SYMPOSIUM - CURATING & PRESENTING NEW MEDIA ART

Curating & Presenting New Media Art

In the context of the festival, a symposium will take place at art centre Nadine, dealing with how curators can respond to new forms of media art, especially to systems of immaterial cultural production. What new models of curatorial practice are needed to take account of interactive, locative, shared, distributed and collaborative objects and processes? Several keynote speakers will give a short presentation. Artists and curators are invited to express and share their views and experiences. This meeting is co-organised by the ‘Digital Platform’ (IAK/IBK, support centres for the Visual and audiovisual arts).

Lately ‘new media’ has been increasingly entering the activities and programming of museums and cultural institutions. The rigid delineations between mass culture, ‘high art’ and economy are subject to swift erosion, which results in new ways of cultural production and processes, based on collaboration and information sharing. The Internet has set itself up as a new industrial environment, a breeding ground for ‘immaterial’ forms of creativity and social relations. How can curators and cultural institutions, traditionally focussed on presentable art objects, deal with this acting, as a mediator between artists and the audience? On the other hand increasingly bridging models are created between art, science and industry, providing room for artists to work with new technologies, not merely audio and video technology, but also mobile and locative media, ‘wearables’ or Virtual Reality. The digital world envelops us and is used by artists as a resource, as well as a medium. Too often, however, frames of reference are missing, for curators as well as the audience. When it comes to describing the practical matters surrounding the presentation of many of these works, information and knowledge are scarce. How can organisations find new approaches – pragmatic and philosophic – in their goals of supporting, preserving and making available art practices? These questions ultimately lead to an insight: maybe the most interesting potential of curating and presenting new media is how this might inherently alter the current habits of practice itself. Artists, exhibition makers, programmers and critics share their views and experiences during a symposium, also leaving room for debate with the audience.

With Jacob Lillemose (Artnode, DK), Sarah Cook (University of Sunderland, UK), Laurence Rassel (Constant vzw, B), De Geuzen (B, NL), Kobe Matthijs (B)

Dit evenement is onderdeel van argosfestival 2005