Webinar series: What matters for virtual museums?
The three-part webinar series What matters for virtual museums? aims to promote the exchange between museums and art institutions on topics relating to the possibilities for the museological presentation of digital content in physical and virtual exhibition spaces. Aimed at establishing a foundation of shared knowledge about technical and creative solutions, their function, as well as the skills required for their implementation, this webinar brings international museum professionals together for a discussion on current software and hardware solutions for mediation and outreach. We invited practitioners to present an innovative digital project that has been, or is being implemented at their institutions. These case studies will be discussed in break-out sessions.
The online webinars are free to attend, please indicate your preferred webinars in a preference list when registering at INFO@BEYONDMATTER.EU
Language: English
March 2, 4:00 – 7:00 pm CET
Virtual Museum Platforms and Strategies for Online Mediation
The adoption of the new ICOM museum definition aligns with the major changes in the role of museums and their functions today and underlines the profound transformation that the museum as an institution has undergone over the last 20 years. There is seemingly no end in sight, since the museum field is also a society within a society that experiencing constant change. Particularly digital media and the internet promise to profitably promote and support this change. Peter Weibel, artistic-scientific director of the ZKM | Karlsruhe, recently called for museums to further expand their online presence in order to become the better version of Netflix. The underlying criticism refers to contemporary methods of preparing, structuring, and presenting online content, but also addresses the relating structural challenges that many museums have not yet been able adequately manage, something that became even more apparent during the Corona pandemic. The tendency points towards museum visits that begin long before the actual entry into the physical museum and can continue after a museum visit, or even takes place entirely online. This requires ideas and concepts for virtual platforms that combine a wide variety of purposes, represent museums, convey information, but can also serve as an extended exhibition space and knowledge sphere all at the same time. The parameters that are decisive for the design of the user interface of such platforms will be explored in this workshop.
INVITED PRESENTERS:
don.xyz (newart.city)
Véronique Paradis (SAT – Society for Arts and Technology Montreal)
Ugo Pecoraio (HEK Basel)
Tanja Schomaker and Jaqueline Seeliger (Lenbachhaus Munich)
March 27, 4:00 – 7:00 pm CEST
Hard- and Software for a Hybrid Museum Experience
Digital interfaces in the exhibition space have been an integral part of the scenography of many museums for several years now. However, these interfaces are mostly used to better communicate and contextualize exhibits. The hybridization of digital and physical spaces will presumably continue to progress in the future and influence the museum experience of visitors, as well as the internal structures of the institution itself. The course of this development depends not least on current approaches: How can museums respond to the increasing production of digital artworks, experiences, and games that being brought onto the scene by a multitude of new actors? How can this content be made accessible, what interfaces between the physical and the digital have already been produced and how do they work? As part of the project Beyond Matter, an installation was developed for the museum space that integrates virtual spaces into physical exhibitions and thus generates a multi-sensory, immersive experience. The so-called Immaterial Display serves as a conceptual starting point with which the workshop participants can contextualize further case studies and, starting from this discursive basis, formulate a catalogue of requirements for digital scenographic elements.
INVITED PRESENTERS:
Roland Haring (Ars Electronica Futurelab, Linz)
Lily Díaz-Kommonen (Department for Media, Aalto University Helsinki)
David Weigand (Futurium Berlin)
Carlotta Broggi (CCCB: Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona)
Patrick Keller (fabric | ch)
May 11, 4:00 – 7:00 pm CEST
Next Steps towards a Multidimensional Art Institution
The idea of a metaverse that holds the potential to interconnect a wide range of digital areas of activity and enables physical and virtual realities to steadily converge, harbors promising prospects for the museum field as well. As non-profit organisations, museums have a duty to help shape democratic, equitable and accessible spaces and to pursue decentralized approaches accordingly. The aim of the workshop is based on current concepts and realized case studies that have been previously introduced in the workshops, and to jointly draft possible future scenarios on the basis of which potentials, but also critical aspects, are to be discussed. Necessities differ not only from museum to museum, but also from visitor to visitor, as do the technical and social circumstances. How can museums contribute to shaping the digital realm to be open and versatile spaces for learning, playing, and experimenting? And how can they continue to embody their social function while also fostering an online presence?
INVITED PRESENTERS:
Klaas Kuitenbrouwer (Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam)
Alina Fuchte and Marina Bauernfeind (nextmuseum.io)
Teresa Darian (Kulturstiftung des Bundes – dive in funding program)
