Face our duty, by Luis Figaredo
First president of the Association of Friends of LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial
Luis Figaredo
The Association of Friends of LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial was created to promote, stimulate and support any cultural initiatives related to the Centre, which was set up on the initiative of the government of Asturias to strengthen the field of technological culture and to make further progress in the development of the knowledge society, and which now, after only six years of existence, occupies an important place in Asturian, Spanish and international society
The centre contributes to the dissemination and use of new technological tools, promoting reflection on contemporary society.
A group of Asturians and people with strong ties to Asturias, who all share a common love of our region, are now embarking on the mission of supporting this project.
I have joined the Association from an interest in the unknown and the enthusiasm of its team: Lucía Garcia, Benjamín Weil and Pepa Telenti,.. and in my fellow travellers.
I was struck by what Benjamin Weil said on the complexity of today’s world and the change that has occurred and continues to evolve in our perception of what we call reality; the change in our relationship with time and space; the changes in the perpetual flux of messages, news, all sorts of information, ; change, change, and change.
Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Elastic Reality as a combined state of reality which describes the complexity and instability of the real, the transformation in our understanding of images, interactivity, information reception systems which are the most common actions in our lives.
The cutting edge of today will soon cease to be and become something ordinary.
How would our college, university and working lives been if we had had access to the technologies at the reach of everyone in today’s world?
Let us not ask ourselves this question in a few years’ time. Let us not do what Machado bluntly put to us: "We disregard everything we do not know about”. Karl Popper reminded us that the future depends on us, as it is who are solely responsible and that it is our duty to continue being optimistic.
Let us, therefore, face our duty of "lending a hand" with hope and enthusiasm. It is now when it is more than ever necessary to get civil society involved in the support of art, culture and research in order to ensure a future of well being in which creativity brings, at once, greater individual and collective intelligence along with better opportunities for society.
We would like to help in bringing new visitors, obtaining resources and collaborations, which consolidate the current lines of work at the Centre, and in managing assistance to win new members and businesses that commit themselves and help LABoral to grow in order for it to serve as a centre of attraction in Asturias. This will place our region as the undisputed leader in its field, in this way guaranteeing the continuity of a project which we consider to be vital.
Thank you very much.
Gijón, 30 August 2013
Luis Figaredo, President of the Association of Friends of LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial
