Transformation Digital Art Symposium 2019

On Thursday 21 and Friday 22 March LIMA's annual symposium on the preservation of software-based art took place at LIMA. This years symposium consisted of multiple approaches concerning both artist-led and institutional strategies geared towards the future presentation of born-digital and software-based art. We invited international participants from an array of professional backgrounds, to continue questioning what strategies can be developed in order to take artworks of an inherently digital, performative and processual nature into the future. In two days with filled with exciting presentations from curators, artists, conservators, students, researchers and tutors among others, hands-on workshops and discussions, LIMA shared knowledge on this complex topic.

From philosophical to more practical insights on digital art conservation, documentation, presentation and reinterpretation, within the white walls of the museum or in the classrooms of art academies, whether in Virtual Reality or in the physical exhibition space; during Transformation Digital Art symposium 2019 all of these subjects have been discussed. We would like to thank all speakers, moderators, volunteers and visitors for joining us and we hope to see everyone next year.

Read the full recap here in PDF.

Day 1
PART I: Strategies of Caretaking: How can the Present be Preserved?
Willem van Weelden (Tutor, Curator & Researcher), Jennifer Helia DeFelice (Vasulka Kitchen, Brno), Glenn Wharton (New York University), Moderated by Melanie Bühler.

PART II: Conversation on Conservation
JODI: Presenting and Preserving the Digital in Museums
Joan Heemskerk (JODI), Karen Archey (Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam), Moderated by Gaby Wijers.

PART II : How to Gain the Right Skills and Mindset for Preservation
Martijn van Boven (ArtEZ Institute of the Arts), Deborah Mora (Student ArtEZ), Agathe Jarczyk (University of the Arts Bern), Moderated by Gaby Wijers.

PART III: How to Activate the Past and (Re)Present It
Anne Marie Duguet (University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), Adam Lockhart (University of Dundee), Emile Zile (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology), Moderated by Serena Cangiano (University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland).

Day 2
PART I: Research and Practices
Mila van der Weide (LIMA), Mila van der Weide on behalf of Rachel Somers Miles, Sylvia van Schaik (RCE), Ernst Van Velzen (Eye Filmmuseum) & Wiel Seuskens (LIMA), Dragan Espenschied (Rhizome), Miriam Windhausen (Researcher & Curator), Moderated by Wilbert Helmus (NDE) / on behalf of Marcel Ras. 

PART II: Conversation on Conservation: Naked on Pluto
Aymeric Mansoux (Artist/Researcher) and Julie Boschat Thorez (Artist/Researcher).

WORKSHOP I: How to Ask the Right Questions for the Acquisition, Documentation, Long-term Storage and Presentation of Software-Based Artworks.
Gabriel Lester (Artist), Marije Verduijn (Centraal Museum Utrecht), moderated by Gaby Wijers.

WORKSHOP II: Disk Imaging and the Preservation of Software-Based Artworks: A Practical Introduction.
Wiel Seuskens (LIMA) and Tom Ensom (Digital Conservator).

PART III: How to Activate the Past and (Re)Present It: Digital Canon!?
Sanneke Huisman (LIMA) and Jan Robert Leegte (Artist).

 
PART I: Strategies of Caretaking: How can the Present be Preserved? From left to right: Melanie Bühler, Glenn Wharton, Willem van Weelden and Jennifer Helia DeFelice. 

PART III: How to Activate the Past and (Re)Present It. Anne-Marie Duguet presenting An Anarchive Archive. 

Workshop Disk Imaging and the Preservation of Software-Based Artworks: A Practical Introduction with Tom Ensom and Wiel Seuskens (LIMA).

The launch of www.digitalcanon.nl with Sanneke Huisman (LIMA) and Jan Robert Leegte. 

Photo's by Jose Miguel Biscaya.

Original summary reports on the symposium have been written by Christina Kolozsváry-Kiss, Olivia Harsan, María Hernández, Pia Bechtle, Sofia Gomes, Eirini Damianaki and Anne de Jong but have been edited into a complete report on Transformation Digital Art Symposium 2019.