monthly lectures
Kunst & Kunsttheorie

Abstract

Curating digital art seems quite an adventure given the wide set of used visual languages, messages, themes, narratives, online and offline projects, coding and often changing perspectives. Now that the term ‚Post internet Art‘ is almost 15 years old, it’s interesting to look back on how exhibition builders, curators and museums were and are dealing with the subject. Especially in periods where there is a growing interest in older Net Art, while in the meantime AI generated art, NFT’s an other digital art forms are the talk of the town in media, fairs or festivals. Parallel to that, museums and exhibitions spaces all over the world are trying to foster new audiences due to disappointing visitor numbers and the fact that newer generations are dropping out of traditional cultural consumption. To tackle the latter researchers as Patt Villeneuve and Ann Love (Florida State University) are suggesting a more participative and audience oriented praxis for museums and curators with a four dimensional model. Based on exhibitions projects that I curated as ‚SCREEN IT‚, ‚ME, MYSELF & I‚ and the upcoming ‚CTRL-X‘, I will discuss these challenges and methods of multidimensional curating within the context of digital art, relationships with artist (and art works), audience development & how artists and researchers can team up in creating art works.

Info

Pieter Jan Valgaeren is a curator, researcher and lecturer. From his background in art history and law he specialized in new media, hybrid art forms, technology and intellectual property. He published on different topics such as IP rights in the digital age, social media, media philosophy and art in the public domain. In the past years he worked as a consultant for the EU in Art and Technology and gave lectures in at Universities in Berlin, Valetta, Tilburg and Madrid. As a curator he worked on the intersection of art & law (TRADEMARKS festival) and on art & technology SCREEN IT festival (on the impact of our screen culture on digital art) and ‚Me, myself and I‘ (on the selfportrait in digital art). Currently, he is preparing ‚Ctrl-X‘ for Alt +1000 festival in Switzerland (on the representation of landscapes in digital art). In his presentation he will deal with conceptualizing and representing digital arts in exhibitions and festivals, translating and mediation of post-internet art to wider audiences and the position of digital arts in the current art world.