Panel Statement

Third Summit on New Media Art Archiving

Keywords: Archive, new media art, digital-based arts, panel, Connecting Archives project, world-wide network

Archiving media and digital art pose non-trivial challenges to everyone involved in the art process. Operating and cooperating on different continents, Anna Frants, Janine Randerson, Alexandra Dementieva, and Natalia Kolodzei will share their experiences with archiving and documenting new media while searching for a sustainable global platform for archiving processes and ways of collaboration among transnational institutions. Panelists will discuss how the artist, the curator, and the institution that organizes digital art exhibitions and events reason at each stage of the archival process: from the artist’s conception to the recording in the conditional archive card, to contemplating on the ways of preserving the digital art heritage.

The possibilities of a unified digital art archive, such as the Connecting Archives project, are significant. Addressing the interoperability of analog archives, and reconsidering and bridging binaries regarding the global ‘centers’ of new media art practice versus the so-called ‘periphery’ are other essential issues to be discussed. It is also important to focus on users’ expectations from such an archive and how to improve the experience of such an archive on both sides – authors and users.

The panel discussion is focused on the speakers’ exchange of knowledge and practical experience, each of whom looks at the problem of preserving and presenting digital-based art from her special perspective. Ultimately, the panelists will outline points of contact by which the easiest and most comfortable path to preservation and representation can be established for all interested parties.

• Alexandra Dementieva is multidisciplinary artist, professor at Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels, Belgium. In her installations, she uses various art forms on an equal basis: dance, music, cinema and performance. Akin to an explorer she raises questions related to social psychology and theories of perception suggesting solutions to them by contemporary artistic means. Dementieva received the first prize for the best mono-channel video at VAD Festival (Girona, Spain). Dementieva is an author of multiple publications (including Leonardo Journal) and organized and contributed to symposiums and panel discussions (including hosting The Leonardo / LASER Talks in Brussels) for universities and festivals. Her works are exhibited worldwide, including Rubin Museum (New York), the Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg), MMOMA (Moscow), MACRO Museum (Rome), the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow), Centro de la Imagen (Mexico City, Mexico), Neuberger Museum of Art (USA). Lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. www.alexdementieva.org
• Anna Frants is Artist, curator in the field of media art. Frants graduated from the Vera Mukhina Higher School of Art and Design (Leningrad, USSR) and Pratt Institute (New York). Founder of the nonprofit cultural foundation CYLAND Foundation Inc. Co-founder of CYLAND Media Art Lab and Cyfest. Frants’ interactive installations have been showcased at Museum of Art and Design (New York), Video Guerrilha Festival (Brazil), Manifesta 10 Biennale (2014, St. Petersburg), Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg), Chelsea Art Museum (New York), Russian Museum (St. Petersburg), Kunstquartier Bethanien (Berlin), Hatcham Church Gallery, Goldsmiths, University of London (UK), Dartington Estate (UK), Ca’ Foscari Zattere Cultural Flow Zone (Venice, Italy), MAXXI Museum (Rome, Italy), National Arts Club (New York), and at other major venues all over the world. The artist’s works are held in the collections of the Russian Museum (St. Petersburg), Museum of Art and Design (New York), Sergey Kuryokhin Centre for Modern Art (St. Petersburg) and Kolodzei Art Foundation (New York) as well as in numerous private collections. Lives and works in Miami, USA. http://www.annafrants.net   http://cyland.org/lab
• Natalia Kolodzei, an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts, is a curator and art historian. Ms. Kolodzei is also Executive Director of the Kolodzei Art Foundation, and, along with Tatiana Kolodzei, owner of the Kolodzei Collection of Russian and Eastern European Art, containing over 7,000 artworks of nonconformist and contemporary art (paintings, sculptures, works on paper, photography, kinetic and digital art) by over 300artists. Since 1991, Ms. Kolodzei has curated over eighty shows in the US and Europe. She is an author and editor of multiple publications (including Leonardo Journal) and organized and contributed to symposiums and panel discussions (including co-hosting The Leonardo / LASER CYLAND, CAA, Ars Electronica) for universities and exhibitions worldwide. In 2010 she was a member of Culture Sub-Working Group under the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission. Lives and works in Highland Park, New Jersey, USA. http://www.kolodzeiart.org
• Artist, writer and curator Janine Randerson, is an Associate Professor in Art and Design at AUT University, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. Her video, and media artworks are exhibited in the Asia-Moana region and internationally. She often practices in collaboration with community groups, mana whenua, and environmental scientists from urban meteorologists to glaciologists. Janine’s book “Weather as Medium: Toward a Meteorological Art” (MIT Press, 2018) focuses on modern and contemporary artworks that engage with our present and future weathers. She has curated programmes with CIRCUIT: Artist Film and Video Aotearoa New Zealand. Janine is currently working on the online collaboration Haupapa: The Chilled Breath of Rakamaomao (Shearer, Bull, Purdie, Marks, Randerson) as part of the digital curatorial project Huarere: Weather Eye, Weather Ear with Te Tuhi gallery and the World Weather Network. She is a board member of Artspace Aotearoa, and she was a found trustee of Aotearoa Digital Art (ADA) network. https://ada.net.nz   http://www.lenlyefoundation.com   http://haupapa.space