At a time when the discussion about the impact of information technologies is deepening and expanding, the International Conference on Art, Museums and Digital Cultures aims to provide a space for the discussion of current issues and projects relating to the crossover between artistic practices and the institutional sphere, with a particular focus on art museums. How are museums, curators and artists themselves responding to the opportunities, but also the risks, of the so-called "digital transformation"?

The two-day programme will include plenary sessions with keynote speakers, as well as thematic sessions with the participation of other authors and researchers. At the end of each session there will be a debate open to audience participation.

PROGRAMME
[Lisbon Time Zone, GMT+1]

DAY 1 | 22 APRIL 2021

09:45 Access to the Conference

10:00 Opening Session
Welcome and Introduction: Joana Simões Henriques and Helena Barranha [PT]
Keynote Speakers: Ross Parry and Vince Dziekan – Critical Digital: Museums and their Postdigital Circumstance [UK, AU]

Debate

11:15 Coffee Break

11:30 Panel 01: Digital Art Practices
Keynote Speaker: Anna Ridler – Machine Learning and Art [UK]
Debate
Dejan Grba – Immaterial Desires: Cultural Integration of Experimental Digital Art Practices [SG/RS]
Myrto Aristidou and Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert – From the Artist’s Perspective: On the Longevity of VR/AR Artworks [CY]
Debate
Moderator: Nancy Diniz [UK]

13:00 Lunch Break | Online Guided Tour of the maat Exhibition Earth Bits — Sensing the Planetary

14:30 Parallel Session 1A: Hybrid Realities and Collaborative Practices
Pedro Alves da Veiga – The Everywhere Museum of Everything: The Curatorship Challenge [PT]
Dominik Bönisch – Suggestions for a Curator’s Machine: A Collaborative Approach to the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Art Museums [DE]
Charlie Tweed – Fictioning the Third Space [UK]
Debate

14:30 Parallel Session 1B: Museums and the Politics of Digital Transformation
Pablo von Frankenberg – Museum Media Metamorphosis [DE]
Janet Kraynak – The Guston Retrospective, the Museum and Self-Censorship: A New Iconoclasm for the Digital Age [US]
Marianna Charitonidou – Digital Technologies and the Spatial Organisation of Exhibitions: How Can Augmented and Virtual Reality Enhance Interactive Digital Interfaces? [CH]
Debate
Moderator: Rita Macedo

15:40 Coffee Break

16:00 Parallel Session 2A: Art, Science and Technology: New Objects, New Relations and New Issues
Brendan Ciecko – Neurological Perceptions of Art through Augmented and Virtual Realities [US]
Manuel Silva and Luís Teixeira – Immersive XR Technologies for Cultural Heritage in Museums [PT]
Nick Pozek – Big Tech and Cultural Heritage: Issues, Opportunities and Implications [US]
Debate
Moderator: João Nuno de Oliveira e Silva [PT]

16:00 Parallel Session 2B: Interactive Digital Interfaces and Exhibition Design
Heiko Schmid – Adversarial Interfaces [DE]
Catherine Toulouse and Dominik Lengyel – The Mediation of Design Principles by Interactive Information Technologies [FR]
Murat Germen – Transformation of Volume into Plane and Vice-Versa: Quest for Alternative Displays of Documentary Photography [TR]
Debate
Moderator: Alexandre Matos [PT]

17:10 Coffee Break

17:30 Panel 02: Technology, Memory and Change
George Legrady and Timo Honkela – Pockets Full of Memories (2001-2007): An Artwork Installation Integrating Data Collection and the Kohonen Self-Organising Artificial Neural-Network Algorithm [US]
John P. Bell, Jon Ippolito and Meredith Steinfels – Used to be Different, Now It's the Same? The Post-Pandemic Makeover of Museums [US]
Debate
Moderator: Harald Klinke [PT]

DAY 2 | 23 APRIL 2021

09:45 Access to the Conference

10:00 Introduction to Day 2
Joana Cunha Leal, Helena Barranha and Joana Simões Henriques [PT]
Keynote Speaker: Felix Stalder – The Digital Condition and the Reconstitution of the Public(s) [CH]
Debate

11:20 Coffee Break

11:30 Panel 03 – Alternative Ways of Curating, between Crisis and Collaboration
João Paulo Serafim – The Endless Task of Taxonomy [PT]
Annet Dekker – The Art of Curating Online [NL]
Jasmin Pfefferkorn – Collaboration in a Time of Crisis: Art Museums and Digital Solidarity [AU]
Morten Søndergaard – Museums in an Age of Posthuman Crisis: Biotechnics, Mediation and Meta-curating [DK]
Debate
Moderator: Juan Martín Prada [ES]

12:50 Lunch Break

14:30 Parallel Session 3A: Digital Technologies, Accessibility and Inclusion in Art Museums
Rotraut Krall, Moritz Neumüller and Andreas Reichinger – Accessibility through Participatory Research and Multisensory Technologies [AT]
Željka Miklošević – Making Museums Accessible through Digital Storytelling [HR]
Vanessa Cesário and Valentina Nisi – Collaborative Digital Storytelling: A Method for Museums to Engage Migrant Communities Around Cultural Heritage Topics [PT]
Rachel Augusto – Virtually Musealising Memories: COVID-19 through Storytelling at the Museum of the Person, in Brazil [BR]
Debate
Moderator: Maria Vlachou [PT]

14:30 Parallel Session 3B: Archives, Databases and Digital Preservation
Madalena Oliveira and Cláudia Martinho – Virtual Museums, New Media Arts and Sound Archives [PT]
Chiara Antico – Digitising Artefacts for Preservation: The Case of Music in Holocaust Memorial Museums [IT/PT]
Diego Mantoan – The Strange Urge and Recent Challenges to Contemporary Art Databases. Digitisation Practices and the Archive Development of Famous Artists’ Estates and Private Collections [IT]
Daniela Prado, Armanda Rodrigues, Nuno Correia, Rita Macedo and Sofia Gomes – ACOA:  Chronological Analysis of the Exhibition of Artistic Works [PT]
Debate
Moderator: Hélia Marçal [UK/PT]

16:00 Coffee Break

16:20 Parallel Session 4A: Museums on the Web after COVID-19: Online Representations and Narratives
Pedro Andrade – Big Knowledge on Cultures and Arts in our Viral Society. Sociological Tour Guides for Urban Citizens and Cultural Tourists Using Mobile Devices [PT]
Vanda Lisanti – How COVID-19 Changed the Digital Presence of Italian Museums: Comparing Influencer Marketing Attempts at the Uffizi Galleries and the Museums of Bologna [IT]
Cecilia Casas Desantes and Demian Ramos San Pedro – Cerralbo Museum, Madrid, 2020: Digital Exhibitions on a Limited Budget [ES]
Marina Pignatelli and Vitória Schincariol – Museums on the Web and the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of the Immigration Museum in São Paulo [BR]
Debate
Moderator: Ana Carvalho [PT]

16:20 Parallel Session 4B: Práticas Artísticas e Curatoriais em Rede | Networked Artistic and Curatorial Practices [Session in Portuguese with Simultaneous Translation into English]
José Oliveira – Computer Art em Portugal? Uma Breve História de Exposições e Crítica de Arte nos Anos 1970 [Computer Art in Portugal? A Short History of Related Exhibitions and Art Criticism in the 1970s] [PT]
Priscila Arantes – Processos Curatoriais em Ambiente Virtual: Práticas e Contextos dos Anos 1980 [Curatorial Processes in the Network Environment: Practice and Contexts from the 1980s] [BR]
Joana Baião and Sofia Carvalho – Projetos Artísticos e Museus Virtuais, entre o Analógico e o Digital: Estudo de caso do Catálogo Raisonné Graça Morais [Virtual Museums and Art Projects, between the Analogue and the Digital: Case-Study of the Catalogue Raisonné Graça Morais] [PT]
Maria de Fátima Lambert – Viagens “curadas” em Registo – Maria Graham e Dora Wordsworth [Curating Registered Journeys – Maria Graham and Dora Wordsworth] [PT]
Debate
Moderator: Pablo Gobira [BR]

17:40 Coffee Break

17:50 Closing Session
Helena Barranha and Joana Simões Henriques

This conference is a collaboration between maat – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology and the Institute of Art History, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, within the context of the Art, Museums and Digital Cultures cluster.
Partner institution: Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon
Sponsor: Millennium bcp Foundation
Media partner: Umbigo

Registration: https://museumdigitalcultures.weebly.com/registration.html