Humlab looks like a remarkable space. Its inspiring to know that there are places in the world that foster such an open collaborative framework for the emergence of casual and therefore spontaneous interactions between people and disciplines.
Having been involved in the dotcom boom as what some people have (erroneously in my case) called a ‘digital sweatshop worker’ I came to university expecting the sort of environment that perhaps moved further toward the ideal of a collaborative environment and moved further beyond the limited horizons of an immediately determined outcome and shortsighted economic rationalisms. The truth of the matter is that the environment in which I won my digital stripes was far more open to debate, innovation, new ideas, and more open and conducive to collaboration (with coworkers) than the university I have now spent such a long time attending and (I hope) serving.
I have often wondered about the difference between these two spaces – a creative ‘sweatshop’ flush with money, exuberant (and naive) youthfulness, and an honest belief that nearly anything was possible in this brave new digital world, compared with the university which struggled under a very different conception of economic rationalism that was almost always based on reduction rather than ‘excitation’ and the production of ‘excess’. Its a little too easy to say that this was just a matter of money. Perhaps a more detailed comparison account is warranted elsewhere but for now I just wanted to say that the descriptions of HUMlab reminded me more of the exuberant space of a dotcom optimism that was at least partially well placed if not well ‘measured’. It looks to me that HUMlab looks very well measured – a creative, open space, for an active and ongoing discussion of digital media that transcends disciplinary distinctions while allowing their productive differences and disjunctions to play out creatively.
HUMlab is (importantly) an actual space set aside and equipped for experimentation and collaboration using digital media. It includes digital media workstations and multiple computer based and networked projection systems. It is open to all members of the university of Umea in which it is based and is designed as a comfortable and creative – and I dare say most importantly ‘social’ environment. The design of the space along with the open access make this a social space built to generate a dialogue around media forms and projects – there are games platforms, surround projection and sound facilties, 3D and VR facilities and the space has a large format touch screen and a ‘locative’ sensor that can identify the position and movement of bodies within the space. The board of Humlab includes digital luminaries such as Katherine Hayles and has played host to seminars led by the likes of same, in addition to Howard Rheingold and a variety of other veterans and newcomers to the digital humanities (all of which are available as video for download here). While HUMlab is based in the humanities its user base is populated by half humanities specialists with the rest of its ‘users’ coming from across the universities University faculties with 65 schools represented.
There is little research or formally defined projects detailed on the website. It seems as if this space is rather removed from the stipulation of research or creative outcomes -perhaps because it is foremost a student space and a space from which it is acknowledged ideas might be born rather than necessarily formalized.
The Lab will accommodate 5 postdoctoral researchers starting 2007 on one or two year visits and the lab will double in size (hard to tell what size the current space is). There are three PhD candidates, 1 Artist, and 1 network/services working at the lab as well as those bought in to run workshops and seminars. The lab play host to a wide variety of speakers working in an interdisciplinary mode on matters relating to digital media and society more generally.
Patrick Svensson is the Director of HUMlab. His personal website can be found here. And he blogs here as well as at the HUMlab blog.