Interactive Matter Meeting

iMatter LogoThis weekend I participated in an Interactive Matter (iMatter) meeting at Montreal. The meeting was to figure out next steps on the project after our SSHRC proposal was unsuccessful.

Lynn Hughes and Jane Tingley of Concordia organized meetings at and tours of some of new media organizations in Montreal including:

  • Hexagram where we saw the textile labs, robot palace, machine shops, rapid prototyping lab, computer-controlled looms and so on. Very impressive facilities and research projects.
  • OBORO, a new media artists centre with great video and sound facilities.
  • Fondation Daniel Langlois where we got a tour of the Centre for Research and Documentation (CR+D) which collects materials (including grey matter) about new media art. I was dissappointed to learn that, on the issue of new media preservation, they haven’t really advanced past the The Variable Media Network discussion published in Permanence Through Change in 2003. They are just storing digital things in a cold dark room for the moment and concentrating on documentation.

One thing that is clear is the critical mass of artists, independent game developers, historians, philosophers, and organizations in Montreal. Montreal even have a Cit?© Mltim?©dia where the city is revitalizing an old industrial quarter to be a multimedia incubator. This public investment in multimedia arts, technology, and organizations stands in contrast to the lack of interest in cultural industries elsewhere.