Archiving the new media
Maximum obsolescence or digital permanence?
Keynote speakers
Raitis Smits Artist, curator and researcher on new media culture and networked arts, founder of E-Lab - electronic arts laboratory and RIXC - artist collective and new media cultural center in Riga
Jukka Savolainen, Director of Design Museum Helsinki
Perttu Rastas: "Archive media now, not when it’s obsolete!”
Founder of AV-arkki, the Distribution Centre for Finnish Media Art, Senior Planning Officer in the Collections Department, Finnish National Gallery
Ora Lassila , Semantic Web expert, technology architect at Pegasystems
Minna Tarkka, researcher, producer, critic and educator of media arts and design, director and co-founder of m-cult, centre for new media culture in Helsinki
Summary of topic
To archive means to set aside for preservation and an archive is a storage site where materials deemed worthy of remembrance are kept. The objective of this seminar/workshop is to examine major points related to the preservation of new media art and practices. We will focus on the phenomenon of maximum obsolescence that currently permeates the new media and our digital world with the objective to investigate the possibility of digital permanence.
Ours could be labelled as the era of the “new-new”. Constant and relentless change has become a way of life. A non-stop stream of new artefacts rapidly supersedes the cultural matter created within one generation. In this context, our objective during the three days of the seminar/workshop will be to ponder about this current state of existence in our Information Society.
Among the topics we would like to focus, from a new media perspective that includes both the technical and the theoretical are: What is change? How does it affect our own practices as cultural producers? Is change now a permanent condition of being in our digital culture? What drives it? Are there proactive ways – or strategies that could be devised – which could lead us to some kind of digital permanence? How does this continuous change affect both the creation of new media art and design works as well as their collection? How does this in turn affect our cultural memory?
Methods of work
We will have keynote presentations as well as work time in groups. In order to participate, you need to bring a project or aspects of a topic that you will present and work with during the three days.
Learning outcomes
Participants will identify key landmarks and strategies that enable them to create their own Map for Change that they can continue to develop for their own practices.
Participating
The seminar is open to Doctor of Arts and advanced Master of Arts students at Aalto University. Please send a 300 word abstract of your project or topic with your contact information and coordinates to Helinä Kuusela (helina.kuusela@aalto.fi) no later than 16th Nov 2015.
Schedule of activities
Day 1, Monday, 23 November
Location: Aalto Media Factory
13:00 Starting coffee served
13:30 Welcome speech
13:30 Initial organizing session. Participants present their work/projects.
14:30 Coffee break
15:00 Survey of the situation regarding the new media
16:00 Keynote presentation: Ora Lassila
17:00 End
19:00 Dinner TBC
Seminar Day 2, Tuesday 24 November
Location: Aalto Media Factory
10:00 Keynote presentation Raitis Smite
11:00 Begin work sessions
12:30 Lunch
13:30 Continue work sessions
15:00 Coffee break
15:30 Discussion of work being done
16:00 Keynote presentation: Jukka Savolainen
17:00 End
19:00 Dinner
Seminar Day 3, Wednesday 25 November
Location: Aalto Media Factory
10:00 Keynote presentation: Perttu Rastas
11:00 Presentation of work done
12:30 Lunch
13:30 Feedback session
15:00 Coffee break
15:30 END