[spectre] ANN: Innovative Tools for Media Art Research

[Image Science]

INNOVATIVE TOOLS FOR MEDIA ART RESEARCH


New Project Funded by the Austrian Science
Fund (FWF)


 


Innovative tools for the image sciences are being developed
by “Interactive Archive and Meta-Thesaurus for Media Art Research
(AT.MAR),” a
project led by Professor Oliver GRAU, Chair of Image Sciences. It is the
first large
FWF project of this category at the Danube University. A “Thesaurus
Bridge”
will be developed, which will enable comparative study of image
phenomena from
the Renaissance to the present day.


Media Art is growing in importance in our society. This is
undoubtedly due to its potential for illuminating complex relationships
of our
time, such as globalisation, the image and media revolution, the
influence of
new technologies on our society’s view of human beings, or environmental
crises, in a unique way. This is clearly evidenced by the growing number
of
biennials, festivals, and conferences devoted to or featuring Media Art.
Frequently, however, digital artworks cannot be exhibited after a few
years due
to changing hard and software; this means that these artworks may be
lost
forever to our digitally based societies. In order to contextualise and
integrate such works in our cultural and scientific institutions they
need to
be studied in depth, but this is currently not being done. 


Goal of the FWF project, which commences in February 2013 at
the Department of Image Sciences, is to develop an interactive and
globally
networked online tool to support theoretical analysis of the image
revolution
that is underway and to improve the precarious situation of Media Art
Research.
The project will develop an entirely new kind of thesaurus, which will
function
as a bridge between Media Art and historical image genres, from the
Renaissance
to contemporary art. By linking the DATABASE OF VIRTUAL ART (DVA) with
the GRAPHISCHE
SAMMLUNG GÖTTWEIG (GSSG) using this meta-thesaurus it will be possible
to
analyse systematically the afterlife of art historical themes in
contemporary
Media Art. Further, it will be possible to identify not only
developments, but
also discontinuities.


As pioneer in the field, the collective Database of Virtual
Art (DVA) has been documenting rapidly evolving digital installation art
since 1999.
Artists, and at this point an additional 280 theorists and
mediaarthistorians,
are members of the collective DVA-Archive. The DVA is based on the
“concept of
expanded documentation.” Currently it contains thousands of work
descriptions
and digital documents, videos, technical data, institutions and
bio-bibliographical information. As one of the richest resources online
the scientific project was from it’s beginning a university based
endeavour. Only artists with at least 5 exhibitions and/or articles on
their
oeuvre are represented in the archive. Beside that, recommendations are
made by
the advisory board: Roy ASCOTT, Beryl, GRAHAM, Erkki HUHTAMO, Jorge LA
FERLA,
Gunalan NADARAJAN, Christiane PAUL and Martin ROTH.


Research assistants on the project are Christian BERNDT, PhD
and Valerie KUMMER, MA. 


Further posts will be opened shortly.


The project is funded until 2016.


In advance of the project a declaration was adopted in Liverpool,
which in the meantime has been signed by over 400 international
scholars,
academics, gallery and museum people, and artists.


http://www.mediaarthistory.org/decalaration