[rohrpost] Media Art needs global networked Organisation & Support : Sign the Declaration

[Oliver Grau]

After Re:Wire the forth international Media Art History Conference held
this October in Liverpool
International Artists and Scholars published a Declaration for
international and sustainable 
Support for Media Art Research, Documentation and Preservation          
  

To add your signature go to      www.mediaarthistory.org


MEDIA ART NEEDS GLOBAL NETWORKED ORGANISATION & SUPPORT – International
Declaration                

State of Affairs

Digital technology has fundamentally changed the way art is made. Over
the last forty years, Media Art has become a significant part of our
networked information society. Although there are well-attended
international festivals, collaborative research projects, exhibitions
and database documentation resources, Media Art research is still
marginal in universities, museums and archives. It remains largely
under-resourced in our core cultural institutions.

As a result of rapid changes in technology, many major works made even
10 years ago can no longer be shown or are disappearing without a trace.
If this situation is not addressed, we face losing an art form that is a
central part of our post-industrial digital culture. To date, systematic
global preservation and documentation campaigns do not exist.
Many important online documentation and research projects are also
disappearing from the web. As they falter, we risk losing their valuable
material forever. Contemporary scientific research relies on access to
shared data. The same is true of the Arts and Humanities, which lack a
concerted international policy for sustainability and support of the
digital heritage, such as exists partly in the natural sciences.

Several science disciplines have developed large collective projects to
address the challenges and opportunities of our time by way of networked
digital environments, based on a sustainable and international support
structure. International Media Art research needs similar global
organisation and collaboration.

Goals

a.) Establish international and sustainable funding structures
Therefore it is essential to establish international and sustainable
funding structures that can guarantee the persistence of these valuable
resources, and to make use of networked collaboration to archive key
data in a cooperative process of knowledge transfer between artists,
institutions and researchers internationally. While many nations are
devoting funds for interdisciplinary e-research, we urgently need global
networked collaboration in Media Art research.
Such an international structure/alliance needs the actively supported
membership of media art organisations, archives and individuals. It
should be supported with adequate funding and expertise from the
existing networks of funding agencies, archives, online initiatives and
research institutions.

b.) Supporting an International Association/Institution for Shared Data
We urgently need global networked collaboration in Media Art research
across the aforementioned networks. We need as many bridges into society
as possible: archives, conferences, text repositories, collective
database documentation, and preservation.

This alliance will promote collaboration and advocate the
sustainability, understanding and appreciation of media art heritage by:
·      Recognizing and building upon existing knowledge and resources
·      Providing and fostering channels of communication
·      Enabling the international research community to
create/upload/access data to be shared.
·      Encouraging peer exchange and addressing the new challenges of
Media Art
·      Developing scientific technologies for documentation and
preservation of Media Art
·      Providing inspiration and resources for curators, artists,
scholars, educators and audiences
·      Supporting the Media Art History network, its conference series,
text repositories and scientific publications
·      Promotion of new ways of understanding media art, science,
technology and its histories
Only when we develwill we be able to fulfill the task that digital culture and its
research demands of us in the 21st Century.
 
Signing Instructions
Governments, universities, research institutions, researchers, artists,
academics, funding agencies, foundations, libraries, museums, archives,
learned societies and professional associations who share the vision
expressed in this Declaration are invited to join the signatories that
have already signed the Declaration.

Chair. Prof. Dr. Sean CUBITT, Winchester School of Art, Southampton, UK
Chair. Prof. Dr. Oliver GRAU, Image Science, Danube University Krems,
Austria
Chair. Prof. Dr. Ross HARLEY, COFA, University of New South Wales,
Sydney, Australia
Prof. Dr. Christiane PAUL,The New School, New York, USA
Prof. Dr. Diana DOMINGUES, Universidade de Brasília, Brazil
Prof. Lanfranco ACETI, Goldsmiths and Sabanci University, UK / Turkey
Prof. Dr. Frieder NAKE, University of Bremen, Germany
Prof. Dr. h.c. Peter WEIBEL, Chairman and CEO ZKM | Center for Art and
Media Karlsruhe
Prof. Dr. Roy ASCOTT, University of Plymouth, UK
Dr. Andreas BROECKMANN, Director of the Leuphana Arts Program, Germany
Dr. Martin WARNKE, Leuphana University, Germany
Prof. Mike STUBBS, Director of FACT Liverpool, UK
Chair. Prof. Jeffrey SHAW, City University Hong Kong School of Creative
Media
Prof. Eduardo KAC, Arts Institute Chicago
Prof. Dr. Christa SOMMERER, Professor for Interface Culture, University
of Art and Design Linz, Austria
Prof. Dr. Laurent MIGNONNEAU, Professor for Interface Culture,
University of Art and Design Linz, Austria
Vanina HOFMAN, PhD; Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Founder of
Taxonomedia, Spain / Argentina
Ass. Prof. Ianina PRUDENKO, National Pedagogical Dragomanov University,
Kyiv, Ukraine.
Dr. Darko FRITZ, freelance curator, researcher and artist, Croatia /
Netherlands
Dr. Lisa GYE, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Anna MUNSTER, National Institute for Experimental Arts,
Sydney, Australia
Dr. Stephen JONES, Stephen Jones & Associates P/L (Video Conservation),
Sydney, Australia.
Dr. Andy WILLIAMSON, Digital Strategist and Commentator, UK
Winnie FU, Curator and Chairperson of Microwave International New Media
Arts Festival, Hong Kong
Prof. Stephen PARTRIDGE, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and
Design, University of Dundee, UK
Prof. Dr. Paul THOMAS, COFA, University of New South Wales, Sydney,
Australia
Adj. Prof. Alessandro LUDOVICO, Academy of Art Carrara, Editor in chief
of Neural magazine, Italy
Dr. Vince DZIEKAN, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Prof. Dr. Darren TOFTS, Swinburne University, Melbourne Australia
Prof. em. Itsuo SAKANE, Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences,
Tokyo, Japan
Prof. Dr. Lev MANOVICH, University of California, San Diego, USA
Prof. Dr. ZHANG Ga, The New School / Tsinghua University, US and China
Dr. Michele BARKER, COFA, University of New South Wales, Sydney,
Australia
Andreas LANGE, Director of the Computerspielemuseum, Berlin, Germany
Assoc. Prof. Nina CZEGLEDY, University of Toronto, Canada
Prof. Paul Alsina GONZÁLEZ, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain
Prof. Mikel ROTAECHE y GONZÁLEZ de Ubieta, Universidad Complutense de
Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain
Dr. Nelson VERGARA, National University of Colombia, Bogota, Colombia
Gabriela BALDOMÁ, Directora del Instituto de Investigación, Conservación
y Restauración de Arte Moderno y Contemporáneo, Argentina
Prof. Dr. Ryszard W. KLUSZCZYNSKI, University of Lodz, Poland
Dr. Raivo KELOMEES, Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn, Estonia
Dr. Mike LEGGETT, Creativity & Cognition Studios, University of
Technology, Sydney
Prof. Dr. Anne-Marie DUGUET, University of Paris 1, France
Prof. Dr. Will STRAW, Department of Art History and Communications
Studies, McGill University, Canada.
Steve DIETZ, President and Artistic Director of Northern Lights.mn, USA
Dmitry BULATOV, Curator at the National Center for Contemporary Arts,
Kaliningrad branch, Russia
Prof. Dr. Gunalan NBaltimore, USA
Ass. Prof. Maurice BENAYOUN, University Paris 8, France
Prof. Dr. Cleomar ROCHA, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, Brasil
Prof. Dr. Akihiro KUBOTA, Tama Art University, Tokyo, Japan
Andres BURBANO, PhD researcher at the University of California, Santa
Barbara, USA
Eric KLUITENBERG, Chief of Tactical Media Files, Chelsea College of Art
and Design, London
Prof. Dr. Edward A. SHANKEN, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Andreia MAGALHAES, PhD researcher at the Fine Arts Faculty, Porto,
Portugal
Prof. Dr. Felipe Cesar LONDOÑO, International Image Festival, University
of Caldas, Colombia.
Prof. Dr. Barbara Maria STAFFORD, Georgia Institute of Technology,
Atlanta, Ga.
Prof. em. Frank POPPER, University of Paris VIII, Paris, France
Ass. Prof. Dr. Caitlin FISHER, York University, Toronto, Canada
Prof. Dr. Timothy Conway MURRAY, Rose Goldsen Archiveof New Media Art,
Cornell University, New York
Prof. Dr. Douglas KAHN, National Institute forExperimental Arts,
University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Ass. Prof. Dr. Baruch GOTTLIEB, transmediale, Germany
Prof. Dr. Angel KALENBERG, Instituto Valenciano deArte Moderno (IVAM),
Spain
Rafael LOZANO-HEMMER B.Sc., Independent artist,Mexico, Madrid, Montreal
Paul BROWN, visiting professor, Centre for Computational Neuroscience
and Robotics, University of Sussex, UK
Predrag RISTIC, Gradina FM, Member (Macedonia).
Patrick LICHTY, Critical Artist and Theorist, Columbia College Chicago
Dr. Lewis KAYE, Sound artist; instructor, Dept. of Communication
Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada
Ass. Prof. Dejan GRBA, University of the Arts / Faculty of Fine Arts in
Belgrade, Serbia
Ass. Prof. Shane MECKLENBURGER, Art & Technology, The Ohio State
University Dept of Art, Columbus, OH
Dr. Martin E. ROSENBERG, Independent Scholar, Pittsburgh, PA USA
Prof. Mariela CANTU, Researcher, Curator. Founder of Arca Video
Argentino -On line Archive and Database of Argentinian Videoart-.
Universidad de La Plata/Universidad del Cine/Instituto Universitario
Nacional del Arte.
Ass. Dir. Sherry Miller HOCKING, Experimental Television Center, Owego,
NY, USA
Prof. Pier Luigi CAPUCCI, NABA, Milan; NoemaLab, Italy
Laura BERAZADI, Executive Director, InterAccess Electronic Media Arts
Centre, Toronto, Canada
Dr. Mikhail A. STEPANOV, Russian Institute for Cultural Research, St.
Petersburg, Russia
Dir. Helen SLOAN, SCAN, UK
Dr. Jussi PARIKKA, Winchester School of Art/University of Southampton
Jennifer Kanary NIKOLOVA, Artist, Researcher and Tutor, Gerrit Rietveld
Academie/University of Amsterdam
Po-Wei WANG, Art Critic, Curator, Representative of the Digital Art
Center, Taipei, Taiwan
Prof. Dr. Anna Maria GUASCH, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain.
Dr. Clarissa RIBEIRO, Director of The Double Collective, researcher at
ECA – USP / School of Communications and Arts, University of Sao Paulo,
Brazil
Dr. Dmitry GALKIN, Institute for Arts and Culture, Tomsk State
University, Russia
Assoc. Prof. Bent FAUSING, Aesthetics and Visual Communications in
Modern Media, University of Copenhagen, Director of the international
research program: Sensoric Image Science, Denmark
Dr. Suzana MILEVSKA, Art historian and Curator, Faculty of Fine Arts,
Skopje
Dr. Melentie PANDILOVSKI, Director, Video Pool Media Arts Centre,
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Nina SOSNA, Russian University for Humanities
Dr. Karin WENZ, Director of studies MA Media Culture, Maastricht
University
Dr. Emmanuelle LOUBET, New Media artist, sound creator, programmer and
web developer, researcher, Canada / Japan
Dr. Mathias FUCHS, University Potsdam/ Germany and University of Salford
, UK
Dr. Annette FINNSDOTTIR, Campus Køge bei Køge Business School,
Kopenhagen, Denmark
Prof. Raquel HERRERA, freelance new media teacher, researcher and
translator, IDEC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Prof. Mario COSTA, Director, ARTMEDIA c / o University of Salerno-Italy,
Italy
Ed TANNENBAUM, Independent media Arstist, Crockett, US
Karin KAROUSSOS, PhD Researcher and Independent Artist,AtNatale CUCINIELLO, Media Artist – Torre del Greco, 1946, Italy
Frank ANCEL, Independent Researcher, Paris, France
Prof. Peter MATUSSEK, Universität Siegen, Deutschland
Dr. Michael HOHL, Faculty of Art and Design, Bauhaus University Weimar
Dr. Chris MEIGH-ANDREWS, School of Art, Design & Performance, University
of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK
Dragana ZAREVSKA, Visual and performing arts practitioner and
researcher, Macedonia
Dr. Vince BRIFFA, Head of Department of Digital Arts, University of
Malta
Gudrun BIELZ, Artist, visiting artist at the Royal Academy of Arts,
London and PhD student University of Reading, UK.
Jens H. STRECK, computer scientist, University of Sussex, UK
Marisa OLSON, Artist, State University of New York, Purchase College
Prof. Simone MICHELIN, Coordinator Visual Arts/Sculpture, School of Fine
Arts, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Margit ROSEN, ZKM | Center for Art and Media
Dr. Daniel GIFILLAN, Arizona State University