Children of Europa
How young people are changing Europe
New Europe is not a place, it’s a young person. Committees, constitutions and commissions may hold Europe together as a political project, but it is people that hold it together as a cultural entity. This project will look at the aspirations of geographical Europe’s youngest generation, focusing particular on the way they make and exchange new-media with one another.
- hello mr primeminister my name's adam and i'm 14 There are so many ways to be cynical about ask the pm on youtube, but I think it rules. This is a video of Adam talking to the Prime Minister about how he wants to vote, which is sort of illogical if you think about it. This type of thing, and alot of the other semi-political content on youtube definitely isn't representative democracy... and er, it doesn't quite fit into participatory democracy either. Expressive Democracy? Any takers? This is the conundrum that the Children of Europa project... continue reading on 18th June 2008
- Video is not killing the video star We're in the midst of accumulating and reflecting on the material we have drawn from the various video workshops for this project. And naturally we're starting to revisit some of the questions we started with around the production and consumption of video. What is its value? What does it give to the people producing the content, or those watching or sharing it? Something that is hovering in front of us is the issue of intellectual property and copyright. continue reading on 27th May 2008
- Berlin. 24-25/03/08. On 24th and 25th March I spent two days at the marvellous Schlesische 27, a youth arts organisation in Kreuzberg, to the south east of Berlin. It's nestled in a set of buildings off Schlesische street, in an area with growing numbers of artists and an established Turkish population. There were six young filmmakers in the workshop, all aged between 17 and 22. Thanks, first off, to the facilitators and filmmakers for being so welcoming. I was only there two days so unfortunately I haven’t... continue reading on 8th April 2008
- Anthropology of ourselves Having just been reminded of the 'mass observation' project, founded back in 1937, I was struck by how the same impulses drive us to collect and document everyday life now. The difference now is simply in the tools we use. The Mass Observation website describes how the original project worked, and it sounds like a weighty undertaking: 'In Bolton, a team of paid investigators went into a variety of public situations: meetings, religious occasions, sporting and leisure activities, in the... continue reading on 31st March 2008
- Thorny Questions While we've been researching this project we've tried to keep some sceptical questions at the forefront of our minds. Charlie Tims has collected them together and then I asked Tommi Laitio from the ECF and the organiser of the Stranger Festival to give us his responses. Please feel free to post your own answers to any of these questions which might grab your attention.1. Young people making and exchanging videos isn't happening in large enough numbers for it to be considered significantly... continue reading on 19th March 2008
- Living in the Expressive Democracy Young people have more ways to express themselves than at any point in history. Cheap digital technology combined with internet cafes and free social software have put the power of the publishing house, the TV station and the record label at the finger tips of young people across Europe. continue reading on 10th March 2008 Comments (1)
- Helsinki workshop video When Celia and I were in Helsinki we made a video of some of our initial thoughts on the process and research, and of our conversations with to two of the young filmmakers and one of the facilitators. Here's the short piece of film from our trip. continue reading on 29th February 2008
- Helsinki, 18-22 February 2008 Celia and I have just got back from a fantastic week in Helsinki, where we were visiting week-long video workshops at the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art. It was the first of our research trips to Stranger Festival workshops, designed to help young people across Europe make videos about themselves and their impressions of the world around them. continue reading on 23rd February 2008 Comments (2)
- Strangers The website for the Stranger Festival - a celebration of videos made by young people across Europe - is now online. It's well worth a look, not least for the videos themselves. The videos are mainly the product of workshops run throughout Europe by artists, co-ordinated by the European Cultural Foundation. We'll be blogging lots next week from Helsinki, where Celia and I will be visiting the workshops and seeing what the ideas and videos look like there. continue reading on 15th February 2008
- Their Space Podcast It's the seventh Demos podcast, and the first of 2007. It sees Hannah and Celia talking about the report Their Space: Education for a Digital Generation. The project, funded by the National College for School Leadership, explores the skills that young people are learning through their use of new technologies and makes suggestions for how schools and policy makers should respond.You can listen in by downloading the mp3 file here, or by subscribing to the podcast feed here. Or, the audio should... continue reading on 4th January 2007