Video Matters

A Conference by the research project Video Archive
Ludwig Forum for International Art, Aachen

The conference reflects on current challenges in the documentation, care and presentation of time-based art. The interest which museums and cultural heritage institutions have shown in this art form in the course of the last decades has been accompanied by technical changes and technological obsolescence, both of which have become fundamental issues for collections. Digitization as an archiving tool has strongly influenced the way of handling video and other media. Diverging opinions have surfaced both in the discussion on how best to ensure the survival of such endangered works and concerning modes of presentation, ranging from reconstruction to re-invention.

Three interdisciplinary rounds of discussions (the archive, the collection, the exhibition) will bring together professionals from Europe and the US to give an opportunity to present their projects to an interested audience and to evaluate their thoughts and concerns in shared debates among colleagues. The conference concludes with the 4th edition of “Archiving Media Art: Politics and Strategies”, a round table by GAMA (The Gateway of Archives of Media Art), an international knowledge and project sharing group.

This event is organized within the framework of the research project Video Archive, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and devoted to the scholarly reappraisal and presentation of the Ludwig Forum’s historical video collection. In cooperation with Prof. Ursula Frohne / University of Cologne and the Center for Arts and Media ZKM, Karlsruhe.

Admission to the event is free. Please register at miriam.lowackmail.aachen.de
The conference language is English.

Research Project Video Archive
Brigitte Franzen, Jenny Dirksen, Lou Jonas, Miriam Lowack, Anna Sophia Schultz

PROGRAM

Thu, 24/09/2015

9.30 am: Welcome, Brigitte Franzen (Aachen)

9.45 am: Introduction, Miriam Lowack and Lou Jonas (Aachen)

10.30 am: Keynote Lecture by Jon Ippolito (Orono, ME), Digital Preservation in the Age of the Selfie

11.00 am: Coffee Break

- The Archive –

Given its dependence on technology, time-based media require specific care and documentation. Starting from practical and conceptual observations encountered when archiving media art, this panel addresses a set of issues including sustainable strategies for preservation, creating meaning from the documentation process, and possibilities of opening up the archive.
Moderator: Kati T. Kivinen (Helsinki)

11.20 am: Christoph Blase (Karlsruhe), The preservation of the video archive Ludwig Forum Aachen

11.40 am: Lori Zippay (New York), The archive of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI)

12.00 pm: Gaby Wijers (Amsterdam), Media art conservation at Living Media Art Foundation (LIMA)

12.20 pm: Johannes Gfeller (Bern), The research project AktiveArchive

12.40 pm: Break

2.00 pm: Debate

- The Collection –

Both a continuation and a divergence from the Archive section, the Collection panel reflects on the specifics of managing time-based media collections from the perspectives of museums, exhibition spaces and distributors of video art, taking into account their respective histories and developments.

Moderator: Alice Koegel (Stuttgart)

3.20 pm: Kathrin Becker (Berlin), The collection of the Video-Forum at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.)

3.40 pm: Renate Buschmann (Duesseldorf), The imai Foundation - Between Archive and Collection

4.00 pm: Coffee Break

4.20 pm: Sofie Ruysseveldt (Brussels), The collection of ARGOS Centrum voor Kunst en Media

4.40 pm: François Michaud (Paris), The Third Dimension of Video Works: the collection of Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris

5.00 pm: Debate

6.20 pm: Break

8.00 pm: Get-together

9.00 pm: Screening of “The Ugly One” by Eric Baudelaire

Fri, 25/09/2015

9.00 am: Introduction, Jenny Dirksen (Aachen)

- The Exhibition –

Time-based art is presented in diverse contexts such as exhibitions, festivals, screenings, and the web. Which opportunities and requirements do those formats entail, and is there a middle ground between a historically informed exhibition practice and re-invention strategies for exhibiting time-based art?

Moderator: Ursula Frohne (Cologne)

9.20 am: Keynote Lecture by Barbara London (New York) who explores how video monitors and installations turned the white cube gallery on its head

9.50 am: Eric C.H. de Bruyn (Amsterdam), The Séance: The Screening as Performative Event

10.10 am: Greg de Cuir Jr. (Belgrade), Curating video and the burden of (technological) representation

10.30 am: Coffee Break

11.00 am: Keynote Lecture by Bettina Knaup (Berlin), re.act.feminism – a performing archive

11.30 am: Artist Talk Deimantas Narkevičius (Vilnius) / Karina Nimmerfall (Berlin/Cologne)

12.00 pm: Debate

1.20 pm: Break

2.20-3.50 pm: GAMA round table “Networking for Media Art Archiving”, organized by Gaby Wijers

New media art archives are under constant threat of deterioration, obsolescence, inaccessibility and disrupted funding streams. How to bring these media art repositories into the future? The panel discusses possible collaboration models for academies, museums, distributors and festivals how to share knowledge and responsibility.

Moderator: Andreas Spiegl (Vienna)

With: Dieter Daniels (Leipzig), Ursula Frohne, Jon Ippolito and Gaby Wijers

http://ludwigforum.de/en/event/video-matters/
http://www.li-ma.nl/site/news/gama-round-table-archiving-media-art-ludwig-forum-aachen