Projections and visions of a media-technologized art in the 21st century
Resume
The first conference “Culture and Informatics,” an event organized by the Berlin University of Applied Sciences in cooperation with the Alcatel SEL Foundation and the Berlinische Galerie, met with an extraordinarily broad response. On May 20, 2005, fifteen renowned experts from the fields of art, culture and computer science gave lectures and discussed the topics of medial communication, digital art, new technologies, and art and culture in museums before an audience of 175 visitors.
The theses and questions raised by the speakers and participants on intercultural communication and aesthetics, on topics of economic globalization, but also on the demarcation of individual disciplines vis-à-vis computer science versus interdisciplinarity and transculturality led in part to very controversial discussions.
The conference was attended by teachers and students from all Berlin universities and various universities of applied sciences, numerous art and culture professionals, company representatives from the fields of design, media, architecture, advertising and technology (e.g. BMW AG, Alcatel AG, Innotech GmbH, Zetcom AG, Klangwerke, Art und Com AG ….), but also representatives from the Berlin Senate Administration and the Dutch Embassy.
Beyond regional interest, the conference attracted visitors from Austria (University of Salzburg, Salzburg University of Applied Sciences), Great Britain (Loughborough University), the Netherlands (University of Amsterdam), Portugal (ISEP Porto) and Finland (Turku Polytechnic). Journalistic interest in the conference came from the editorial staff of ZDF.heute and from Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, who were also accredited as visitors to the conference.
The results of the conference will be published in a conference volume, the presentations of the speakers are already available on these pages.
Profile of the conference
The aim of the conference “Culture & Informatics” was an analysis of the mutual influence of informatics and culture as well as an attempt to forecast development trends of this interaction. In a diverse museum setting, the conference examined how individual cultural areas have developed as a result of the influence of computer science, as well as how the processing and reception of historical and modern artistic culture have changed with information technology.
The range of individually considered cultural domains extended from the creative arts “visual arts, music, theater, film and media” to the aesthetics of everyday culture to archaeology, to a changed culture of research and teaching.
At the beginning of the lecture and discussion program, culturally overarching questions were first raised. The starting point was a reflection on the development of intercultural communication under the impact of technological progress, followed by a discussion of the effects of information technology tools on everyday aesthetics and a look at the development of art and design in the computerized society.
This was followed by a consideration of selected cultural domains, with contributions from artists, technicians, and scholars in the fields of theater, computer art, music, interactive media, virtual reality, and film.
The third section of the conference focused on the preparation and presentation for reception of historical objects of art and culture. Starting from information technology and multimedia in museums, the speakers shared their experiences with museum and archaeological information systems, showed trends in the development and preservation of cultural treasures.
Download: Programme KuI 2005