In the framework of the so called information society, museus are no longer the temples of wisdom they used to be. Many such centres think about how to attract visitors and how to make their exhibitions and collections more accessible to audiences of all types. The use of information technologies and, above all, a clear educational mission, are now emerging as the basic ingredients for attracting visitors to museums. And, above all, for ensuring that they enjoy their visit.

The time has come to take a more active part in culture

When technologies are introduced into the world of art, as in other social sectors, they have always needed an “assimilation period”. According to a study conducted by Dosdoce last year, our museums are still hesitant about introducing new technologies not only into their rooms, but even as a strategy for communicating and bringing their activities to wider attention. For Javier Celaya, who directs the institution and headed the study, Spanish art centres not only are not making the most of available technologies that are simple and accessible, but continue to work with a model of vertical communication. In the age of blogs, Wikipedia and, in general, the net understood as peer-to-peer conversation, institutions still keep up practices where they hold the power and are the vehicles for a sole “official” discourse from above (the communication department or education services) to below (media, readers of the press, but also visitors to the centre and users of its websites).

Faced with this scenario, few centres allow, for example, the public to express their opinion, offer their point of view on a particular work or exhibition, not only on the premises, but, much simpler, through their webpages. In a word, even in the era of the reviled “museum shows”, possibly some still perceive “Art” as a “sublime” discipline, to understand which the lay audience needs a “one-off” explanation, in the framework of a univocal communication (whether in the form of a guidebook, audioguide, room notes or web page).

Education, a growing demand

All these issues are also marked by crisis in the form of transmission. Now, with immediate access to information, horizontal organization and the questioning of the idea of one authority, museums and centres need to think about new models for attracting and communicating with their audiences, and about what it wants to transmit via the process. In this respect, one figure that is growing in importance are the so-called “educational services”, responsible for conveying that message to the audience, whether the audience is expert or not. They should ask themselves whether, at the same time, they are also helping to promote dialogue and gather opinions. Just as we saw that educators are thinking about values and subjects that go beyond exercises and syllabuses, through this type of activity many art centres are launching debates on particular questions, relating creation with current facts, or suggesting dynamics that are enriching for their audiences. And, often, as we have already seen in recent educational experiences, the activities serve as a point of departure for discussing issues related to contemporary society and its values.

It is worth saying that these educational departments are becoming more and more important with the museum structure. In a recent A-Desk blog interview, Vicente Todolí, the director of the Tate Modern of London, was asked about the growing tendency to “turn art centres into educational centres”. According to Todolí, this is because of their public funding, but it is also a way to “create the audience of the future” as well as being “the only way of dealing with diversity” and providing access to culture to “people from not very developed areas”. In the interview he also states that this is “a phenomenon that is going to grow in the coming years”.

The question of before and after

This is something that all the centres are clear about, as Gloria Valls explains from Caixaforum, the Barcelona headquarters of the Fundació La Caixa. From the very inception of this foundation, activities in principle “aimed at schools” were started. When the Caixaforum centre opened on Montjuíc hill, the activities were centralised there. The targets of their workshops, concerts and other offerings are children, families and senior citizens, although “basically they are aimed at children”, as Valls specifies. The activities always have as their starting point an exhibition in order to establish “crossover relationships between artistic disciplines and historical moments” using “the referents of children to put the works in context.”

Despite the fact that currently most of the workshops are conducted following the visit, the head of the centre’s educational services says she is an advocate of prior exercises that help to put what is going to be seen in context as well as “stimulating the children’s curiosity.” In this respect, a standout is material for schools in which an exhibition becomes a “centre of interest” for different materials. A way of structuring classes that we already saw in the experiences recounted at the Multiple Intelligences Congress. But what is the role of technology in all this? Caixaforum is thinking about putting the small works of art resulting from the workshops and activities on the foundation’s webpage. In fact, recently five songs written during the “RAPsodas” workshop dedicated to the history of hip hop were presented at a concert by real representatives of this musical genre. And it seems important that the product of this learning should go on to form part of culture and society. In fact this workshop is an excellent example of how activities serve to discuss values beyond the practice of the art in question. In“RAPsodas” the audience is attracted by an explanation about a genre well known to our teenagers: rap. From this “hook”, the audience engages in an activity directly related to the school curriculum: writing a song, where work is done on literary aspects such as rhyme, language, etc. Although the final goal is to foster group work in an orderly and democratic way. The value of respect for one’s neighbour and the importance of solidarity and collaborative tasks is something that was also included during the explanation, as one of the positive principles of these “rappers”.

Works of art in class

The Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona is also backing pre-visit work. As Jorge Ribalta, Head of Public Programmes explains, the experience “is structured in two phases: first museum staff explain the Collection in schools and then the visit is made.” For Ribalta, “the idea is to create debate about the period covered by the collection”, from the postwar to present day. “They are historical subjects that generate debate, but this should be relevant and useful for different disciplines and for contemporary life”. Another way of stimulating interest a priori is by means of Expressart. This didactic material created by the centre itself consists of a case with a series of small objects that bear a relationship to the works in the collection. The material may be used openly, as a central element in various subjects, from plastic expression to sciences. According to teachers’ experiences, these objects serve as a starting point for open classes in which the dialogue and interests of the pupils themselves ultimately determine the subject matter to be dealt with. What is encouraged is that the pupils themselves express themselves and become able to get documented and elaborate the materials. Backing this “previous work” obeys the centre’s interest in “involving teachers in the life of the museum, which, in fact, should form part of the school curriculum”. In Ribalta’s opinion, the fields of education, culture and research “are separate in contemporary society, and this is a mistake”. Similarly, an appeal is made to “networking, between centre, school, and family” to “offer models and experiences that go beyond the space of the museum”. This work is necessary especially in the area of contemporary art where, in addition, “the many prejudices aroused in the lay public need to be overcome.”

Promoting participation

Technology can be a tool of communication, not only between museum and audience, but between visitors and works. Virtueel Platform is engaged in the specific study of these materials, the communication between the culture industries and technology. It is an institute funded with public funds which, since 2001, has tried to build bridges between organizations and firms dedicated to technology and culture. We spoke to Martine Posthuma de Boer, director of programs for this institution, about one of the most recent workshops held at VP: a seminar on museums and technology. “I believe that there is great potential in the content available in museums. If we create well designed applications we can contribute a context that gives meaning to all this content. To date, museums have been concerned above all with digitization and not contextualization”. For this organization, the cultural sector must enter the virtual and digital domain, since they are new channels for contacting the audience.

In addition to making use of new media, ways of experiencing culture are also changing. “Present day culture is about creating and ‘doing it yourself”. The interactive media have encouraged participation. Cultural organizations should anticipate the possibilities of participation in this networking society.” Or what amounts to the same: “Our culture deals with relationships and social dynamics”.

“Take -away” art and heritage

In this respect, last summer Vitueel Platform organized the Take away the museum workshop, in which both professionals in museology, documentation etc and from the technological field took part. The moderator of this workshop, Dick Rijken, formulates one of the main conclusions reached: “There is going to be less certainty about what is real and more space for errors and, above all, more for pluralism”. That is, these new experiments encourage participation while trying to eradicate the prejudice of the “unique meaning” of the work, which is precisely what inhibits the spectator.

Martine explains some of the experiences carried out at Virtueel Platform. For example, he talks about the collaboration of two museums dedicated to music (Gemeentemuseum of The Hague and Wereldmuseum of Rotterdam) with 3voor12.nl, a Dutch online radio station. “The centre has a major stock of antique instruments from different parts of the world, which are difficult to find outside museums and which hardly anyone knows “what they sound like”. The Dutch centre uploaded to this radio service a series of samples of these instruments. This experiment made available to the public a series of music which would otherwise be inaccessible, allowing listeners not only to hear them, but also to use them freely, both for copying and “remixing” them or incorporating them in their own compositions.

Within the framework of this workshop some interesting ideas were launched (which for the moment have not led to real projects) about how to use the potential of technology for the diffusion of culture. The workshops were led by Ulla Maria Mutanen, who set up ThinkLink.org, a project where designers, artists and artisans can “tag” their work, and by Mediamatic, a studio that has developed Symbolic Table, an interactive table that shows information about objects tagged with RFID technology. Both projects, unlike the proposals from the workshops, are actually in operation. The main premise of these workshops was that the ideas should start from the relations between software, object and personal relationship. Again, then, we come back to the need for users to interact. One of the participating groups thought of the possibility of replacing audioguides with a system of key words or tags suggested by users themselves. Using this same technology, the itinerary of each visitor could be be identified, saving these “sessions” for subsequent visits. Visitors could find out whether others share their key words, thus encouraging interaction amongst them. Another of the groups taking part had a similar idea, in this case by putting RFID labels on a card next to the object. The visitor could take the cards of the items they were most interested in and use them later to obtain more information from the Symbolic Table.

When the spectator defines the object

Experiences of this type are proliferating throughout the world. Thus, the Steve project attempts to explore the power of user-generated descriptions (in the style of applications like image-sharing services, such as the popular Flickr, or bookmark sharing, like Del.icio.us) in order to attract and improve online access to museum collections. Steve is a publicly funded initiative from the Art Museum of Indianapolis in which essentially, volunteers take part from different North American museums. For this project, the possibility of users describing works in their own words, and not from the specialised language of commissioners and art historians, can help other spectators to find interest in them. According to the Steve promoters, often, what visitors to an exhibition remember about the items is not described in the documentation provided by the museum. For this reason, they seek a rapprochement with user-created terminology, creating descriptors that can then be used in the information generated by the museums.

Works or exhibitions?

Despite the excellent intentions of these experiments, we acknowledge that there certain issues. In a recent article in El País, the journalist and music critic Diego Manrique talks about MP3 players are somehow “finishing” with the internal narrative of albums to extol the minimum ‘unit’ of the song. Saving distances, the experiences described here appear to encourage spectators to get close to works independently or to create their own itineraries within the framework of an exhibition. In a word, as in so many other disciplines, the decontextualised unit is prioritized over the more complex discourse. An exhibition is not a succession of independent works; rather, the works are interrelated and become a vehicle for global discourse. The proposals for “social tagging” or the elaboration of self-generated itineraries (by means of RFID technology, for example) would seem to force the spectator to ignore this “narrative” idea proper to an exhibition project. For her part, from her column in The Guardian, in reference to the Steve project, journalist Lindsay Irvine questioned the utility of the experiment and criticized the fact that the works are presented with no information other than that contributed by users. In this way, Irvine continues, there is a possibility of knowledge being reduced to its lowest common denominator; one of the problems that cause searches on art to fail is, precisely, basic user errors such as wrongly spelling the names of artists or works. Here a basic problem is how to keep a balance between rigour and proximity to the audience.

Conclusions:

The structure of communication has changed and it should also be transformed in the field of culture if a connection is to be made with audiences. One of the most efficient tools for “explaining” content and also for encouraging dialogue are the educational services of museums and art centres. These departments propose different methodologies to make the exhibition visit richer and to serve as a centre around which different material can revolve.

While in this country museums still have some qualms about adopting the so-called web 2.0 technologies that facilitate participation and “conversation” between users, we have found different experiences in both the US and Europe which give visitors the power to generate their own content, to classify works with a language closer to their own, or to create their own itineraries for visiting exhibitions. The sum of all these ideas, while the rigour proper to these centres is maintained, may result in something akin to the “museum of the future”.

Utani

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In a changing society, like ours, the old educational methods are not only obsolete, but also ineffective. The new requirements are posing a number of questions for educators, parents, and of course, students. The International Conference on Multiple Intelligences, held last May in Barcelona, brought together education professionals to debate these matters. Restructuring classrooms in line with cross-cutting schemes, promoting participation or providing students with the tools for elaborating knowledge themselves are some of the proposals from speakers that are included herein.

For over 13 years, Montserrat College in Barcelona has been putting into practice active methodologies based on the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. To celebrate its 80th anniversary, the school organised a Conference on educational methods deriving from the application of Dr Howard Gardner’s theories in this field. The result was a three-day conference and practical activities in which Multiple Intelligences became the basis for a fascinating debate on the challenges of education in our changing times.

A time for change or a change of time?

Quoting Professor Manuel Castells, Dr Miquel Martínez (doctor in the Theory of Education at the University of Barcelona) referred to the current moment in time, which must not be ignored by schools. Over just a few years we have been witnesses to a profound revolution, not only in technological terms, but in social terms too, accompanied by the positive ideas and fundamental problems that such a deep change inevitably entails. Here at Utani, we have seen how this digital transformation has been snowballing, feeding off every technological advantage and tool within reach to pervade all aspects of society. Most of us are already well aware of the advantages and disadvantages of living in the information society; nevertheless, perhaps the time has come to analyse the effects, both good and bad, that this is having upon us.

To start with, thanks to technology, we all now have free access to information. This ability to keep abreast of things and access knowledge, but also to make your opinion public or to generate your own information, is having an adverse effect on the old “vertical” power of governments and corporations. The contents of the Net are no longer generated by politicians, museums, newspapers, educators or brands. The contents belong to network communities, constructed with the aim of openly exchanging and sharing our passions, thoughts and knowledge. The notion of authorship is in crisis, since achievements are often the fruit of collective collaboration between millions of individuals. Hence the birth of phenomena such as copyleft licenses (where authors release certain copyright restrictions on their work providing it is not used for profit-making purposes) or wikis, serves to give an idea of a change of mentality in users, which is marked by solidarity and cooperation.

Although there are also negative repercussions which affect all our lives, the consequences of which are challenging for schools and the traditional methodologies. Thus, access to information leads to an information overload, to the “consumption of content”, as opposed to in-depth reading and studying. Similarly, the “consumption of entertainment”, as opposed to the imagination and enjoyment, effectively stifles the natural creativity of many children and adolescents, in the face of the constant barrage of visual stimuli. Easy access also gives rise to low tolerance to dissatisfaction and to effort and, paradoxically, generates a feeling of exhaustion, due to the need to keep up-to-date with all the technological breakthroughs and new products on the market. All these factors, both the positive ones and their negative consequences, come into conflict in a model of the school which is still firmly anchored in the past. During the Conference, a number of proposals were made regarding the values and principles that should be promoted in order to adapt the institution to the new times.
 

Horizontal structures

The aforementioned social tendencies are permeating also our personal relationships, and even the manner in which we restructure our knowledge and, of course, the way in which we acquire it. Dr Miquel Martínez warned that, as a consequence of these conditions, the uni-directional or vertical scheme is now obsolete. Relationships, both inside and outside the family, are structured in the form of a network. In this sense, many such examples could be seen in the proposals made during the Conference.

Martínez spoke of “horizontality, but not of symmetry, in both the school and family relationships”. The teacher is no longer an omniscient leader, but neither is he/she just another member of the class. Relationships on an equal footing must be promoted, but these must also be based on mutual respect. Methodologies must avoid the use of master classes, and propose topics that serve as a basis for carrying out activities. In these, it is the student who must research, draw conclusions, ask questions, etc.

Within this type of methodology we find the Thinking Routines, presented in the Conference by Lisa Verberk. In her school, the International School of Amsterdam, methods are applied where, given a statement, poem, work of art, etc., the student must think (within the framework of certain routines, taught by teachers), organise and draw their own conclusions, which are then discussed in class. In the same manner, in the Key Learning Community in Indianapolis (a groundbreaker in the application of the Multiple Intelligences theory in education) courses are structured transversely. Each academic year revolves round the thematic axis upon which work in each of the subjects is carried out.

Supplying students with tools

These methodologies also seem to respond to the notion that, in this age of access to information, it is more important to give students tools to interact with the available resources and be able to discern with their own judgment which are interesting and useful in an over-informed society, than to force them to memorise data, as Miquel Martinez pointed out. According to Lisa Verberk, schools should aim to cultivate students’ disposition to thought, to provide flexible but structured guidelines in order for students to develop critical and structured thought.

Another educational need is the encouragement of oral expression. Communication appears as a pathway to knowledge, and a manner of consolidating learning. With technological experiences in museums, carried out by Virtueel Platform, we saw that communication appears to be the key aspect in the acquisition of new knowledge, substituting traditional individual processes (memorisation, studying, etc). The majority of speakers endorsed participative group and class projects to the detriment of traditional methodologies, such as homework or exams. Dr Martinez went even further in his analysis, stating that “the lack of argumentative competence is one of the greatest problems of our society, and often it is the indirect cause of the instances of violence that we are currently seeing.” For this very reason, one of the roles of the school is to “teach students to understand society and to how express it”.
 

The classroom, part of society

The school cannot remain on the fringes of its social setting, of its community. During the Conference, a number of speakers spoke of activities that promoted the idea of community membership. Linking content to reality has always been a manner of encouraging motivation. It would seem that the new experiences go beyond this, with the aim that the work that children do in class should have a direct result in their community. In this manner, solidarity values and the comprehension of their social reality are favoured, but self-esteem too, insofar as their project is perceived as being useful with positive repercussions in the “adult world”. Lisa Verberk showed how the students in a Spanish class in the United States had translated a number of pamphlets with health information into that language. In his lecture, Javier Celaya spoke of a project from a literature class which was published as an entry in Wikipedia.

Education for all our lives

Another of the key points stressed throughout the Conference, is that the objectives of education have become more abstract than those of yesteryear. The aim of the school is not to churn out a series of data dictated by a curriculum; rather it aspires to more long-term objectives. To start with, offering certain patterns so that students should develop on personal and professional levels throughout their lives: to “progress through life in a sustainable manner, with their own judgment and autonomy”, in the words of Miquel Martínez. The expert also stated that a set of qualities is necessary if this “change of era” is to be implemented with any degree of success: self-esteem, happiness, and responsibility, along with the establishment of good conditions, a solid family/student/educator network. These are similar conditions to those proposed by Dr Martin E.P. Seligman, professor of psychology in the University of Pennsylvania, and the principal driving force behind positive psychology. This researcher defends the idea of recovering a model of life with certain long-term objectives or interests, a sort of religious sense arising from secularism, making us place ourselves at the service of something “greater than ourselves”. This may take the form of voluntary work, the family, or our contribution to some discipline of knowledge, to quote a few examples. In short, this psychologist calls for a series of values through which life may recover a sense of coherence, a long-term objective. In keeping with this notion, Martínez appeals to the authenticity of families, their honesty in relationships among the different members and between themselves, and asks that they should promote a certain tolerance to frustration as an intrinsic part of life.

Conclusions:

Broadly speaking, these are some of the ideas that we were able to share throughout the Conference. Some of which we consider to be very close to the philosophy of the Utani projects. Over those three days, one could note a mixture of disorientation, excitement and interest in the atmosphere on the part of the majority of teachers who attended. We are all aware that, as is the case with the majority of social sectors, education has to be reinvented in order to adapt to the change. This is not a case of creating new materials, creating complementary activities or building new computer rooms. Recent changes have made a far-reaching rethink of the school necessary: to create new methodologies, to redraw the relationship between teachers and students, to value the role of families. In this crucial transformation, we all have a decisive role to play.

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The Information Society. Does it Help the Generations to Live Together?

Two of Utani’s areas of interest, young people and elders, were the focus of a congress aimed at considering and discussing the present and future of the two generations. This was one more experience for us to take into account as we progressively shape our own vision for understanding these age groups. Organized by Caixa de Catalunya’s Fundació Viure i Conviure, the purpose of the meeting was to put aside prejudices about youth and old age and to focus on policies, practices, and experiences that would foster positive and enriching relations between the generations.

Generations in transformation

For Jorge Larrosa, Professor of the Philosophy of Education at the University of Barcelona, today the ‘aged’ represent a social burden for both the state and their families. For their part, young people, a model for the mass media, are also a burden because they are finding it increasingly difficult to access jobs and housing. In addition, they are perceived as a rebellious, even dangerous generation. For Laurence Cornu, Doctor of Philosophy and Professor at the Institut Universitaire de Formation des Maitres, an intermediate generation that seldom features in this fixed picture of the generations is missing. She is referring to the ‘parents’ generation’: adults of active age who barely have time to devote to the other generations because of their work obligations and the need to ‘ be competitive’. And while people reach old age with better health and quality of life and live longer, the youth stage is also prolonged, with postponement of the transition to adult life represented by joining the labour market and emancipation. The economic, social and cultural conditions of ‘maturity’ and ‘ageing’ are changing at high speed, according to Larrosa. Never have they been studied more and never have they been listened to less.

Third and fourth age

The generations stretch ‘like chewing gum’ and have difficulty finding their space and meaning in this society, which brings forward the retirement of one generation for the sake of profitability. Thus, retirement is earlier, while life expectancy, fortunately, increases. The result is the ‘clash’ between a ‘third age’that is younger and more active than ever, and the birth of a ‘fourth age’. These changes demand dignified spaces, where the former can remain active and feel useful and the latter can be duly cared for. Unfortunately, this is not happening, and ‘old people’, although there may be twenty years age difference between them, share the same resources, with genuine intergenerational clashes, since while one group needs to stay active and involved in society, the other requires rest, dominoes, and gentle excursions.

On the other hand, we find an intermediate generation. These are the parents (in respect of grandchildren and grandparents), who have less available time and fight to stay active, ‘recycling themselves’, trying to keep their place in society, as explained by professor Enrique Gil Calvo in his entertaining lecture in which he compared young and old in an illustrative way. Dissatisfaction and anxiety cause new pathologies in adults, young people, and the old. Many are seeking an active space where they can play central roles. Young people and adults attempt to adapt to an everchanging, unpredictable society that is desperately seeking modernity, ‘eternal youth’.

In order to adapt, many have had to ‘melt’ the solidity of their own patterns, values, legacies, memories, and ‘get liquidized’, constantly adapting to changing realities. This is how Zygmunt Bauman, philosopher, writer, professor and scholar, expressed his view of the shift from ‘solid’ to ‘liquid modernity’. In a word, the rules of the game of life are changing. The solidity of discourses, the one-way direction in school are strained through society’s drains. Young people and adults know that they have to become liquid, to adapt their own identity and density to the volume or space shaped insistently by a society that is unstable, insecure, and in continuous effervescence.

The new voice of experience

Carlos Skliar, doctor of phonology and a specialist in human communication problems, talked of a crisis or ‘crack’ in communication or an absence of rich intergenerational conversation. The ‘legacy’ that the older person tries to incubate is rejected by the young person. In most cases it is not that the adult is unable to educate, but, today, is unable to ‘teach how to live’ and make this legacy stimulating. In many case, conversation between young people and adults is deaf, unfriendly because on the one hand adults communicate in ‘vernacular language’ about their experience, and young people answer in their ‘digital language’ from their own isolation and closedness because they feel they are being observed and analyzed by parents, bosses, teachers, politicians and consumer brands. There is rejection of experience because for the first time in recent history, the young are better at understanding and handling technology, rules, forms of communication than their parents. Adults are no longer the voice of experience, they no longer transmit knowledge. On the contrary, they often have to ask their children for help to cope with sophisticated mobile phones or computer software, which the latter, like ‘digital natives’, use completely naturally. Age has a bad image, older people hold obsolete ideas which are rejected by the young and, consequently, by a society where youth is everything. But the feeling of rejection may be mutual. When the kids stop being kids, they frighten the adult. To the eternal rebellion and self-sufficiency of youth is now added a novel power status, because the young control and speak the language of digital technology and, especially, because of the changes in personal relations brought about by this technology, where horizontality reigns and authority is not trusted.

As Jorge Larrosa points out, it is necessary to construct both youth and old age in a different way. Social and cultural changes should be fostered that will help both groups to properly take possession of their youth and age, and spaces created that make possible and encourage positive intergenerational relations. Other spaces need to be made for analysis and reflection whereby the present and future of relations may be approached without taboos or hyopcrisy. And, probably, the generations need to be schooled in tolerance, learning to ‘interact’ with electronic music and poems, tattoos and war wounds, heroes of one age and another, online and life lessons, connecting and hugging, chatting and talking till the sun comes up…
 

Intergenerational conflict

These differences may create conflicts which, in their most extreme manifestation, may degenerate into violence. Manuel Castells analyses as a sign of intergenerational conflict the dramatic cases of serious beatings of elderly tramps by groups of youths. It is as if they let loose all their fury and impotence on their victims. Adults represent to them the obstacle to accessing wellbeing and freedom. It is adults who own inner city housing, who fix the price of rents and thousand-euro salaries, who buy and sell assets and hold the power to command and decide politically in parliaments because they are the masters of information. They are inaccessible and defend themselves against the young so as not to lose their jobs. Tramps are an easy target for the accumulated hatred of the young. Who else would ever beat them up? Similarly, in the heart of the family environment, sadly, physical abuse makes its appearance. Thus, 40% of elderly Spaniards suffer some kind of mistreatment or abuse (emotional, neglect, economic, etc) and between 4% and 5% of over 65s suffer violence. (Source: María Teresa Bazo, Professor of the Sociology of Old Age, University of the Basque Country).

Mobilising through emotion

We have talked about the communication crisis in a society that speaks dead and digital languages. We have observed that to be able to reach the fourth age is a sign of longevity in the first world but also of shifts in social tectonic faultlines. But we have still not talked about politics. And the fact is, intergenerational crises have been politicised, they are fashionable. They are instrumentalised because the mass media carefully serve them up on the TV news seasoned with sports. Today we are experiencing a crisis of ideals. In their programmes, politicans continue to cling to their exhausted welfare state when the entire first world looks to its own interests, has its needs more than covered, only believes what is said in forums or communities, and does not save to be a model consumer. The only thing that can mobilise generations are the numerous forms of collective action (Michel Wieviorka, “La primavera de la política”) . Mobilisation, if based on emotion, can unite and rekindle flames between young, adults and elders.

The worldwide demonstrations against the Irak war, the attack on the twin towers in new York, or the commuter train bombs in Madrid, amongst many others, are examples of emotion-based mobilisation with a powerful background of the vindication and defense of basic values such as peace, freedom, justice, equality, which people of all ages claim as unquestionable and untouchable rights. Emotion, Wieviorka says, is important to the extent that it can build for the younger generations a decisive moment of political socialisation. The new contemporary political ideals and programmes will cease to be based on wellbeing and move towards goals like solidarity, inequality, poverty and injustice. Will today’s young generation perhaps play a leading role in making a more human world in the next fifty years?

And the elders? Everyone knows that it is very easy to mobilise elders politically through nostalgia. But - what about with hope? Optimism? Excitement? That is to say, daring to articulate the word ‘future’, finding new ideas to give shape to a future for now uncertain and demotivating, for these ‘young old ones’.

Conclusions:

‑ With regard to the congress, we were surprised by the philosophical and rhetorical overload of the messages and speakers. Interesting in many cases as arguments to stimulate thinking, to be sure, but somewhat removed in discourse, as well as precluding the creation of a broader environment in which to debate more everyday and real aspects of the issues. Perhaps something in which we were all interested. Sharing experiences not philosophies.
‑ Another conclusion, not only from the congress but as the fruit of the learning curve of professionals working for coexistence between the generations: for us, there is a generation - the young - which for the first time is able to manage on its own with the aid of technology and the information it generates and obtains from technology. These young people live between the real and the virtual, taking refuge in this habitat that is inaccessible to adults and the elderly. Virtuality provides an escape hatch from their surface reality. Salaries, jobs, housing problems, the problems of living with parents - all this forms part of their surface reality.
‑ The response of young people in the form of an increasing belief in and involvement with non-governmental organizations and a rejection of politics as we understand it today is a signpost to where as adults they may come to direct nations.
‑ Throughout the papers, we had the feeling that intergenerational communication is synonymous with the elderly and children or young people. Although several speakers mentioned it, a critical view of the role of those of at adult age was missing. It would seem that because we produce and are integrated in the labour market we are exempt from helping these groups to find their place in society. In our opinion, experiences should open up to more diverse groups. Why not elderly people teaching at high schools? Why not adults doing volunteer work with young people with social integration problems? Or kids collaborating - guided by adults of course - on experiences with their sick or disabled peers. Unfortunately, society is full of groups and collectives in need of help, and we find it very limiting and even somewhat perverse to reduce the equation to only two ages (and, in addition, without taking into account cultural, economic differences, etc between two young people or elders of the same age)

The Fundació Viure i Conviure of Caixa de Catalunya’s Social Welfare Department has been working for more than ten years to promote intergenerational relations, developing highly positive projects such as the “programme for shared living between seniors and university students”. This project, in their own words, “demonstrates the obsolescence of the idea that old age is an inactive and unproductive stage of life, while it raises the awareness of young people about older people and fosters an awareness of solidarity in an eminently individualistic society.”

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A number of hospitals throughout the world, among them the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital in Barcelona, have realised that, although life expectancy has increased and health-care conditions are improving, society is becoming increasingly dehumanised both inside and outside hospitals. The recent Conference on the Humanisation of Children’s Hospitals, held in Barcelona, focused on “all that it is possible to make the stay in a hospital, in this case of children, as pleasant and positive as possible”.

Thanks to medical and technological advances, today it is commonplace to build up experience on the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses, but it should be equally as important to pay the same attention to how the patient would like to be treated.

The patient:
This is the citizen, who for a short while patiently becomes a resident of a healthcare centre. Patiently, in the sense that he has to endure and overcome his illness, but also because he has to accept that he must halt his rhythm of life, and place himself in the hands of healthcare professionals. This role and this “time out” are not easy, either for the patient, or for the hospital. Together they must learn how to create the conditions necessary to make the stay more beneficial and bearable.

The Hospital:
The healthcare centre where, besides curing illnesses and complaints, hospitality to people must be promoted. Citizens-cum-patients will be cured more rapidly if, in addition to the required medical treatment, they are given more humane and emotionally positive treatment.

Citizen before patient:
Today’s citizen has become a sort of “socially digital being”. He is born in, grows up in, and lives in an information and consumer society, which induces him to live at breakneck speed. The individual now maintains relationships through the use of technology, which is now the principal form of leisure and communication. Innovations are used to keep abreast of things, but they are also a source of anxiety due precisely to having to keep up-to-date with this knowledge, which changes by the minute. Rapid access to information and consumer objects gives rise to reduced tolerance to dissatisfaction.
This inability to tolerate frustration is accompanied by what Manuel Castells calls the “negation of time”. The lack of familiarity with such essential aspects of life as pain, illness and even death - “because this is naturally the limit of our temporality as people” (“What sort of world do we live in”, Mayte Pascual) - means that the moment of admission to hospital is even more traumatic.

On the other hand, the patient arrives at the healthcare centre with much more information - perhaps not true or pertinent information, but information just the same - and this makes him now doubt the erstwhile authority of the physician. Thus a change in communication has been established.

Well aware of the changes and shortcomings of the healthcare system, the professionals that took part in this Conference proposed innovative formulas to encourage the humanisation of hospitals.

Curing in hospital via the senses
Patients can be treated with music therapy, as proposed by Phillippe Bouteloup, musician and director of the European project Music in the Hospital. That is, to collaborate in the treatment through emotions, to bring about a positive reaction in the feelings of babies crying inconsolably in incubators, helping to relieve the tension of a patient with the sound of a sweet voice and guitar. Working on musical group activities with adolescent patients, who can escape from the isolation of their illness inside a room to express themselves by playing instruments or singing in company. Or establishing sensorial contact with the deaf and dumb through acoustic instruments.

Dr Dominique Haumont of the Neo-natal Department of the St Pierre Hospital in Brussels, also spoke of their programme, NIDCAP (Newborn Development Care Program), in which special emphasis is placed on the importance of working with the feelings of newborn babies, care and treatment through caressing, body contact with the mother or nurse, the environmental conditions required to establish the optimal level of tranquillity or welfare.

Although they did not attend the conference, they have been working for a number of years in Art Therapy, where artists, psychologists and educationalists work on cases of autism, infantile depression, terminal illnesses, etc., making use of artistic expression and establishing a patient/care worker relationship which over time becomes ever closer and more beneficial, and which helps patients to overcome their illnesses thanks to positive emotional reactions.
 

Curing in hospital via hope
Angie Morales, director of the Pallapupas Hospital Clown Project, demonstrated in an initiative that human contact and intuition can be almost as valuable as the most advanced technology. The clown makes a decisive contribution to physicians being able to do their work, for example, in the operating theatre, by keeping children amused so that they can be anaesthetised when smiling and not crying. The clowns work in pairs in the wards or in the operating theatre. They try to play down the importance of the illness and to bring a splash of colour to the drab rooms; they explain the role of anaesthesia to the children through games, helping to relax and calm them prior to an operation, etc. Other projects in the wards, such as “Wishes” are equally attractive and effective. The aim of this foundation, which works inside hospitals, is induce to hope as an integrating life experience for children suffering from serious diseases. These children need to feel that they are capable of making a wish come true. The organisation asks children, what their greatest wish would be (e.g., “playing in the Camp Nou Stadium with Ronaldinho”, “going to the zoo and touching the animals that can be touched”, “visiting the Disney studios”). The organisation does not take it upon itself to make this dream come true; rather its task is to motivate and spur on the children to do it themselves, by promoting a spirit of overcoming. This emotional state of the reactivation and segregation of energy is fundamental in emotionally overcoming illness. By writing a letter to Ronaldinho, struggling to send him a drawing, sending him another letter, playing on their uncertainties to gradually create an atmosphere of excitement, which is always rewarded – these are phases that are established to work in parallel on the illness through the child’s feelings.
 

Curing in hospital via information
Jean Claude Demers, specialist in Child Life and founder and director of the Le P.A.S. Association (preparation, accompaniment, and discharge of the child) in the Lausanne Children’s Hospital, explained the importance of working on the healthcare worker/parents/patient communication triangle. Adapting technical information to children’s level of understanding, in order for them to accept their own illness, to know how to live with it, and even to avoid the transmission of feelings of guilt due to seeing their parents worried. He also demonstrated the importance of ludic communication between physician and child. Toys, dolls, stories, didactic material, etc, are all tools for bringing them closer together. In the same vein, he also showed how to work on the children’s admission, so that the hospital is seen as an extension of the home, and that instead of a rupture there is a transition, which at times may even be fun.

Curing in hospital via dignity
This was dealt with by Giuliana Fillipazzi, from the European Association for Children in Hospital from the Work Group dealing with the rights of hospitalised children. This was something that she herself suffered for a number of years, during the hospitalisation of her son, suffering at the same time from the inflexibility, instability, dehumanisation and even lack of respect on the part of healthcare centres. As a direct result of her experience, she resolved to fight for children’s rights in hospitals. From these articles or rights, a number of new projects and experiences are appearing all over the world, shedding light on the matter and helping to make hospitalisation more humane.

Curing in hospital via the setting
In their study, Tim Kershaw from Stefian Bradley Architects in Boston and Rosa Clotet, from Llongueras Clotet Arquitectes in Barcelona, confirmed that hospitals can and must be humanised in terms of their space, their setting. Light, views, plants, awareness of the day/night time cycle, the use of colour, smells and sounds can all play significant roles in the improvement or deterioration of a patient’s emotional state. The objective of making patients feel more at home is becoming increasingly prominent. More and more hospitals are being built with environments where children can maintain contact and make friends with other children, or areas in which families can get together in comfort, or waiting rooms where visual stimuli or interactive elements help to alleviate the boredom.
 

Curing in hospital via humanisation
At Sant Joan de Déu Hospital they maintain that “hospitality” must be professionalized by working on the human rights and values of patients. An objective that this centre is working on with optimism and energy. At least that was the impression that those of us attending their Conference got. Once again it is demonstrated that in order to face up to a change of period, such as the one we are currently going through, deep changes to structures and ideas will need to be made.
Once again, it is pleasing to come across educational, healthcare or cultural projects that are truly working. This is possible as the management of the company, hospital, museum or college transmits the energy and desire required to make these projects productive. We can verify that in order to undertake an initiative of this type, we need to ensure that all the professionals on all the different levels feel involved and motivated.

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