The imperative of the digital transition\u2026<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\u2018The latest data from the Ministry of Culture in France indicate that 15% of the French population have cultural practices which are exclusively digital\u2019 (Editor\u2019s note: Cultural practices inquiry, DEPS, 2018<\/a>), by way of introduction states Anne Le Gall, the general delegate of TMNlab <\/a>\/ Theatres and Digital Mediation Laboratory. \u2018This involves the consumption of online content but also of creative practices, of networked games. That means that when you lead a mission to diversify the audiences of a cultural project, you have to ask yourself a key question: how to reach out to these audiences, whose numbers will only rise in the coming years.\u2019 A reminder which avoids slipping into a knee-jerk condemnation of technologies. While today the discoverability of cultural content is linked to algorithmic mechanisms and filter bubbles, professionals need to be aware of the digital issues and the real impact of the tools to make the best-informed choices possible. \u2018It\u2019s a question of positioning yourself alongside the uses, both of the artists and of the audiences \u2013 also as a means of evaluating the diversity of uses, the creativity, the forms of digital cultures,\u2019 adds Anne Le Gall. An assessment shared by Kyu Choi, the artistic director of the Seoul Performing Arts Festival<\/a> (SPAF). \u2018The pandemic marked a major turning-point in the use of technologies and transformed them extensively. The digital transition has impacted our daily lives, in such a way that contemporary audiences and artists have not been able to stand firm against it.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n For all that, Sasapin Siriwanij, the artistic director of the Bangkok International Performing Arts Meeting <\/a>(BIPAM), rejects any zealotry. \u2018The first question which must be asked, is the context and the usefulness of the digital. Does a creation necessarily need digital technologies? If the digital does not provide particular insight, it becomes incidental.\u2019 Incidental is putting it mildly in a world in which are tallied around 3.5 billion smartphones, 1.1 billion DSL (or fibre) boxes or 10 million 2G to 5G cell towers (source Green It<\/a>). Worse still, around 3.8% of the greenhouse gases (GHG) worldwide are directly attributable to the digital domain, whilst estimates for 2040 put this figure at around 10%. A percentage which it is impossible to genuinely assess, at a time when the digital \u2013 with GenAI at the forefront \u2013 is undergoing exponential growth. An enlightened green transition is becoming even more complex for the actors in the culture domain when the subject is analysed beyond GHG indicators. \u2018We talk a lot about GHG, but there are other impacts to be assessed. The consumption of water and electricity, both for manufacturing and to support the uses, the extraction of rare earths, the impact on biodiversity \u2026 The social aspect as well, the impact on work \u2013 from the GIG economy<\/a> to click workers<\/a> \u2013\u00a0 and the digital divides,\u2019 adds Anne Le Gall. A comment which directly echoes the 9 planetary limits<\/a> definitively widening the debate. J\u00e9r\u00f4me Villeneuve, Director of the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre Hexagone Sc\u00e8ne Nationale<\/a> in Meylan, sums up the dilemma facing cultural bodies and artists. \u2018Whether it is the GHG with the pathways dictated by the Paris Agreement or the depletion of abiotic resources, the scenarios are not sustainable. For us, cultural actors, there are no obvious solutions.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n That has not prevented festivals from experimenting with new practices. Regarding the BIPAM, \u2018we have developed a project called the Climate Dramaturgy Lab<\/a>. It is a pioneering initiative aiming to swap ideas within the Thailand and British theatre community,\u2019 explains Sasapin Siriwanij. In concrete terms, over a five-day period, the workshop brings together a group of theatre professionals, including scriptwriters, costume designers, performers, directors, producers, university lecturers and other theatre enthusiasts on the subject of environmental themes. A prime example of the need to work the question of the green and digital transitions at sector level and during each stage of a creation. As far as the SPAF is concerned, the team is working on the Next Mobility<\/a> project, a programme around art-project related travel, considered to be one of the key items in a work\u2019s carbon inventory (cf. Case Study for Responsible Immersiveness<\/a>). \u2018Next Mobility explores what the exchange and mobility of the performing arts would look like in the pandemic\/post-pandemic era. It focuses on certain trends such as digitization, hybrid exchange and green mobility which have influenced the creation and distribution of performances,\u2019 explains Kyu Choi, before adding: \u2018What do we want to tell people through international mobility? What needs mobility and why?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n A question far from being rhetorical, given the extent to which mobility meets different objectives and contexts. \u2018Europe and Asia have different contexts. For example, in Asia, the railway transport offer is practically non-existent, and mobility is occasionally one of the sole levers to make culture happen. Mobility matches up with objectives of openness, even democracy, for actors who are isolated on the national and international scene,\u2019 Sasapin Siriwanij quite rightly reminds us. Here again, cross-border cooperation and a roadmap on an international scale appear to be issues requiring priority attention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A need all the more obvious in that the green and digital transitions do not solely involve renewed professional practices, but also the perspectives on society offered by the artists or by the sensitive experiences which we, the citizens, make through their works. \u2018Many digital artists are critical as regards the uses made of digital tools. We are a long way from the ideologies of the mainstream platforms \u2026 The artists raise questions about environmental impact, inclusion, law, sovereignty, identity. The digital is often tool, object and subject. It is vital to have these reflections to consider other futures,\u2019 comments Anne Le Gall. The work of the artists also invites a questioning of the Anthropocene and our relationship with the living world. The notion of the ecosophy, a theory in which human beings are not at the top of the hierarchy of living beings is genuinely explored through numerous artistic creations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The assessment for J\u00e9r\u00f4me Villeneuve includes a slight nuance: \u2018if culture has a transformational power, it must not avoid a deep-seated green transition. And from this perspective the digital is not the sole vector to think through the world afterwards. It\u2018s obvious but too often forgotten.\u2019 At the Hexagone Theatre, culture therefore encounters various science domains \u2013 the environment, sociology \u2013 precisely to sidestep a digital realm evoked too often. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, what room for manoeuvre is there for culture professionals struggling to find a right balance between green and digital transition? First of all, define your position on an individual level: \u2018you have to find your own alignment, do your own arbitration, by oneself or within workplace collectives,\u2019 summarises Anne Le Gall. Then, in order to avoid being paralysed by all these paradoxical dictates, the collective momentum, at activity sector level, would appear to be an appropriate solution. Here there are a good number of levers: first of all, maintaining discussion forums, interactions between networks and professionals, just like the mission taken on board by the Impact Forum. Next, get yourself heard by political decision makers to have the existing frames of reference reassessed. This also applies to eco-conditionality as well as impact indicators intrinsic to culture. \u2018The markers of artistic projects, the specifications, lean on rationales of profitability, increase, growth. The references need to be reevaluated. At sector level there is also the question of a regime change which may potentially be raised,\u2019 analyses J\u00e9r\u00f4me Villeneuve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The structuring of digital equipment sectors is also a major focal point: in other words, extending products\u2019 lifespans, encouraging reuse, including the pooling of equipment, organising recycling channels (a reduce\/reuse\/recycle approach already being implemented in the area of the social economy and solidarity). Finally, the issue of training is obviously a leading collective issue. The TMNlab has, as it happens, published, in consortium with HACNUM <\/a>(the national network for hybrid arts and digital cultures), a diagnosis <\/a>\u00a0on this question. \u2018The future Skills & Professions diagnosis enables us to understand the digital transformations in culture. It is that which allows us to identify the issues of the way professions are evolving. The aim is to define the key training focal points and to distinguish transformation practices to provide support for artistic creation in the digital era in an age of transitions, in particular amongst learning communities,\u2019 clarifies Anne Le Gall. Obviously, these actions as a whole will not solve the environmental crisis. But they will at least cast a little light where many professionals are still \u2018lost in transition\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n * On the occasion of IMPACT, the French Embassy in Belgium arranged the travel for a delegation consisting of some twenty or so performing arts professionals who are members of French networks (TRAS<\/a>, HACNUM<\/a>, TMNlab<\/a>) and also oversaw this round table.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This article is a republication. The original was published on\u00a0HACNUMedia\u00a0(the media that explores the connections between technology and creativity), a partner of kingkong. The imperative of the digital transition\u2026 \u2018The latest data from the Ministry of Culture in France indicate that 15% of the French population have cultural practices which are exclusively digital\u2019 (Editor\u2019s note: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":18695,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_type_article":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[],"type_article":[56],"class_list":["post-18701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-en","type_article-article-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u2026 and that of the green transition<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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