[spectre] CHALLENGES OF DIGITAL ART FOR OUR SOCIETIES – International Conference, MUMOK, Vienna, Dec 4th

[Oliver Grau]

CHALLENGES OF DIGITAL ART FOR OUR SOCIETIES – International
Conference
MUMOK - Museum moderner Kunst, Museumsplatz 1, Vienna, December 4th
2015, 1 – 7 pm

"What kind of museums are necessary for contemporary (digital) art?"

Digital art and technology fundamentally changes our perception and
interaction with images. The international conference „Challenges of
Digital Art“ addresses the impact of this shift for the expressive
potential of contemporary media art. 200 biennales and over 100
well-attended festivals dedicated to media art prove that media artists
are addressing our ever-changing world view through a multitude of
artworks focusing on themes that include climate change, image and media
(r-)evolution, globalization, future of the body, surveillance society,
and the virtualization of financial markets. Yet, while these
outstanding artists engage the social and cultural questions of our
time, media art continues to be insufficiently collected and
inadequately documented in memory institutions due to problems in museum
structures and media storage.

Today, media artworks are gradually becoming lost because the museum
sector is not able to fulfill its public duty to collect, research, and
make accessible contemporary media art. The marginalization of media art
and its themes in the public-financed museum sector leads to serious
democratic issues – this development should be counteracted.

The challenge for the humanities is to document and analyze digital
artworks and, moreover, to provide solutions to this essential dilemma
in contemporary cultural politics. This pressing agenda was previously
addressed in the ‘Liverpool Declaration’, which so far over 500
scientists and museum directors from over 40 countries have signed
(http://www.mediaarthistory.org/declaration). It is these questions
that frame the conference.  Bringing together internationally renowned
scholars, the focus of the talks and discussions will be the
strengthening of education and training of future curators and
archivists in the cultural and arts sector as well as the formation of a
sustainable research infrastructure.  Towards these goals, the
researches in the area of digital humanities will play a vital role.

Internationally renowned experts of media art – Prof. Dr. Lev
Manovich (New York CityU), Prof. Dr. Sean Cubitt (Goldsmiths), Prof. Dr.
Christiane Paul (Whitney New York) and Prof. Dr. Oliver Grau (DanubeU)
– are discussing solutions and are suggesting strategies for
improvement on 4th December at the MUMOK 

Danube University, Centre for Image Science – www.donau-uni.ac.at/dbw


ADA – Archive of Digital Art – www.digitalartarchive.at 


PROGRAMM

1:00 		
Introduction

1:15-2:15  	
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Christiane PAUL (New School NY, Whitney Museum NY):  
>From Archives to Collections: Digital Art in/out of Institutions

2:15-3:15 	
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Lev MANOVICH (City University of New York, CUNY):  
Archiving and analyzing digital art the scale of big data

3:15-3:45 
Break

3:45-4:45 	
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Sean CUBITT (Department of Media and Communications,
Goldsmiths, London): 
Aesthetics and Anaesthetics: Eudaimonism and Melancholia in the
Archive

4:45-5:45 	
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Oliver GRAU, MEA (Department für Bildwissenschaften,
Donau Universität): 
Political Iconography of Digital Arts, it's Archive and a Museum
Infrastructure for the 21 Century

5:45-6:30 	
Diskussion

6:30 	
Wine & Get together


Speakers:

Lev Manovich is the author of seven books including Software Takes
Command (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), Soft Cinema: Navigating the
Database (The MIT Press, 2005), and The Language of New Media (The MIT
Press, 2001) which was described as "the most suggestive and broad
ranging media history since Marshall McLuhan." Manovich is a Professor
at The Graduate Center, CUNY, and a Director of the Software Studies
Initiative that works on the analysis and visualization of big visual
cultural data. He was included in the list of "25 People Shaping the
Future of Design" (2013) and also the list of "50 Most Interesting
People Building the Future" (2014).

Sean Cubitt is Professor of Film and Television at Goldsmiths,
University of London, fellow at the University of Melbourne and honorary
professor at the University of Dundee. His publications include
Videography: Video Media as Art and Culture (Palgrave, 1993), Timeshift:
On Video Culture (Routledge, 2003), Simulation and Social Theory (SAGE,
2001), The Cinema Effect (MIT Press, 2005), EcoMedia (Rodopi, 2005),
Digital Aesthetics (Sage, 2009) und The Practice of Light: A Genealogy
of Visual Technology from Prints to Pixels (MIT Press, 2014). He
investigates the history and philosophy of visual technology, media art
histories, and mediation. Furthermore, he is a well-established speaker,
who addresses questions of the interconnectivity of digital archives.

Christiane Paul (Whitney Museum, New School, NY) is one of the most
influential curators of media art. Since the 1990s, she developed
countless exhibitions. Recently she prepared INDAF Digital Art Festival
(Inchon, South Korea, 2009), Eduardo Kac: Biotopes (Rio de Janeiro,
2010), Cory Arcangel: Pro Tools (New York, 2011), The Public Private
(Kellen Gallery, The New School, 2013) and Scalable Relations
(California, 2009). Paul is professor at the New School, NY and leads
the ‚Media Studies Graduate Program‘. Digital Art (Thames & Hudson
2003) and Context Providers: Conditions of Meaning in Media Arts
(Intellect, 2011) are already classics in the field.

Oliver Grau is chair professor of image science at the
Danube-University. His book Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion (MIT
Press, 2003) is the internationally most-quoted publication of
contemporary art history. He is editor of Mediale Emotionen (Fischer,
2005), MediaArtHistories (MIT Press, 2007) and Imagery in the 21st
Century (MIT Press 2011). Grau is member of the Academia Europaea, his
publications were translated in 14 languages, and he was invited to over
300 lectures and key notes all over the world. His research focuses on
the history and theory of media art, immersion and emotions as well as
the history, idea, and culture of telepresence and artificial life.
Moreover, he is developing the digital humanities (Archive of Digital
Art, GSSG online etc.). He developed new international programmes such
as, among others, the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree-Programm
MediaArtsCultures MA, MediaArtHistories MA, Image Science MA.