Tech companies make technology, technological services, products, applications, etc. They study the potential market, hire sociologists, forecasters, and other experts to have a better glimpse at what's happening in consumers' minds. What are the trends, the behavior, and hidden desires of the man of the street, the gaps wherein they could engulf.

However, there's a whole field that tech companies disregard: art. A growing number of artists are using and misusing technology. Their works can disconcert, irritate, amuse or enchant. One can dismiss artists' ideas with the brush of a hand. Or one can stop, ponder, try to see what's beyond these works.

Artists demonstrate that there are other ways to technologies, other territories to explore, and meaning to give to applications. The digital avant-garde observes the world with acute eyes and often has intuitions and insights on people's longings that no reports from highly competent sociologists could replace. Their ideas could potentially change the culture and mindsets of customers as well.

Shouldn't companies and artists using technology meet? Shouldn't companies try to learn something from the digital avant-garde?

The talk will consist in a series of relevant examples of art practice and will suggest possible applications of artists’ works in a corporate context.