Timelab at The Future of the Lab expertmeeting in Eindhoven

In December 2009 Baltan Laboratories organized a three day expertmeeting in Eindhoven about the future of the lab. Timelab was honored to be invited as we didn’t officially excist yet. Baltan Laboratories is quite young/new itself.The organisation was started by the artists Lucas Van der Velden en Gideon Kiers (Telcosystems), Geert Mul en Marc Maurer (Maurer International Architects) backed by coordinator Angela Plohman. Baltan Lab wants to ‘initiate, support and disseminate innovative research and development activities in the field of art, technology and culture’.

The three days were structured around keynotes and case studies with a lot of space for small group discussions. We were asked as a new lab in the making to present a casestudy about Timelab and formulate some statements to kick off the discussions. After a brief presentation of the history and founders of Timelab, these are the statements I launched in response to the question “New conditions. What new challenges do future labs need to respond to?”

A lab in a city

A lab has to be connected to the city it is in, it is not (only) an isolated space for connecting to peers internationally or the work with experts but also a space rooting in a city, a society, you have to connect to local issues. International networking is evident – rooting in the city just as important. The idea is to go preaching for the unconverted, to go looking for new mini-audiences.

A lab is not a minifort

Gravensteen Gent

Breaking down niches of interestspheres. Labs should be about breaking down walls not about making a minifort to work from. Finding new/different/other entrance points for ideas/inspiration/innovation – different types of ‘audience’ (also aim to reach politicians/city employees/(art)schools/different targetgroups in society)

Future labs don’t have to be (very) technical, lab-inhabitants have to be omni-interested

Agnes Meyer-Brandis

We need the new lab to be open in a broad sense, of course we need to connect to specialists and experts all of the time but the core team needs to have a permanent open gaze.

Open and connected is the spirit

Catherine Yass, Arcangel

Being open and connected not only in the internetsense that is so common these days. Open and connected also means democratic, working as a team, respecting others, looking for connection on different levels with different groups of people

The only way is the green way

Folke Köbberling & Martin Kaltwasser 'Crushed Cayenne'

Ecological concerns are intrinsically connected to any new lab.

The whole meeting was very well organised and the company was good! What became clear is that in the search of linking labs, an ecology of different sorts/forms of labs is important to cherish. And a beginning was made in looking for a tool to map the different expertises in different labs with the eye on possible exchange. Angela Plohman is making a full report that will be online soon.

More on the participants: http://www.baltanlaboratories.org/?p=1420
More on the whole program at http://www.baltanlaboratories.org/?p=1393.