A Philosophical Observatory of the Digital

Even if we would watch obsessively the web, it would be ingenuous to believe that such a digital Observatory could run behind all fast changes which are announced daily, all important international conventions, all new social uses and commercial successes, all democratic challenges, all digital arts festivals or exhibitions. Such an encyclopaedic task would just sound utopia, and would request human and financial resources which would also be utopia. Even worse, we would take the risk to get lost in such an accumulation of details and blind to the most significant trends.

We have made a better choice: a philosophical watch of the main evolutions of the digital era, industries and cultures, which computing experts and technology managers are not in an easy position to analyse with a critical distance, being inevitably fascinated by the sole technological logics. Even Polytechnics High School in Montreal, which counts plenty of programmers and engineers, has paradoxically recruited two philosophers likely to identify and analyse digital imaginaries, new social uses and emergent trends. This global approach, which takes in account sociological, psychological, ideological and cultural parameters, may sound most difficult in a fast changing environment, but it is therefore what we most lack.

Meteorology is not limited to take notice daily and locally of rains or winds. Its main aim is to understand the large tendencies and forecast the changes to come in a larger term. But meteorology limits itself to factual understanding, whereas philosophy of the digital doesn’t limit itself to technologies. It takes also in account another parameter, far more complex: human behaviours and values in interaction with technological evolutions.

Hervé Fischer

Context

New media is continually evolving on the local scene as well at the international level. Updating the knowledge of its evolution and innovations, which constantly emerge and in all its fields of activity, has now become a need impossible to circumvent for all those who do research and creation in this field, from the point of view of both the arts and cultural industries as well as of the aesthetic, sociological, and technological stakes. These stakes are connected not only to the arts and the digital communication technologies, but also with the problematic of art and science. In the field of digital new media, Montreal currently enjoys a recognized international positioning, particularly in digital cinema and video games, but it must be consolidated and widened.

This International Digital Observatory will consolidate individually existing international collaboration initiatives that are dispersed, but which will gain by being joined together. Moreover it will develop collaborations between Canadian researchers with equivalent centers throughout the world, thus creating a showcase for our researches and creations.

Our Objectives

By creating this Observatory it thus acts to:
Consolidate the efforts and the already existing activities in our community (CIAM’s Media Watch, the GRAM’s Dictionary of New Media Arts, Media Watch related to Hexagram’s research axes, the needs for the SAT, the Center for Research and Documentation of the Fondation Daniel Langlois, etc.).

Reinforce the synergy of Montreal actors so they can work more together in an environment that is actually dispersed and segmented.

Put Montreal on the map of the international network, which passes through Köln, Karlsruhe, Linz, London, Helsinki, New York, California, Nagasaki, Tokyo, etc., which include internationally recognized institutions like Leonardo, Ars Electronica, ZKM, IAMS, etc., but must also collaborate with institutions from Latin America, China, Australia.

Contribute attracting notable talents to Montreal.

Ensure a broad and extensive diffusion of the trends, researches, know-how, and products from an artistic, industrial, and cultural point of view (specialized seminars, conferences, colloquiums, round table discussions) at a provincial, national and international level.