Cyber Pills for Mental Health

Interdisciplinary project "Cyber Pills for Mental Health"aimed at researching, discussing and experimenting with digital technologies to understand the boundaries between influence and penetration of cyber technologies in everyday lives was held. The project included hackathon, lectures, presentations, discussions and workshops for children was held. The project included a hackathon, lectures, presentations, discussions, and a workshop for children.

The objective of the project was to test and develop successful models for informal interdisciplinary education. The deployment process of the project, its conditions and results, with comments, galleries, video interviews with participants, and schemes were put online, together with partner projects in Žilina and Mykolayiv, with the possibility of free downloading and use. In late September 2015 results were presented in Budapest at the final conference and discussion.

One of the main focuses of the project were the development of communities, trainings, promotion of free and joint creation. We are focused both on the development of local communities and on teaching children creative work with digital technology. For the development, implementation, and formation of a few such models we invite artists, engineers, programmers, curators from the United Kingdom, Poland, Slovakia, Austria and Russia.

The hardware hackathon participants were given the task of converting a hand mechanical printed on a 3D printer to an electric and controlled one. The teams were given kits, which included: parts printed on a 3D printer, digital equipment on the basis of the platform Arduino, sets of sensors, servo motors and more with detailed descriptions. The hackathon was held at the coworking space Betaplace. The main objective was to create a working model and adapt it to a person in the final stage of the hackathon. The hackathon was held in partnership with the Lviv Military Hospital.

Part of the project included lectures, presentations, and discussions, during which the impact, inclusion, transformation of digital technology on human life was discussed. These events took place at the Center for Urban History.

During the project there was also a workshop for children (ages 10-12) on sound art. The workshop took place at the gallery Dzyga.

Cyber ​​Pills for Mental Health was part of the larger project Survival Kit for Virtual Reality and was held in the following cities: Lviv (Ukraine), Žilina (Slovakia), Mykolayiv (Ukraine), and Budapest (Hungary).

The project was implemented as part of the program TANDEM - Exchange of Cultural Managers in Ukraine - an initiative of the European Culture Foundation (Amsterdam) and MitOst (Berlin). The program was realized by MitOst and Insha Osvita (Kyiv), supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Berlin), as part of the project Dialogue for Change.

Program

May 1

11.00 am - 1.00 pm – Hackathon-Robotic Hand: Mechanics, Electronics and Physiology - Ivan Solsky, Yuriy Sushko - Betaplace Coworking Space (49a Oleny Stepanivny).

6.00 - 8.00 pm - Lecture - "Science Art: At the Intersection of Art, Science and Technology" - Dmitry Bulatov (Kaliningrad, Russia) - Center for Urban History (6 Bohomoltsia St.).

May 2

3.00 - 4.20 pm - Lecture - "Cybernetics in the Arts and Humanities of the USSR" - Yanina Prudenko (Kyiv, Ukraine) - Center for Urban History (6 Bohomoltsia St.).

4.30 - 6.30 pm - Video lectures on art projects that have been implemented using various new technologies - robotics, AI, Alife, biomedicine and so on, Dmitry Bulatov (Kaliningrad, Russia) - Center for Urban History (6 Bohomoltsia St.).

7.30 - 8.30 pm - Presentation of the hackathon’s results - Betaplace Coworking Space (49a Oleny Stepanivny).

May 3

12.00 - 1.30 pm - Workshop for children on sound art - Lucas Szalankiewicz (Poznan, Poland) - Dzyga Gallery (35 Virmenska St. 2nd fl.).

5.00 - 6.30 pm - Cybersalon - Stefan Lutschinger (London, UK) - Center for Urban History (6 Bohomoltsia St.).