Museums at the “Post-Digital” Turn symposium

AMACI – the Association of Italian Contemporary Art Museums and OGR – Officine Grandi Riparazioni in Turin announce Museums at the “Post-Digital” Turn, the first major symposium conceived by AMACI in the framework of Museum Twenty-One, a brand new research platform dedicated to the transformations of the contemporary art museum.

Curated by Lorenzo Giusti (Board of Directors AMACI and Director of the MAN Museum, Nuoro) and Nicola Ricciardi (Artistic Director of OGT-CRT, Turin), Museums at the “Post-Digital” Turn is a project by AMACI that will take place at the OGR in Turin over November 3 to 4, 2017—during the days of Artissima - International Art Fair—and will encompass seven panels including presentations and lectures by Claire Bishop (Professor, CUNY Graduate Center, NY), Cécile B. Evans (artist), Lauren Cornell (Director of CCS Bard’s Graduate Program and Chief Curator at Hessel Museum of Art, NY), Liam Gillick artist), Boris Groys (philosopher and art critic), Christiane Paul (Associate Professor, School of Media Studies, The New School; Adjunct Curator of Digital Art, Whitney Museum, NY), and Domenico Quaranta (art critic, professor and curator). The investigation sessions will be led by the chairs Gabriella Belli (Director, Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Venice), Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (Director, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea and GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin), Lorenzo Giusti (Director, MAN Museum, Nuoro), Letizia Ragaglia (Director of MUSEION, Bolzano), Nicola Ricciardi (Artistic Director, OGR, Turin), and Andrea Viliani (Director, MADRE, Naples).

The symposium will also feature a scientific section, coordinated by Gail Cochrane (Doctor, Politecnico di Torino, Department of Architecture and Design) and Pier Paolo Peruccio (Professor, Politecnico di Torino, Department of Architecture and Design), with panels and contributions by experts from prestigious international universities and institutes, such as Sara Abram (Coordinator of the Contemporary Art Conservation sector, Centro Conservazione e Restauro “La Venaria Reale,” School of Advanced Training, Turin), Lily Diaz-Kommonen (Professor, Aalto University, Helsinki), Claudio Germak (Professor, Politecnico di Torino), Cecilia Hurley-Griener (Researcher and Lecturer, École du Louvre, Paris), Michael Grugl (critic and architect, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence), Sanneke Stigter (Assistant Professor, University of Amsterdam), Hélène Vassal (Head of the collections, Centre Pompidou – Professor, École du Louvre, Paris), Malene Vest Hansen (Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen), and Victoria Walsh (Professor and Head of Programme, Curating Contemporary Art, Royal College of Art, London).

Given the mission of AMACI—founded in 2003 with the aim of promoting the languages of contemporary art, supporting the development of institutional policies on contemporaneity and setting out guidelines for a common cultural strategy for contemporary art museums—and the new and increasing need to analyse the latest museum practices, the focus of Museums at the “Post-Digital” Turn asks not “what is next?” but rather the more urgent and durable question of “what futures are there?”

The technological revolution has placed cultural institutions before a generational challenge, calling on them to rewrite their own role and revise their own operational practices. The symposium aims to deal with a crucial aspect of our time, one which has led to a radical change in the ways of producing and viewing artworks, placing the contemporary art museum before the need for an in-depth and transversal reflection. Over the last decade, the interconnections between networks and digital mediation have become tangible components of everyday life. These dimensions have become naturalised in our way of thinking about existence in a vision of the world that envelops the totality of contemporary living, from our relationship with objects to the ramified structuring of social dynamics. Art and the art system have taken this change on board—the so-called “post-digital turn”—by setting up a process of substantial transformation.

The convention will be hosted inside the new OGR – Officine Grandi Riparazioni of Turin, a cultural production and interdisciplinary experimentation centre stretching of over 35,000 square metres, to be opened on September 30, 2017 thanks to the fundamental support from the Fondazione CRT. The thorough exploration of the various fields of operation of the contemporary art museum is a key theme both of the Symposium and of the venue that will host the event.

The convention will be held with the support of the Representation of the European Commission in Italy, of the Ministry for Cultural Heritage, Activities and Tourism, of ICOM Italia, Piedmont Region and Turin City Council.

Explore the full Symposium programme and the scheduled sessions for the two days conference here

Enroll here