Media lab is a term used for interdisciplinary organizations, collectives or spaces with the main focus on new media

New media

New media is a broad term in media studies that emerged in the latter part of the 20th century. For example, new media holds out a possibility of on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community...

, digital culture and technology

Technology

Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...

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Discussion of the definition

The definition of media lab is widely discussed and is open for debate. The term can describe a space, a cultural organization as well as a community or a way of working in which collaboration and experimentation plays a crucial role. Media labs usually:

• gather participants of multiple disciplines and of diverse professional backgrounds
• stimulate open knowledge exchange and sharing
• draw inspiration from, and try to work in the spirit of free culture
  Free Culture movement
  The free culture movement is a social movement that promotes the freedom to distribute and modify creative works in the form of free content by using the Internet and other forms of media....
  
  
• often use open source softwares
• offer the possibility of non-formal learning practices

History

The name "media lab" was coined in 1985 with the creation of the MIT Media Lab

MIT Media Lab

The MIT Media Lab is a laboratory of MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Devoted to research projects at the convergence of design, multimedia and technology, the Media Lab has been widely popularized since the 1990s by business and technology publications such as Wired and Red Herring for a...

 by Nicholas Negroponte

Nicholas Negroponte

Nicholas Negroponte is an American architect best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also known as the founder of the One Laptop per Child Association ....

 grew out of the Architecture Machine Group - a research group dedicated to studying man-machine interfaces - within MIT's School of Architecture and Planning

MIT School of Architecture and Planning

The MIT School of Architecture and Planning is one of the five schools of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA...

.

Activities

In media labs diverse activities take place: artistic research and development

Research and development

The phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...

, creative production, knowledge sharing and exchange, education program, workshops, tinkering, experimentation, cultural mediation.

Organization forms

Media labs can be most easily categorized by the way they are organized which often relates to the way they are funded:

• University labs
• Public funded
• Private funding
• Grassroot initiatives

Typology

Media lab

• Fab lab
  Fab lab
  A fab lab is a small-scale workshop offering digital fabrication.A fab lab is generally equipped with an array of flexible computer controlled tools that cover several different length scales and various materials, with the aim to make "almost anything"...
  
  
• Hackerspace
  Hackerspace
  A hackerspace or hackspace is a location where people with common interests, often in computers, technology, science, or digital or electronic art can meet, socialise and/or collaborate...
  
  
• Pop-up lab (temporary space or project space)
• Art initiative with media art focus

Motivation

A lot of people are motivated to use technological tools for social and political goals.

Social effect

Media labs play a role in society to understand the new ways of education, culture, communication and even political participation.

Working in a media lab context can be considered as informal ways of learning.

Related terms

working attitudes: artistic research - creative technologies - DIWO - DIY - DIY culture - experimentation - interdisciplinary

fields of activities: digital art

Digital art

Digital art is a general term for a range of artistic works and practices that use digital technology as an essential part of the creative and/or presentation process...

 - digital culture - human–computer interaction

Human–computer interaction

Human–computer Interaction is the study, planning, and design of the interaction between people and computers. It is often regarded as the intersection of computer science, behavioral sciences, design and several other fields of study...

 - interaction

Interaction

Interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect upon one another. The idea of a two-way effect is essential in the concept of interaction, as opposed to a one-way causal effect...

 - internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 - media art - new media art

New media art

New media art is a genre that encompasses artworks created with new media technologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art, computer robotics, and art as biotechnology...

tools, concepts: Creative Commons

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...

 - F/LOSS - FLOSS Manuals

Floss manuals

The FLOSS Manuals is a non-profit foundation founded in 2006 and based in the Netherlands. The foundation is focused on the creation of quality documentation about how to use free software....

 - free culture

Free Culture movement

The free culture movement is a social movement that promotes the freedom to distribute and modify creative works in the form of free content by using the Internet and other forms of media....

 - open content

Open content

Open content or OpenContent is a neologism coined by David Wiley in 1998 which describes a creative work that others can copy or modify. The term evokes open source, which is a related concept in software....

 - open hardware - open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 - public domain

Public domain

Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...

External links

• A discussion on the notion of media lab http://www.labtolab.org/~labtolab/wiki/index.php/Media_lab
• LABtoLAB, a network of European media labs
• "Media lab role in digital culture: new collaborative creation interdisciplinary spaces in the ASTS systems (Art, Science, Technology and Society)" Reference code: [HAR2009-14667/ARTE]. (2010–2012, to be published online in August 2011)