Digital meets Culture

From 27-31 May 2018, 300 culture professionals will debate the changing role of museums in our society

“ARE YOU READY TO PARTICIPATE?” Communicating the Museum’s 20th edition

Today’s museums are working towards being more inclusive, encouraging participation and a greater diversity of audiences, ideas and perspectives. The main challenges remain as museums strive to meet with their audiences in genuinely participatory ways. The pressure is on museums to be more representative and to embrace community involvement.
Across a five-day programme of events, debates, workshops, talks and tours, you will discover the best museum participation initiatives, the most challenging collaborations, and the most insightful successes (and failures) in the fields of communications, education and audience engagement.
HOW TO CREATE MEANINGFUL PARTICIPATION WITHIN THE CITY? Lessons from London, Los Angeles and Mons
From organising the Olympic Games to managing a city-wide festival of 70+ institutions and being a European Capital of Culture, learn how to become an active member of your community.
Munira Mirza, Head of HENI Talks and former Deputy Mayor of London for Culture and Education, Gloria Gerace, Co-Founder of Culture Projects and Director of PST: LA/LA, USA and Xavier Roland, Director of the Pôle Muséal de la Ville de Mons in Belgium, will step on stage to share their story and key advice.
With this panel conversation you will find out how to build a strong legacy in your city and organise events and exhibitions that are relevant to local audiences and partners.
MIGRATION AND THE CHANGING ROLE OF MUSEUMS
A specific session is dedicated to explore how collaborative practice helps build relevant programs that broaden educational opportunities and participation when working with immigrant communities
IS THE MUSEUM A DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTION?
The idea of Cultural Democracy has become a new focus of attention for both policymakers and practitioners – and promises to radically re-invent how we understand the role of subsidised cultural organisations. In this context, a dedicated keynote session, will face the important question “Is the Museum a democratic Institution?”
These are just some spots about a rich and intense Conference programme.
After that, you are invited to join the post-conference day on 31 May to explore 3 major cultural institutions of Brussels and learn about their collections and latest projects.
For the first time in 18 years, the conference is going to take place in Brussels not only because is the capital of Europe, but also for its complex and fascinating environment, which offer one of the most diversified populations on the planet and where 152 languages are spoken.
Start the day at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. From raising funds for a new dino to promoting a more respectful approach to nature, learn about the RBINS’s mission and communication strategy.
Step inside the Cinquantenaire Museum. This historic building, one of the biggest museums in Belgium, was erected by King Leopold II. Visit the recreation of the Wolfers Frères jewellery store as designed by Horta in 1912 and enjoy a lovely lunch in the museum Cloister and garden.
Last but not least, go behind the scenes of the City Hall, on The Grand-Place, a masterpiece of Gothic civil architecture from the 15th century. Discover the impressive paintings, sculptures and tapestries, many of which are not open to the public.

Contacts
Programme & Promotion & Participants
Clémence Ferry: cferry@agendacom.com
Partners & Sponsors
Corinne Estrada cestrada@agendacom.com

A night dedicated to contemporary poetry with digital media, on the occasion of World Poetry Day

Digital Nights: Digital Poetry

Onassis Cultural Centre organized an interesting encounter with J. R. Carpenter, moderated by Prodromos Tsiavos and Thodoris Chiotis.

Athens (Greece), 21st March 2018, h19:00
Galaxia & Evridamantos str. (behind the OCC building)
Website: http://www.sgt.gr/eng/SPG2112/

J.R. Carpenter first began using the internet as a medium for experimental writing in 1993. She has been publishing books for just as long. In this talk she lead audience on a tour of early and more recent web-based works, demonstrating how she explores themes of place, displacement, community and the environment through performance, print and digital media.

J. R. Carpenter is a Canadian-born UK-based artist, writer, performer, and researcher working in Performance Writing, Digital Literature, and Media Archaeology. Her pioneering web-based works have been exhibited, published, performed and presented in journals, galleries, museums and festivals around the world. She is a winner of the Dot Award for Digital Literature (2015), and the New Media Writing Prize (2016). She is the author of three books with a fourth forthcoming from Penned in the Margins in April 2018. She lives in Plymouth, UK.
http://luckysoap.com

to celebrate the Museums' 2013 reopening, a huge stunt show was organized in a shopping mall

2013 flashmob by Rijksmuseum, always worth to watch!

A flashmob recreated one of Rembrandt’s paintings in a shopping centre in Breda, to mark the painting’s return to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The museum was going to reopen on 13 April 2013 following a 10-year renovation.

Passers-by were both shocked and amused to see performers taking part in a large-scale live reconstruction of Rembrandt’s famous painting “The Night Watch”. The painting, completed in 1642, depicts Captain Frans Banning Cocq and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruytenburch, leading out their city guard, Schutterij.

The trend of making tours of cultural institutions available online is a new way to allow more people to access the exhibitions

The National Museum of Scotland can be toured via Google StreetView

The National Museum of Scotland has become the first museum or gallery in Scotland available for exploration online via Google. Using Google Arts and Culture’s museum view experience, which is similar to how Google’s Street View works, tourists can view the 20,000 objects on display at the National Museum. The virtual display also includes 1,000 pictures of objects from the Edinburgh museum’s collection.

View here: https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/national-museum-of-scotland

Museum’s website: https://www.nms.ac.uk/national-museum-of-scotland/

It’s the first museum in Scotland that can be toured online, but not the first in the world. The Taj Mahal in India, the Uffizi in Florence and the Palace of Versailles in France have also opened up their exhibit in a similar way, giving visitors from around the world a novel opportunity to explore their interior.

Milan (Italy), 16-18 March 2018

Digital Design Days 2018

Digital Design Days is a 3-day event offering exclusive conferences, the third edition of Offf Milano, professional workshops, digital showcases & installations, a party and many networking activities: an event celebrating creativity in digital design, putting under the same roof the best Italian and International creative designers.

Website: https://www.ddd.it/en

The workshop seeks to identify case studies and examples of these processes in action in both urban and rural contexts.

REACH project at conference/workshop “Cultural heritage, social cohesion and place attachment” in Budapest

Organized by the Hungarian Academy of Science, Centre for Social Science / Institute of Sociology, an important event took place in Budapest on 20-21 March.

Following the opening talk by Melanie K. Smith (entitled “New Insights into Cultural heritage and Sense of Place using a Cultural Ecosystem Services Framework”) the event was organized in various parallel sessions across two days. The main focus of this event was to explore the relationship between cultural heritage (both built/material and intangible/immaterial), social cohesion and place attachment.

REACH project and the pilot on minority heritage was presented by Eszter György and Gábor Oláh (ELTE Eötvös Loránd University) in the Parallel session 10 “Heritage of ethnic and minority groups”, chaired by Zsuzsanna Árendás.

The talk “The creation of resilient Roma cultural heritage. The case study of a bottom-up initiative from North-Eastern Hungary” presented the research carried on by ELTE in the framework of REACH project, focused on marginalised minorities and aiming to show how the institutionalisation of their (re)appropriated Cultural Heritage (CH) can result in the economic and social revival of their communities.

Full programme of the event available here

Girona, 21-24 November 2018

Image and Research | 2018 Edition

The Centre for Image Research and Diffusion (CRDI) of the Girona City Council and the Association of Archivists of Catalonia, are calling the 15th Image and Research International Conference, which will be held in the Palau de Congressos de Girona from 22th to 23th of November. On 21th and 24th, two workshops related to the areas of interest of the Conference will be organized.

21 November – Workshop 1: When the alarms fire. 5 critical aspects for the conservation of
photography

24 November – Workshop 2: Digitization of color photography

Keynote speeches 22-23 November:

The digitization of color negatives in the perspective of archival fonds; Bea Martinez, CTIM / Polytechnic University of Catalonia
Integrity of digital image; Frederik Temmermans, IMEC, Vrje Universitet Brussels
30 years of photographic collections management. A projection towards the future; Joan Boadas, CRDI City of Girona
The gammification of photographic archives: a new scenario for access and citizen participation; Tomislav Ivanjiko, University of Zagreb

Website: http://www.girona.cat/sgdap/cat/jornades_properes-ENG.php

In addition to the programme of keynotes speeches, presentations and workshops, the conference includes a discussion space to reflect on the possibility of bringing photographic and audiovisual archives closer to new audiences. On the one hand, the prominence of the image in today’s society and in various fields has been established, whether information, creation or interpersonal communication. On the other hand, the conversion of archives into digital spaces allows many barriers imposed by the media itself to be broken down and, at the same time, offers a series of possibilities for the dissemination and re-use that may be of interest to a much wider audience.

Program, schedule and workshops at the following link: http://www.girona.cat/web/sgdap/docs/JornadesIR/Imatge_Recerca_programa_2-ENG.pdf

Conference registration: http://www.girona.cat/sgdap/cat/jornades_inscripcions-ENG.php

Workshops registration: http://www.girona.cat/sgdap/cat/jornades_inscripcions_tallers-ENG.php

Call for papers open until 15th June

Tribune of Experience call open until 31st July

Her multimedia installations make use of digital and interactive technologies integrated into traditional methods of art production.

Still Life, Rhonda Holberton’s solo exhibition in NY

April 6 – June 2, 2018
Opening Reception, April 7 (check gallery website for hours)
Transfer Gallery
1030 Metropolitan Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11211

CULT | Aimee Friberg Exhibitions is pleased to present Still Life, Rhonda Holberton’s third solo exhibition with the gallery, on view from April 6 – June 2, 2018 at Transfer Gallery, NY.

Still Life features a networked video installation, prints rendered from augmented reality, immersive wallpaper constructed from bump map imaging, and gold mined from the California landscape. The installation peels back multiple layers of material translation to reveal a displaced human body within contemporary systems of value creation.
As the title Still Life suggests, this exhibition utilizes material and process to transgress the boundary between stillness and life. Materials run the gamut from gold dust and mosquitoes, to psychic readings and mannequins salvaged from the American Apparel bankruptcy liquidation. These objects are not simply things in themselves. Rather, they carry a coded memory of their personal, material, and cultural relations. The works weave together to form a narrative documenting the artist’s attempts to make sense of the corporeal body within a dematerialized landscape.
Artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, and blockchain accounting are already destabilizing the role of the body in manufacturing, transportation, finance, and communication. Holberton’s investigations attempt to recover the value of the biological body through labor and material transformation.

Holberton explains, “I wanted to insert my body into a local system that indexes a much larger system, what Timothy Morton would call a hyperobject, something too large and complicated to be understood by a single human processor. The works represent my attempts to engage corporeally within a global metabolism represented in concepts of the Anthropocene and Capitalocene- to pull value out of the system through direct physical labor.”

Today, the technology boom of Silicon Valley parallels last century’s gold rush; both activities belong to a similar narrative circumscribed by masculine entrepreneurial ideology. Similarly it’s hard not to think about the mosquito without thinking of the virus, currently one closely associated with fertility and as index of a changing climate. These works offer a reminder that while the bio-technical divide grows ever more transparent, we are still very much dependent on the ‘six-inch layer of topsoil, and the fact that it rains.’

http://www.rhondaholberton.com
http://cultexhibitions.com/
http://transfergallery.com/

Boston, 24-27 September 2018

iPres 2018 – where art and science meet: the art in science and the science in art

iPRES 2018 – Where Art and Science Meet – The Art In the Science & The Science In the Art of Digital Preservation – will be co-hosted by MIT Libraries and Harvard Library on September 24-27, 2018.

Come celebrate the 15th conference with us at iPRES 2018 in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. We are pleased to announce that iPRES2018’s online registration is now open: https://ipres2018.org/registration. There are workshops and tutorials to sign up for, papers and panels, posters and demonstrations, and more. Watch for updates about the first digital preservation game room, original graphics, lightning sessions, and other programming.

Do note that early bird registration ends June 30. Please contact the registration team if you require any further information regarding your participation at this conference.

The theme for iPRES 2018: where art and science meet: the art in science and the science in art – aims to broaden the voices and approaches participating in the conference. iPRES brings together a broad array of practitioners, researchers, educators, providers, students, and others to share lessons learned from engaging in digital preservation, including recent research, developments, and innovations. MIT Libraries and Harvard Library are co-hosting the conference is in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts on September 24-27, 2018.

The iPRES 2018 Organizing Team seeks contributions that tell stories about bridging knowledge gaps in teams, implementing technologies, and overcoming barriers towards proper digital stewarding of digital items, assets, works and collections. Be creative. Be inspiring. Be inclusive. In keeping with the theme, we will embrace creative proposals that demonstrate how research and theory directly impact and influence practice at all levels.

Important Dates

Optional Abstracts: We encourage authors to submit papers abstracts to receive feedback on your proposal prior to submitting your paper. The iPRES 2018 Organizing Team will provide feedback to submitters for abstracts received between 15 February and 20 March.
Papers: Full papers for peer review are due by 15 April.
- Submitters will receive review comments by 15 May.
- Revised papers with revisions that address reviewer comments are due 15 June.
Other peer-reviewed contributions: proposals for posters and demonstrations, workshops and tutorials, and panels are due 15 April.
Non-peer reviewed contributions: digital preservation games, original graphics, and lightning talks will not be submitted through EasyChair. These contributions will be due beginning in May – watch for details.
Post-conference revisions: Authors are encouraged to update their papers based on discussions during the conference. These will be due by October 31.

See iPres2018.org for the full text of the Call for Contributions and submission instructions.

See iPres2018.org for the full text of the Preliminary Call for Contributions.

NPM is the first Asian museum to join the innovative Musebooks platform

National Palace Museum (Taipei) Digitizes Collection Publications with Musebooks

The National Palace Museum (NPM) in Taipei – the most visited art museum in Asia according to The Art Newspaper – has teamed up with Musebooks and will now put its priceless collections online with catalogues in an innovative digital format. The National Palace Museum (NPM) in Taipei is the first Asian museum to make its publications available through Musebooks, a Belgium-based start-up. Musebooks already works with MoMA New York, Thames & Hudson, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, and other museums and publishers around the world on the production of digital art books.
This international partnership, facilitated through Acer Inc., will bring the NPM’s priceless collections of Chinese artifacts to a European and US audience in an accessible and cutting-edge digital format. Musebooks is delighted to work with NPM publications and add Asian art to the platform’s current strengths in Old Masters and Modern art. NPM publications on Musebooks will be available in English with a selection also in Chinese. The first of these publications are already online and available to the public.

Previews
Splendors of the National Palace Museum: www.musebooks.world/eu/en/reading/preview/307
Landscape Reunited: www.musebooks.world/eu/en/reading/preview/303
Landscape Reunited (in Chinese): www.musebooks.world/eu/en/reading/preview/310

Contact
Sophia Rochmes, Managing Director of Art Partnerships
sophia.rochmes @ musebooks.world | +32 485.42.39.69
www.musebooks.world | www.facebook.com/musebooksworld

About Musebooks: The Musebooks format is the first digital reading experience specially designed for art books. Unlike the traditional ebook format, which is not suited for image-heavy books, a musebook allows readers to zoom in on images at high resolutions and to easily switch between 3 different reading modes: text view, image view, and page view. Musebooks are stored in the reader’s personal cloud library and are accessible on all devices via a web browser or the free Musebooks app available for Apple and Android.
Video intro to Musebooks (1min): http://video.musebooks.world/

About the National Palace Museum: The NPM in Taipei is one of the top 10 most visited art museums in the world (#1 in Asia), with attendance of over 4.6 million people per year. A leader among museums, the NPM has used digitization to increase the public’s access to its collection of nearly 700,000 Chinese artifacts. The NPM website offers educational videos, open data and image downloads, and the museum partnered with Acer in 2015 to create its first e-books for purchase online.