Futuros possíveis discusses emerging issues in the preservation of artistic and cultural heritage, bringing together internationally renowned specialists in digital art conservation and the digitization of collections. The growing body of art made with digital and electronic media calls for specific procedures to preserve the memory of cultural assets that are not only ephemeral but also involve new typologies and forms of processing, different from the cataloguing models used for existing museum collections.
The outcome of a symposium held at FAU-USP in partnership with Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), this book aims to contribute to the debate by combining discussions of methodologies for preserving digital works with analyses of new approaches to information curation.
Also highlighted were issues concerning the digitization of information about collections, a problem that is becoming part of everyday museum life and requires deeper critical discussion in Brazil. It should also be noted that Futuros possíveis tackles these issues out of a need to discuss the political and ideological aspects of new storage technologies.
The reflections in this volume were addressed through four thematic modules during the symposium:
- New memories — archives of the future
- Between past and future — constructing the present
- The online counter-collector — personal archives and museums
- Information curation and database aesthetics
The first module focused on new approaches in museology, archival science and library science that are developing procedures for preserving and collecting products of digital culture itself, such as online artworks, whose understanding depends on preserving their technological contexts — something that is rarely possible. We therefore discussed the challenges facing museology and art history in the age of planned obsolescence.
The second thematic strand sought to present and analyze experiences of digitizing different types of collections (printed, pictorial, three-dimensional, etc.), discussing conceptual and legal issues concerning the publication of this information, alongside problems involving the restoration of electronic and digital artworks and the development of tools and programs for cataloguing information.
The third module examined personal, informal and noninstitutional initiatives, on the one hand, such as Netzspannung, Wikipedia and others, and corporate initiatives, on the other, such as Google. These have been creating a counterculture of archiving and musealization beyond academia and outside the institutional tradition of practices and policies of remembrance, raising questions about their political and cultural impacts.
Finally, the fourth module presented data visualization processes and new methodologies for organizing and publishing information that suggest not only new aesthetic and cultural practices, but also specific concepts and transdisciplinary approaches spanning computer science, information science, design and museology.
Futuros possíveis
The diversity of issues and perspectives gathered in this book substantially enriches the emerging bibliography on these subjects in Brazil and worldwide. It would have been impossible without the support of Fapesp, Capes, USP’s Center for Cultural Preservation, FAU-USP and the Austrian Embassy in Brazil. Publication was made possible by support from Fapesp and Itaú Cultural and a partnership between Editora Peirópolis and Edusp.
The editors thank the institutions and research agencies for their support, IntermeiosFAU and its team for documenting the event on video and making it available online, and the authors and symposium participants. They also thank Renata Farhat Borges and Lilian Scutti of Editora Peirópolis for their care and involvement; professors José Lira, director of CPC-USP at the time of the symposium, and Ana Lucia Duarte Lanna, head of the Department of Architectural History and Design Aesthetics, both at FAU-USP; and Itaú Cultural’s superintendent, Eduardo Saron.
(Giselle Beiguelman and Ana Gonçalves Magalhães)
Editors
Giselle Beiguelman is an artist, a professor at the University of São Paulo’s School of Architecture and Urbanism (FAU-USP), and coordinator of its Design program (2013–2015). Her work includes interventions in public spaces, network projects and mobile art applications, exhibited internationally at leading media art museums, research centers and contemporary art venues, including ZKM (Karlsruhe, Germany), gallery@Calit2 (UCSD, USA) and the São Paulo Biennial. She curated Tecnofagias — the 3rd 3M Digital Art Exhibition, among other exhibitions, and is an editor of seLecT magazine. In 2014, The Webby Awards, the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, the World Wide Web Foundation and Tim Berners-Lee invited her to join a select group of ten international artists in The Web at 25 project, celebrating the Internet’s 25th anniversary. For more information, visit www.desvirtual.com.
Ana Gonçalves Magalhães is a professor and curator at the University of São Paulo’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC-USP). An art historian, she was editorial coordinator at the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo from 2001 to 2008. Magalhães has also been a member of the Brazilian Committee of Art History (CBHA) since 2000. She holds a BA in History from Unicamp (1992), an MA in Art and Cultural History from the same university (1995), and a PhD in Art History and Criticism from USP (2000). She teaches in USP’s Interunit Graduate Program in Aesthetics and Art History and its Graduate Program in Museology. In addition to curating exhibitions drawn from the museum’s collection, she coordinates the Museum Archives and Research Group and is an associate researcher with USP’s Research Support Center for Applied Physics in the Study of Artistic and Historical Heritage (NAP FAEPAH).