This panel will examine curatorial practice within a post- disciplinary framework; with a particular focus on the “liveliness” of media art objects and practices that situate themselves across, between and after disciplines. Bringing together curators of new media, as well as scholars work- ing within art/science frameworks the panel will explore the implications of such objects and practices for the future of museums, galleries and other cultural organizations as sites of knowledge production.
Over the past few years the panel conveners, Dr. Lizzie Muller and Dr. Caroline Langill have been conducting re- search around the “liveliness” of media art objects in exhi- bition contexts. This investigation, which has been funded by a SSHRC Insight Development grant, has its roots in theories of media art aesthetics and audience experience, but connects with the increasingly influential discourses of vital materialism and object oriented ontology. The grow- ing acknowledgement of the vitality and agency of things productively disrupts media art theory and curatorial ap- proaches. It challenges the specialness of media arts’ claims around categories such as interactive, responsive, autonomous and generative art. Simultaneously it allows for an expanded field of enquiry and exchange in which media art can escape its exhibitionary ghetto and form pro- ductive and provocative connections with an unlimited world of lively objects.
The panel will present the outcomes of a 3-day curatori- al research workshop, taking place at The Banff Centre in the week prior to ISEA 2015. This workshop, held as part of the Banff International Curatorial Institute program is planned to compliment the ISEA program and to capitalize
Caroline Langill
OCADU Toronto, Canada clangill@ocadu.ca
on ISEA’s international community of media art practi- tioners. The workshop will consider the notion of lively objects - including, but not limited to media art works - and their potential for disrupting the mono-disciplinary struc- tures of the exhibitionary complex. It will examine the agency of such objects within curatorial practice and audi- ence experience, and ask how we might reconsider modes and venues of display in response to this agency.
Sixteen participants will attend the Banff workshop and the following selected presenters will speak about their own work as well as reporting on the dialogue that oc- curred in Banff:
