Online or in the Real World? Jarosław Juszkiewicz Ambassador of the Silesian Science Festival KATOWICE; journalist on Polish Radio Katowice, associated with the Silesian Planetarium; Polish voice of Google Maps
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The 4th Silesian Science Festival KATOWICE was a spectacular success. Tens of thousands of people who passed through the International Congress Centre remembered the innovative stations where science was presented in various forms, incredibly interesting presentations and meetings with special guests. Over two festival days, I watched from the Main Stage and café on the scaffold a sea of heads flowing through the Main Hall. And when the coronavirus pandemic broke out, I immediately thought, ‘Thank God it is now, rather than a few weeks ago’. And I obviously wasn’t the only one. Because the Silesian Science Festival is a crowd of organisers and participants. Can we prepare further editions of events such as ŚFN without thinking about coronavirus? Of course we can’t. Nobody, not even the best epidemiologist knows what the world will look like in April 2021. I’ve recently found myself watching The Godfather and thinking, already during the first scene, why so many people have gathered in one place in a garden and none of them had a face mask. Perhaps after a few more weeks of isolation I would no longer know why only one of the women was wearing a white puff sleeve dress. Because I can’t remember when was the last time I saw a wedding live. OK, no more joking. The pandemic has taught us at least two things: 1. There is no event that could not be cancelled at the very last moment.2. Modern technologies have enabled us to do a lot for a long time, but until now, paradoxically, we were too comfortable to use them. I already found out in the second week how quickly you can shift to remote work, as soon as it turned out that I can run, without any problems, a weekly programme about computers, which usually hosts live a number of guests in the studio, with the same people now sitting safely in their home-based sound ‘hollows’. And frankly speaking, I could be sitting at my home recording studio rather than in front of the microphone in the building at ul. Ligonia 29. It’s actually enough to have a couple of microphones (not necessarily top-shelf), a little soundproof foam and a computer application. We obviously lack personal contact and we are already missing one another, but from the technical and content perspective, it is perfectly possible to broadcast a programme. My second experience is connected with Planetarium Śląskie (Silesian Planetarium), which was not closed during the pandemic, only because it is currently being modernised and has been transformed into a huge construction site. By the end of the next year, Śląski Park Nauki (Silesian Science Park) will have been built here. Science Communication in the New Reality. How to organise science festivals after the coronavirus pandemic?
