceived by the human eye. It remained within the horizon of natural perception. Science begins beyond natural perception. It has been observing the world with instruments since the 16th century. In this way it advanced to the hitherto inaccessible »res invisibiles« of the microcosm and the macrocosm.
With the rise of technical media, a turning point had come: artists began to take an interest in the use of "scientific" tools. Today, both disciplines increasingly work with the same tools, methods, and programs. This common »pool of tools« points to the beginning of a new renaissance, similarly realized by the Italian Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci discussed in his »Trattato della Pittura« (around 1500): "Se la pittura è scienza o no" and came to the conclusion: painting is a science.
The Dawn of a New Renaissance
The exhibition presents contemporary approaches of artists who, on the one hand, continue the lines of research of the preceding renaissances and, on the other, open up new fields of research. It also features convincing parallel research or elective affinities between science and art. The focus is on a new culture of tools. On the basis of 35 media art positions, it provides insights into artistic laboratory situations and artistic-scientific collaborations that open up a shared multidisciplinary "Wissensfeld" (base of knowledge) for the 21st century — from biochemistry to genetic engineering and information design to neuroscience and unconventional computing.
With an extensive physical and digital outreach program, »Renaissance 3.0« offers spaces to discuss current technologies and findings and explore fields of knowledge within the alliance of media art and science.
ARS ELECTRONICA, Linz, Germany
"The Next Renaissance" symposium
The Next Renaissance is a flagship initiative of the newly founded EIT Culture & Creativity. Our aim for the Next Renaissance platform is to promote the need to dramatically reassess our ethics, values and priorities in addressing the major problems of our times.
The Next Renaissance platform aims to develop a global transdisciplinary movement that encourages scientific, technological, cultural and artistic convergence towards a paradigm shift in the ways we think, plan and act. Advocating for creative and cultural sectors to lead the imagination and implementation of solutions to pressing global challenges, the platform seeks to build communities at the nexus of culture and creativity that will support the need for a “great rethinking” of the ethics, values and priorities of our time.
Through mapping ongoing “next renaissance” efforts, promoting interdisciplinary education programs and hosting exhibitions, the platform’s goal is to engage a wide range of audiences with the possibilities and pitfalls presented by “The Next Renaissance,” In 2024, the platform will launch an action plan towards a more sustainable, enriched future transformed by creativity and collaboration, and cultural rebirth and renewal.
"The Next Renaissance" symposium at Ars Electronica
September 8, 2023: