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2007 Annual Summit

For the third consecutive year, the DOCAM Research Alliance, in collaboration with the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology, held an international summit on the issues surrounding the documentation and conservation of technology-based works of art. Programmed over two days, the Summit was held on September 26th – 27th 2007, in the Maxwell-Cummings Auditorium, in the Michal & Renata Hornstein Pavilion of the Montreal Fine Arts Museum, a DOCAM partner.

 

Introduction and welcome by Jean Gagnon and Sylvie Lacerte


Day 1, Welcome speech

Jean Gagnon, Director of the Daniel Langlois Foundation
Sylvie Lacerte, Coordinator of the DOCAM Research                                                                                                            
Jean Gagnon © DOCAM 2007

Read more: Introduction and welcome by Jean Gagnon and Sylvie Lacerte

 

Forging the Future


Day 1, Group 1

Jon Ippolito, University of Maine
Richard Rinehart, UC Berkeley Art Museum.

Curators and conservators have traditionally prided themselves on their contact with the original artifact. While readers of histories rely on their imaginations to reconstruct a culture from texts or illustrations, museum visitors glimpse (and sometimes touch) culture on a pedestal directly in front of them...


Jon Ippolito © DOCAM 2007

Read more: Forging the Future

 

Question period: Day 1, Group 1

Jon Ippolito, University of Maine
Richard Rinehart, UC Berkeley Art Museum                                          

Read more: Question period: Day 1, Group 1

 

Creation of the Research, Contemporary Art and Technological Obsolescence Department at the CRRMF


Day 1, Group 2

  • Cécile Dazord, Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France
  • Grégoire Quenault, art historian

In 2006, the research department of the Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France (C2RMF) launched a study program on the impact of technological change on the preservation of contemporary artworks, or more precisely, on the phenomena associated with obsolescence ...

* Please note most of this presentation is in French.
Cécile Dazord © DOCAM 2007

Read more: Creation of the Research, Contemporary Art and Technological Obsolescence Department at the CRRMF

 

Question period: Day 1, Group 2

Cécile Dazord, Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France
Grégoire Quenault, Art historian

Read more: Question period: Day 1, Group 2

 

Digital documentation project on the exhibition e:art, I

Day 1, Group 3

Caitlin Jones, New York, Researcher in Residence, FDL
Paul Kuranko, New York, Researcher in Residence, FDL

During their residency, Caitlin Jones and Paul Kuranko will undertake three case studies of artwork and will survey and assess the considerable amount of activity in the field of media art preservation and documentation.
Caitlin Jones © DOCAM 2007

Read more: Digital documentation project on the exhibition e:art, I

 

Digital documentation project on the exhibition e:art, II

Day 1, Group 3

Lizzie Muller, Australia, Researcher in Residence, FDL

The actual, lived experience of the audience is a central concern in contemporary culture, which finds particular expression in New Media Art.  With its emphasis on interaction, dematerialisation, systems and generative process, audience experience is often the content, location and driving force of New Media Art...
Lizzie Muller © DOCAM 2007

Read more: Digital documentation project on the exhibition e:art, II

 

Question period: Day 1, Group 3

Caitlin Jones, Paul Kuranko, New York, Residence Researcher, FDL
Lizzie Muller, Australia, Residence Researcher, FDL

Read more: Question period: Day 1, Group 3

 

Mustica project

Day 1, Group 4

Bruno Bachimont, Université de technologie, Compiègne

Jean-François Blanchette, University of California

 

The preservation of artistic content does not only involve the material integrity of artworks but also the intelligibility of content significance. Many levels of preservation emerge, notably those that make it possible for the work to be shown once again (exhibition, execution) and to be performed...


* Please note part of this presentation is in French.

Bruno Bachimont © DOCAM 2007

Read more: Mustica project

 

Question period: Day 1, Group 4

Bruno Bachimont, Université de technologie, Compiègne
Jean-François Blanchette, University of California

Read more: Question period: Day 1, Group 4

 

Art as experience : Expanded Cinema re-enactments

Day 1, Group 5

Lucas Ihlein, Teaching and Learning Cinema, Australia                                                                                                                                         


Lucas Ihlein © DOCAM 2007

Read more: Art as experience : Expanded Cinema re-enactments

 

Welcome speech addressed by Nathalie Blondil

Day 2, Welcome speech

Nathalie Bondil, director of the Montreal Fine Arts museum                                                                                                                        

Nathalie Bondil © DOCAM 2007

Read more: Welcome speech addressed by Nathalie Blondil

 

Introduction of the research committees


Day 2, Group 1


Alain Depocas, director of the DOCAM Research Alliance and of the Centre for Research and Documentation (CR+D), la fondation Daniel Langlois pour l’art, la science et la technologie


Alain Depocas © DOCAM 2007

Read more: Introduction of the research committees

 

Presentation of the Cataloguing Structure committee


Madeleine Lafaille© DOCAM 2007

Day 2, Group 1

Madeleine Lafaille, Canadian Heritage Information Network
Anne-Marie Zeppetelli, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal

 

The mandate of the Cataloguing Structure research committee is to identify the required elements that need to be added to the existing collection management systems in museums, for the cataloguing of artworks containing technological components. During the past year, the emphasis of the research has been concentrated on the identification of several artworks, within the collections of participating museums, that pose important challenges, each in its own way, in terms of cataloguing and preservation. Four artworks have been selected at the Musée d’art contemporain to serve the purpose of case studies from which preliminary results are now available.

Read more: Presentation of the Cataloguing Structure committee

 

Presentation of the Conservation and Preservation committee


Day 2, Group 1

Richard Gagnier, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

 

The presentation by Richard Gagnier on behalf of the committee for Case Studies in Restoration and Conservation will focus on the work accomplished in 2007, most notably with regard to the overall approach used in preserving works of art featuring technological components that are part of the collection of the National Gallery of Canada. One such component requiring that urgent action be taken is the slide. We are, in fact, witness to the increasing obsolescence and indeed disappearance of the film used in making slides, as its production is being phased out...

Richard Gagnier © DOCAM 2007

Read more: Presentation of the Conservation and Preservation committee

 

Presentation of the Pedagogy committee

Day 2, Group 1

Louise Poissant, UQÀM

 

Louise Poissant, who co-chairs the Academic Committee together with Professor William Straw of McGill University, is responsible for the implementation of a course at Université du Québec à Montréal on the documentation and conservation of works featuring technological components. Poissant and Sylvie Lacerte will provide a brief overview of the two DOCAM seminars offered by McGill University (Winter 2006) and UQAM (Winter 2007) as part of the DOCAM initiative...

 

* Please note most of this presentation is in French.

Louise Poissant © DOCAM 2007

Read more: Presentation of the Pedagogy committee

 

Ainsley Walton, Conservation and Preservation Committee

Day 2, Group 2

Ainsley Walton, Claudia De Hueck scholar – National Gallery of Canada

The National Gallery of Canada holds numerous 35mm slide-based artworks in its permanent collection. The use of slides as a presentation method for projecting photographic images holds an integral position in the array of 20th century art practices ...
Ainsey Walton © DOCAM 2007

Read more: Ainsley Walton, Conservation and Preservation Committee

 

Guillaume Labelle and Lawrence Bird, Conservation and Preservation Committee

Day 2, Group 2

Guillaume Labelle, Université de Montréal
Lawrence Bird, McGill University – CCA

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) is in the process of acquiring several digital archives. These include Greg Lynn’s Embryological House (1997-2002), an early example of the development of a non-traditional architectural project through computer modeling and animation software...
Guillaume Labelle
© DOCAM 2007

Read more: Guillaume Labelle and Lawrence Bird, Conservation and Preservation Committee

 

Andrea Kuchembuck, Documentation Committee


Day 2, Group 3

Andrea Kuchembuck, Daniel Langlois Foundation

The presentation will focus on the progress of the research being conducted by the Documentation and Archival Management Committee, most notably on the “digital file of artwork” and the case studies of three works by Jim Campbell: Photo of My Mother, Portrait of My Father, and Motion and Rest #5.
Andréa Kuchembuck
© DOCAM 2007

Read more: Andrea Kuchembuck, Documentation Committee

 

Marie-Catherine Cyr, Documentation and Archival Management Committee

Day 2, Group 3

Marie-Catherine Cyr, Queen’s University – Queen’s Archives

The archives of Canadian artist Vera Frenkel, housed at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, hold a wealth of assorted information: correspondence with diverse collaborators, publications, exhibition contracts, lists of materials, installation plans, programmer notes, various versions and formats of Frenkel’s works, etc. ...

* Please note most of this presentation is in French.
Marie-Catherine Cyr
© DOCAM 2007

Read more: Marie-Catherine Cyr, Documentation and Archival Management Committee

 

Emilie Boudrias, Cataloguing Structure Committee


Day 2, Group 4

Émilie Boudrias, UQÀM – Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

 

The presentation is on the research carried out by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) Archives Department as part of the DOCAM Alliance initiative. This research project examined problems identified by the DOCAM Catalogue Structure Committee with respect to the cataloguing of artworks featuring technological components...


* Please note most of this presentation is in French

Émilie Boudrias © DOCAM 2007

Read more: Emilie Boudrias, Cataloguing Structure Committee

 

Corina McDonald, Terminology Committee

Day 2, Group 5

Corina MacDonald, Université McGill

 

DOCAM’s Terminology Committee is mandated to develop vocabulary management tools for DOCAM’s researchers and the broader professional community. These tools include a bilingual glossary, a thesaurus, and an ontology, and will seek to complement existing vocabulary resources...

Corina MacDonald
© DOCAM 2007

Read more: Corina McDonald, Terminology Committee

 

Intellectual Property and Digital Art

Day 2, Group 6

Rina Pantalony, Department of Justice, Canada
Richard Rinehart, Berkeley Museum and Pacific Film Archives

 

Richard Rinehart and Rina Pantalony will discuss issues at the intersection of digital art and intellectual property occasioned by the publication of a white paper on these topics that was commissioned by Canadian Heritage Information Network CHIN) and authored by Richard Rinehart...

Rina Pantalony © DOCAM 2007

Read more: Intellectual Property and Digital Art

 

Ludwig Boltzmann Institute – Media.Art.Research.

Day 2, Group 6

Dieter Daniels, Institut Ludwig Boltzmann, Linz, Autriche                                                        

The mission of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute Media.Art.Research. is to archive, publish and perform scholarly work on media art and related media theory including the extensive holdings of the Ars Electronica Archive...
Dieter Daniels © DOCAM 2007

Read more: Ludwig Boltzmann Institute – Media.Art.Research.

 

Question period: Day 1, Group 6

Rina Pantalony, Department of Justice, Canada
Richard Rinehart, Berkeley Museum and Pacific Film Archives
Dieter Daniels, Institut Ludwig Boltzmann, Linz, Autriche                        

Read more: Question period: Day 1, Group 6