Art in DataSpace

Symposium 2019: Inside the Data Room / A Digitology of the Art Space

Liechtenstein Brunch
11:00 – 12.30

Symposium
12.30 – 17:00

One performance, three conversations, and a brunch. Join us in Venice on May 11 at Museo Correr, Piazza San Marco!

Digital Natives

Performance by Martina Morger and Wassili Widmer

Conversation 1: Art in Times of Algorithmic Governance

Lev Manovich and Ben Vickers in conversation Host: Sabine Himmelsbach

Conversation 2: The Incomputable Space – Another Future for the Museum

A trialogue between Geert Lovink, Antonia Majača and Vladimir Jerić Vlidi

Code and Gaze: Visuality in the Digital Agora / Public Space

Remarks by Sybille Krämer and Bernard Stiegler Questions by Georg Schöllhammer

PROGRAMME

Liechtenstein Brunch and Symposium 
Museo Correr, Venice

11:00 Brunch

12.15 Welcoming remarks by Janine Köpfli, Government of the Principality of Liechtenstein, and Friedemann Malsch, Director, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein

12.30 Performance Digital Natives
 / Martina Morger and Wassili Widmer

13:00 Art in Times of Algorithmic Governance – Lev Manovich and Ben Vickers in conversation
 / Host: Sabine Himmelsbach

14:00 The Incomputable Space – Another Future for the Museum – A trialogue between Geert Lovink, Antonia Majača and Vladimir Jerić Vlidi

15:30 Code and Gaze: Visuality in the Digital Agora / Public Space – Remarks by Sybille Krämer and Bernard Stiegler / Questions by Georg Schöllhammer

16:30 Closing Remarks and Farewell

‘Liechtenstein Pavilion’ by visarte.liechtenstein

SPEAKERS AND ARTISTS

Sabine Himmelsbach has been since March 2012 the director of HeK (House of Electronic Arts), Basel. In 1999 she became exhibition director at the ZKM (Center for Art and Media), Karlsruhe. From 2005–2011 she was the artistic director of the Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art, Oldenburg, Germany. As a writer and lecturer Himmelsbach is dedicated to topics related to media art and digital culture.

Sybille Krämer was Professor of Philosophy at the Free University, Berlin, until April 2018, and has been a Senior Professor at Leuphana University, Lüneburg, since March 2019. She has worked and published on Media-Philosophy, Language-Theory and Digitality as Cultural Technique. Her writings have been translated into English, French, Italian, Hungarian, Czech, Japanese and Chinese.

Geert Lovink is a media theorist, internet critic and author. In 2004 he founded the Institute of Network Cultures at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. His centre organizes conferences, publications and research networks. Lovink’s recent projects deal with digital publishing and the future of art criticism.

Antonia Majača is a curator and writer based in Berlin. She leads the FWF-funded research project ‘Incomputable’ at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Graz University of Technology. She recently co-curated Parapolitics – Cultural Freedom and the Cold War at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin and teaches theory at the Dutch Art Institute.

Lev Manovich is a leading international theorist of digital culture and a pioneer in the application of data science for the analysis of contemporary culture. He is the author and editor of thirteen books and Professor of Computer Science at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, and a Director of the Cultural Analytics Lab, which pioneered analysis of visual culture using computational methods.

Martina Morger and Wassili Widmer are multimedia artists focusing on performance art. As a duo, they explore bodies in digital space and the understanding of linguistic processes; they also curate the performance festival Stereoskop.

Georg Schöllhammer is an editor, author, curator and editor-in-chief of the magazine springerin: Hefte für Gegenwartskunst, Vienna, which he co-founded in 1995. Schöllhammer is head of tranzit.at. He has published widely on contemporary art, architecture and theory, especially on urban and cultural transformation. He has lectured at major and minor arts institutions, academies, universities and self-organized spaces at the centres and peripheries of various art worlds.

Bernard Stiegler is a philosopher based in Paris. He is head of the Institut de recherche et d’innovation, which he founded in 2006 at the Centre Georges Pompidou. Stiegler has a long-term engagement with the relationship between technology and philosophy, not only in a theoretical sense, but also situating them in industry and society as practices.

Ben Vickers is a curator, writer, explorer, publisher, technologist and Luddite. He is CTO at the Serpentine Galleries, London, co-founder of Ignota Books and an initiator of the open-source monastic order unMonastery.

Vladimir Jerić Vlidi is a media researcher, editor and author based in Belgrade, associated with various different groups, collectives and organizations from the field of art, media, social activism and technology. He is currently engaged with research and the production of critical texts and translations from the fields of media theory, social theory and artistic practice. More on networkfailure.net.

WHY THIS SYMPOSIUM NOW?

Digitalization increasingly encroaches on reality and has a more profound impact on art spaces. Whatever the outcome of the current debate between the defenders of the analogue and the apologists of the digital, the fact remains: machines and algorithms are not only taking over the distribution of images and objects, but increasingly their very form. The old games of object and space, artwork and viewer, presence and absence in the exhibition space – even the very act of seeing – are now faced with new challenges.

Some claim that nothing truly special or extraordinary is happening, and that this is the (almost) expected continuation of the various ways in which humanity previously progressed. But these voices are in growing discord with how the majority now feels: the scope, depth and speed of current transformations produce the sense of witnessing a decisive turning point. The reactions vary from enthusiasm to depression, from panic to paralysis; such polarization is (once again) being particularly visible in the art world.

What does digitalization mean for the work of artists and curators? How does it affect the exhibition space, the form of exhibits and performativity of the audience?

If digitized, algorithmic thinking is based upon establishing averages, pursuing the goals of optimization and efficiency – but what does that mean for art? What happens to art thinking, to artistic ability to convey and distribute different forms of knowledge? Will the emergence of computing-driven real-time culture leave any room for criticism and reflection? How can we counter the technological regimes of the digital with a practice that is productive? What new understanding of the museum as a place of active reflection and participation do we need – if any – to address these transformations?

Please join us for a brunch on Saturday, May 11, the opening day of the Venice Biennale! International experts from the world of art and theory will discuss these and other pressing questions in a series of dialogues and a performance by Martina Morger and Wassili Widmer at Museo Correr, San Marco, Venice.

#ARTINDATASPACE INFO POINT

Dear all, thank you for the great interest!
Please find below the audio, foto and video documentation of the event.

Art in DataSpace - AUDIO

Art in DataSpace - VIDEO

Art in DataSpace - FOTO

THE READER!

Editors: Friedemann Malsch, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, 2019

Language: English

Dimensions: A5 softcover

61 pages

Location

Museo Correr
San Marco, 52
30124 Venice

Google Directions

Museo Correr
San Marco, 52
30124 Venice
Entrance: St. Mark’s Square, Napoleonic Wing, Monumental Staircase

Please RSVP, seating is limited: info@kunstmuseum.li

Curated by
Georg Schöllhammer

In collaboration with
visarte.liechtenstein | www.visarte.li

Commissioned by
Government of the Principality of Liechtenstein

Project Management
Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein

Supported by
Kulturstiftung Liechtenstein

Special thanks to
Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia
Museo Correr
San Marco 52, 30124 Venezia