MARCEL Glossary

MARCEL
MARCEL is an umbrella organisation of like-minded artists, scientists and institutions interested in exchange and collaboration operating over a permanent very high bandwidth interactive network dedicated to artistic, educational and cultural experimentation, exchange between art and science and collaboration between art and industry.


MARCEL Charity
MARCEL is a non-profit organisation established as a Charity based in the UK which serves as the legal base of the project, as protection for the idea and a vehicle for receiving and spending funds and signing legal contracts. The MARCEL Charity is governed by a Board of Trustees, Company No. 4785771, Registered Main Charity 1101627.


International Coordination
The international coordination of the MARCEL project is the responsibility of Don Foresta as director of the MARCEL UK Charity. As coordinator, he brings new members to MARCEL, up-dates the Members list, helps in organising and building the MARCEL web site and aids in initiating Working Groups, usually participating in the first meetings to help newcomers get started.


MARCEL Member
A MARCEL Member is an institution or individual, sharing interests, who has agreed to participate in the project and start the process of going on line. Members commit to installing a high bandwidth connection (anything from a fast ADSL to multi-mega bandwidth), designate MARCEL contact people for that institution, which is then posted on the web site, and install our multicasting platform Access Grid. Each member has a wiki page on the MARCEL web site and will be responsible for up-dating the information on that page. There are no other obligations at this time.


MARCEL Project
A MARCEL project is an activity involving two or more members using the MARCEL Network to fulfill its aims. Projects are based on artistic co-production in all artistic disciplines, technical projects working to make the network space function better for its members, art- or science-related projects such as archiving, authors' rights, research and education questions or programmes.


MARCEL Online Resource
The MARCEL Online Resources is a web site, the operational tool of the MARCEL network. This portal site is the place where all MARCEL information is found, where communication between members takes place, where the active newsletter will be sent and posted, where any other information deemed useful to Members will be posted. The web site is managed by 12 institutions acting as MARCEL Managers.


MARCEL Web Categories
The Web Categories of the MARCEL site were designed during various Souillac meetings and others prepared for that purpose and were selected by the founding members of the project as the primary areas of interest for the MARCEL Members. The categories operating over this web site are:

* Members
Institutions, schools, laboratories, groups or individuals using the network as a creative space for cultural and artistic research and distribution

* Rights & Legislation
Documentation on philosophical, legal and alternative international approaches to authors? rights and telecommunication legislation

* Project Workspace
Discussion and workspace for members working on joint projects

* Electronic Art
Index of analogue and digital art works using diverse media for their production and distribution, particularly networks

* Technical Information
Technical information from public and private sectors

* Newsletters
Newsletters covering the principal categories of MARCEL

* Art & Industry
Information on the collaborations being developed between art & industry

* Art & Science
The relationship between art and science in the evolving paradigm of contemporary civilisation

* Discussion Groups
Forums for MARCEL members and other individuals in each category

* Research
Theoretical and experimental approaches to the principal themes of MARCEL for developing new forms of knowledge and artistic expression

* Education
Projects and documentation on new approaches to education and the network

* Resources
Information relevant to the main areas of interest covered by MARCEL


MARCEL Manager
A MARCEL Manager is an institution that has agreed to manage one of the 12 categories of the MARCEL web site. Managers are linked to the project through a signed letter of agreement between that institution and the MARCEL UK Charity. A sub-board of the MARCEL Board made up of the 12 Mangers with their own elected officers governs the management process and reporting back to it. That MARCEL Web Site Board supervises the operation and development of the MARCEL web site on behalf of the MARCEL Charity.


Working Group
A Working Group is made up of a number of MARCEL Members working together on a specialised project built around an artistic discipline, a project or proposal. Working Groups have their own coordinator and their own working schedule. They will be listed in the Project Work Space of the web site and will come and go as projects are completed. Each Working Group has its own wiki page on the site for up-dating information and projects on it.


Working Groups Web Sites
Each Working Group generally has its own web site for posting information on its activities, communication between its members and other pertinent information. Addresses of those web sites are posted under that Working Group designation found under the Projects Workspace category.


Access Grid

MARCEL operates over a multicasting platform, Access Grid, which permits instant interactive contact with several sites and the possible use of multi-screens. The platform, initially developed by the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, operates over the interconnected academic research high bandwidth networks and is an extensible form of videoconferencing, permitting broadcast of multiple video streams from each site, near natural-quality audio and other media. The MARCEL network uses Access Grid permitting multi-screen presentations with several levels of support information broadcast simultaneously between several sites.


MARCEL Newsletter
The MARCEL Newsletter is an active mailing list for news on MARCEL, going out to all members and those who have asked to be informed. The Newsletters are automatically posted in the Members Newsletters sub-category of the Newsletters category. It is available through a password which will eventually be available to all MARCEL Members.


MARCEL TV
MARCEL TV is the archives for MARCEL, a long-term project to save and catalogue MARCEL events and meetings. At this time, various members are archiving and posting their work separately at addresses generally found in the Working Groups sub-category. The archiving project will attempt to bring together virtually all this material and to include a uniform means of consultation within the web site. Other historically important work is being added to the site in order to build up a database available to members.


Virtual Faculty

The virtual faculty is a long-term project of the MARCEL network involving several projects whose objective is to use the high bandwidth network for educational experimentation and programming. Those several projects, which will eventually all be listed below, contribute to building a pedagogocal content and are pursued separately by members of the network combining their effort to organise and fund each of the projects.

Global Threads - a five-year project for building a faculty for art and science.

The Network Metaphor and the New Renaissance - A Research Network for Researching the Network.