Yang Ah Ham, Undefined Panorama 3.1 (2021), transmediale festival 2021-22,
Photo by Luca Giardini
Over the past year many institutions and arts organisations invested in digital platforms as a way to offer a continuation of programming and engagement for their audiences and artists. Online exhibitions, Zoom panels, and social media live conversations aiming to address the ramifications of the pandemic on culture quickly became an everyday norm. While on the one hand these events created important discourse, immediately reactive to socio-political concerns that emerged during the pandemic, they inevitably fell short in facilitating long-term solutions. If this is not enough, or not right, how will cultural institutions operate in a post-covid world that is facing increasing inequality and a climate emergency?
As a microcosm of society, museums and artistic and cultural institutions reflect the profound socio-economic and cultural divides that are often present in society. While in the digital space the acceleration of information is a defining character, the abundance of online events, panels, and exhibitions has resulted in audiences becoming overwhelmed and exhausted, as their attention is continuously sought for. This emerging tension between techno-possibility and human well-being raises multiple questions about how the techno-cultural field will look in 20 years from now.
The panelists will discuss how emerging socio-political realities and the availability of fundamentally new technologies point to trends for the deep future. Which new opportunities and experimental approaches will or will not succeed for rethinking how technology can engage with the conditions of expression, sustainability and precarity that impact on artistic labour? How will they shape, enable and transform cultural phenomena, and education in arts and technology? How will they meet the ambition to build resilience around climate and inequality concerns?
