We have successfully completed the first official event of our project. The perspective on this afternoon filled with science, creativity, and sandwiches has been penned by the project's lead herself - Hana Křížová.
So here it is. We had the opening "kick-off"
meeting for our Interbridge project. The Interbridge project was evaluated by the monitoring committee as a promising and we got among the projects financially supported by the European Interreg program, namely the
Interreg Czech-Saxony program.
The full name of our project is Interbridge - Interdisciplinary Bridge. The name suggests that we will connect something. In the next three years we will combine science and art. And if not connect, at least to approach each other. And if not science and art, at least science and creativity. And to make matters worse, we will do it cross -border: to connect science and art (or creativity) between the Czech Republic and Saxony. We already know it won't be easy. Mainly because most of us are scientists, not artists. With a few exceptions, we have in the team Honza and Lukáš from the Faculty of Architecture, who are used by technology in art experience. This was presented in their presentation at our opening Czech-German meeting, which took place on 5 February in the Institute for Nanomaterials, New Technologies and Innovations at the Technical University of Liberec.
Our German partners at the Technical University of Chemnitz, Daisy and Johannes have brought a large number of samples of composite materials they develop. Certainly they can
be used to create some art, but we have to offer them to the right creatives. For this purpose, we also plan to create a catalog of materials and technologies for artistic creation. And we are planning a lot.
Our industrial partners, Preciosa and Entry Engineering have shown in their presentations
what these companies are doing and what they can contribute in our project. As for Preciosa, in glass and jewelery it is easy to find a combination of science and art. However after a few scientific projects with Entry Engineering, I believe that this company has a lot to offer. For the beginning they will start with technical support and when it come 3D printing, you will hear about them.
When preparing the presentation, I found out that all participants of the meeting would have to look at one-two boring slides, so I with the help of AI a little revived pictures that symbolized the main idea of the project: joining science and art, joining science and creativity. The meerkat on the catwalk pointed to the fashion show, the giraffe on the Victoria of the Royal in front of the waterfalls referred to the upcoming lecture on bionics, the cat in the gallery accompanied information about traveling exhibitions, which we work with and which could be used for artistic creation.
Our project is formally divided into several thematic stages. We start with the stage of optics, which hides electron and optical microscopy, photographs, structures and shapes. Then it comes 3D printing, glass, ceramics, engineering. In fact, however, the topics will overlap. Every year there are two webinars, at least two workshops and one traveling exhibition. How many workshops will be in the end is not certain yet, but at least 5 and the first one will focus on artistic images of electron and optical microscopy. Each workshop will be accompanied by several lectures. We will start in style - the first lecture on scientific photography and micrography should take place on March 19 in the afternoon. Mr. Viktor Sýkora from the 1st Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague, will be lecturing. Mr. Sýkora has already collected a nice line of awards for his photographs in the Czech Republic and abroad and his photographs also printed in the magazines National Geographic or Science. Who knows his books The Secrets of Plants (Academia 2009) and the invisible human world (Academia 2015) knows that it will be an interesting lecture and that it will definitely be something to look at.
Regarding to all our planned events and outputs-webinars, lectures, workshops, exhibitions,
the opportunity to be artistically realized using materials and technologies in our laboratories (we call it "artistic residents") and at the end of the project and a set of e-learning courses, so We want to offer all of this to the public for free. We have the only condition: Please sign in to our events through this website, where you will be able to generate a ticket with a QR code after easy registration. We will not want much from you, just a name, surname, e-mail and eventually belonging to some organization, business, school, etc. You probably suspect that in reality nothing is never so completely free, right? At all our events we will take photos that we will publish on the web and social media, and we also have to document your participation through the signature list. In addition, we need to have your consent. But you know, GDPR… and you will click through the event. We understand that not everyone is friends with your computer, so when someone comes without login, we will certainly not send it away, do not worry. Only this consent will have to give us on the spot.
Who wouldn't like cheerful stories from filming, right? During the meeting we had a nice prescription flag - EU, Czech Republic and Saxony on the table. Nothing unusual for projects supported from EU money. But imagine that no one repeats no one all the time that the Czech flag is upside down! And of course the flags are seen on the good third of the photos we took in the meeting. The fact that none of the others noticed was the result of the fact that everyone was completely focused on the presentation. Or were they looking at the great sandwiches waiting for them in Coffee Break? Anyway, do not look for this anomalies in our published photos, we did such a digital magic in the photos.
During the meeting we also chose the logo of our project. Our Art Director Margaret has created about twenty different Interbridge logo designs. In the secret election, the logo, which can be found on our website and events next to the official Interreg logo was choosen. It symbolizes the combination of art and science, which represents a combination of painting palette and laboratory glass flasks with short throat with the background.
After the presentations we went on a tour of the laboratories - laboratory of plasma treatment, laboratory of nanofiber production, hydrodynamics laboratory, 3D printing laboratory, thin layer measurement laboratory. We discussed and planned a lot. It was a nice afternoon and in the next three years you will hear about us. Almost all of planned events are intended for the public. If you like science and you are creative, you can participate in our project. You will be welcome!
Hana Křížová, project manager of Interbridge
Comments