Prague College

The European Interdisciplinary Platform Underground City (XXI) originates from the “Underground City XXI” project - the protection of an ex-coal mine in Labinand Rasa (Region of Istria, Croatia), its industrial and architectural heritage - initiated in 1998 by the cultural and art association Labin Art Express (L.A.E.) and the Region of Istria. It’s a project of transforming ex-coal mine into a modern, underground town, with streets, bars, galleries, swimming pool, shops, restaurants, children play-grounds, a museum of Coal Mining, and with all other contents a modern town is supposed to have, including its own Government, Statutes ,Mayor, police, laws and regulations, following the historical pattern of the Republic of Labin in 1921. A leading idea of the project was to provide an ample and true testimony of the almost 400 years old tradition of mining, transforming the ex-coal mine’s heritage into an avant-garde cultural and art project with a strong economic and social impact (potentially one of the leading Croatian cultural and tourist attractions, generator of a future local/regional development), by construction of the first underground town in the world in the 8th “horizon” (level) of the ex-coal mine (10 km long, app. 50.000m2 of space, 160 meters below ground surface), showing how space exploitation can be treated as environmental preservation.

In summer 2009 cultural & art association L.A.E.(Croatia) in cooperation with art association LIBAT (France), NOMAD theatre (Austria) and Prague College (Czech Republic), established the project “Interdisciplinary Internet Platform Underground City XXI (UC XXI)” – creation of a virtual / 3D futuristic underground town and establishment of a specific European cultural and interdisciplinary community. Internet platform UC XXI, a 3D multi-user environment shared and distributed on Internet, will consist of: interactive tour through highly developed spatial/urban plans and experimental architectural models of fundamental city buildings(Museum of Industry and Mining, City Hall, exhibition gallery, movie theatre, cultural centre) and public spaces (streets, parks, squares,..); public institutions and executive bodies like City Government, police, Mayor and other elected officials , in a form of specific avatars; Underground City community with citizens/residents, Statute, regulations and laws, moral and ethics codex, forming permanent communication and social network ; mixed media art works and hybrid performances, created by the ‘residents’ and ‘guests’ of the virtual underground town.

Find more info about the project here...

ABSTRACT
by Dean Zahtila (head of association) and Pascal Silondi

Underground City XXI (UCXXI) is a European interdisciplinary platform, aiming to establish a specific cultural and art community, created as an online collaborative interdisciplinary network. UCXXI will develop a virtual 3D multi-user environment, shared and distributed on the Internet, based on the real dimensions and situation of the ex-coal mine in Labin, Croatia.

Drawing on the historical cultural heritage of Croatia, ex-Yugoslavia, Italy, Austria, Germany and France, the project will link visual arts, architecture, new technologies and interdisciplinary research, promoting cross-border and cross-sector cooperation, stimulating trans-national mobility of cultural operators and academics, through the creation of mixed-media art works and performances interconnecting virtual and real environments, and ending with their international dissemination.

The idea is to transform the architectural and industrial heritage of an ex-coal mine - one of the greatest technological achievements in mining at the beginning of the 20th Century - into an avant-garde cultural and art project.

UCXXI will create a virtual Underground City XXI, a ‘living’ work of art permanently in progress, with a strong cultural, technological and social impact, stimulating artistic and architectural experimentation. Promoting the idea of “art as collaborative work” as one of the highlights of contemporary art production, the project will foster cultural and art networking in Europe.

As a communication and research network, the project will interconnect artists and cultural operators with philosophers, economists, architects, archaeologists, sociologists, IT and other scientists, through a series of specific workshops/laboratories, in order to stimulate artistic experimentation in the field of virtual communities, and encourage exploration and simulation of architectural, urban, social and other issues of living under the ground.

UCXXI activities will finally result with an optimal virtual model for the full preservation of the ex-coal mine, by future construction of the first real underground town in the world. In the last phase, the project will become a social network, enabling people from all over Europe to become citizens or just visitors of virtual Underground City XXI and participate in its everyday life and development.

Partners on the project, in addition to Prague College, include:

Labin Art Express (Croatia)
http://www.lae.hr/

Nomad Theater - LABFactory (Austria)
http://www.nomad-theatre.org/1191963.0/

Libat - Hybrid Lab for New Technologies (France)
http://www.libat.net/