Media Information May 31, 2019

Symposium "Revisiting Collections"

Mediation formats for art in a digitalized world are the focus of an event at the Einstein Center Digital Future on June 4 and 5, 2019.

New strategies for communicating art and culture in a digitalized world will be the focus of the symposium "Revisiting Collections" on June 4 and 5 at the Einstein Center Digital Future (ECDF). At the two-day event, the significance of the digital for access to art and culture in all its facets and from a global perspective will be critically questioned. Thus, the structure and accessibility of digital collections are just as much a topic as, for example, the digital visualization possibilities of provenance chains. Performative aspects of the digital will also be examined. The symposium will be interdisciplinary and international in nature: scientists, artists and experts from museums will be invited. Due to the limited number of places, on-site participation is currently no longer possible. A live stream of the lectures will be offered. Media representatives please contact Yvonne Zindel: y.zindel@udk-berlin.de.

The event was initiated by Prof. Dr. Annette Jael Lehmann, Professor at Freie Universität Berlin and Principal Investigator at Einstein Center Digital Future. The conference aims to examine the relevance of the digital for current issues and application-oriented formats in art and cultural mediation from a global perspective. This field of research focuses on critique of representation and postcolonial themes. It overlaps strongly with critical museology and museum studies and seeks to develop an independent position in the field of digitization.

In the first part of the symposium "Digitalization: Dissent and Opportunities", the term "digital" will be examined in some of its facets. The aim is to review the attributions to the term, for example that in combination with museums it is often understood as synonymous with "accessibility", "access" or "democratisation". Performative aspects of the digital are brought into play against this background. In the third part "Digital Thinking / Postcolonial Thinking" some problem areas and "blind spots" of the digital are described. The fourth part is dedicated to visions and the breaking up of structures. It will explicitly focus on what exactly is changing structurally in museums, for example, as a result of the digital and what must change for the implementation of digitisation.

Yvonne Zindel from the Berlin University of the Arts is the organizer and curator of the event. The symposium is funded by DFG (Deutsche Forschungs Gemeinschaft) and Kommission für künstlerische und Wissenschaftliche Vorhaben (KKWV), University of Arts Berlin.
It is a collaboration between Freie Universität Berlin (Institute of Theater Studies) and University of Arts Berlin (Institute for Art in Context). The DFG Research Training Group “Knowledge in the Arts” contributes a workshop.

Livestream

During the event via the Youtube channel of Freie Universität:

https://www.youtube.com/c/FreieUniversitaetBerlin

Day 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHYyopyyU3M

Day 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcXBDPL-_ao

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