by Carol-Ann Braun & www.concert-urbain.org,with special thanks to all our indispensable partners.

A long story, made short, about how art led to teaching led to research led to prototyping led to software innovations led to research led to social work led to art.

Research and innovation : university affiliations. A social context : the needs of a city, of a neighborhood. Innovative pedagogy : learning to communicate with digital means. Public and private subsidies : new uses for new technologies.

1. Research and innovation

Knowing who looks at what, with whom. How does the collective gaze influence the shape content can take? The inter-medial gesture. Dialog as search engine.

Open and collective art on Internet.Applied research on Interface Design initiated by Dr Annie Gents, Telecom Paris-Tech (1999).

Our first project involved students from :

LEcole Multimdia, Paris, France. (continuing education design students) LEcole Nationale Suprieure des Tlcommunications (top-tier engineering school now known as Paris-Tech)

Also involved: a private company called Timsoft, Levallois, that provided the chat software. Funding came from La Fondation Louis Leprince Ringuet.

Open and collective art on Internet.

Months of sketches

and sketches

and sketches

and sketches

followed by manymeetings

led to a plan of action. Students thentook over the process andcreated.

2000 : City Paradigms http://www.cityparadigms.timsoft.com

Step 1 : Identify yourself with a tailor-made calling card.

2000 : City Paradigms http://www.cityparadigms.timsoft.com Step 2 :Join the virtual city by tuning in to your favorite sound track (unfolds like an accordion).

Step 3 :Spot who else is on the site(their names float above the sound track).

Wread a topic together

2000 : City Paradigms http://www.cityparadigms.timsoft.com Step 4 : and join them in a chat that provides hyper-links to subjects being talked about.

2000 : City Paradigms http://www.cityparadigms.timsoft.com The project wasfeatured atISEA 2000, Paris.

2000 : City Paradigms http://www.cityparadigms.timsoft.com and won a Young Talent award at theMILIA, Cannes, 2001.

(we all had a great time there!)

A special thought forManu Lechat.

2. A social context.

A real city, with citizens: the structure of exchange. Testimonial as narrative: memory, shared imaginary worlds, daily life. A fictional story-line: necessary or superfluous? A web-site : a way to extend social work and training programs in the field.

What about real people?

Imagining ways toinvolve the public at large

...with simple, solid, technology...(thank-you Timsoft!)

that transforms dialog into a multi-media search engine.

2001 : La Preuve par TroyesA city : Troyes, in champagne country, but also suffering from severe unemployment due to the gradual decline and then collapse of the textile industry. A new government program : Espaces Culture Multimdia, spearheaded by Jean-Christophe Thobalte of the Ministry of Culture. A new Regional library and archive, run by Thierry Delcourt (BMVR, Troyes), eager to federate his community around innovative projects. Funding by la Rgion Champagne-Ardennes, the City of Troyes and the Art Center (residency Carol-Ann Braun) Software designed by Antoine Sartoretti, Timsoft.

2001 : La Preuve par Troyeshttp://www.ecm-troyes.timsoft.com

Industrial partnershipAn easy to use back-officeTo set up augmented chat-spacesAnd centralize art-work created by different communities

Timsoft, Levallois.

3. Innovative pedagogy

2001-3 Sandscript get engineering students to think in greater depth about how people use technology. round-out a very technical curriculum with an artistic project that involves creating images, writing stories and dialog, composing musical sequences. apply research conducted in the department.

Created in the framework of CANTIC, an applied art and research programme, initiated by Dr Annie Gents, Telecom Paris-Tech.

www.sandscript.timsoft.com (IE 5, PC, activate popups, no firewalls !)

Creating avatars with sounds, so as to create a truly collective presence.

Experimenting with dialogic forms (Morse Code, CB radio, smileys) Weaving full-blown images into the chat space.

Creating dialogs among bots mixed in with real-time chat. Using dialog as a search engine. Researching the link between intermedial forms of the 1960s (Fluxus) and emerging Internet practices. (Sandscript was shown at the 40th anniversary of the Fluxus group, celebrated in Paris.)

2001-2 Sandscript

4. Public and private subsidies.

Worked with local partners (Equipe de Dveloppement Locale, Espace Public Numrique, Centre Social 13 Pour Tous, Antenne Jeunes) to launch a neighborhood project called Tour--Tour Subsidized by the City of Paris and the Rgion Ile de France. Enlisted a new group of engineering students to develop open-source augmented chat back-office. New industrial partner : Dragonfly.com, for video management.

We Created our own non-profit citizens association: www.concert-urbain.org.

2004 - 08 : http://www.tour-a-tour.org

2004 - 08 : http://www.tour-a-tour.org

Plunging students in social issues Around intensive team-based projects.

Six ESIEA students worked on Tour-A-Tour. They got involved in issues concerning the neighborhood and created an open-source back office for augmented chat spaces called

Applied research initiated by Dr Claire Leroux, Director of ARNUM, Ecole Suprieure dInformatique, Electronique et Automatique, Ivry-sur- Seine. (back to) An Educational Context

2006 : www.chatanoo.org The back office and associated site were immediately put to use in an experimental urban game conducted in Paris Chinatown by the group Polimorph .

2006 : Tabula RosaAssociation PolimorphPetra Marguc et Laurence Hartenstein

For 2007-2009

Another project mixinguniversity research, social concerns, art, technological innovations, a pedagogical context and both public and private funding :

2007-9 : M.E.R.C.I.Mutualisation dune expression riche, citoyenne, innovante.

With university students in training at the CFACom/Paris13, And young citizens of the City of Bagnolet, In workshops organized by La Mdiathque de Bagnolet, With funding from La Rgion Ile de France.

wish us all luck.