Digital Public Spaces (Espaces Publics Numériques, EPN) was created in the late 90s to promote access to and the use of information technology and the Internet by everyone. Initially a political project designed to combat the digital divide in local contexts (for example, the ERIC program – Citizens’ Regional Internet Space – in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur), these spaces have undergone significant changes in ten years’ time and their initial role has evolved. Designed at first to offer training in information and communications technologies, DPSs have become a space for addressing social, economic, environmental, cultural, etc. issues in the regional context. Faced with these changes, the goal of the residency was to explore the potential of this “new generation” public space and to imagine the DPS of tomorrow.
In immersion in an ERIC program space located in a “sensitive neighborhood”, the residency team co-built with the inhabitants a number of prospective scenarios covering the next 5, 10 or 15 years and opening new perspectives for digital public spaces. Examples of paths for development include converting these spaces into structures helping to find employment, into spaces for treating technological addiction, and into spaces playing a heightened role in the field of the environment. Participants also imagined new ways to develop the network of digital spaces.
Learn more about the project: download the French deliverable
And discover it in photos
