History of technologies and pedagogical resources

Alain Depocas © DOCAM 2010

Day 1, Session 1 Alain Depocas (CR+D, Daniel Langlois Foundation)   This panel will deal with the role of technological history in the teaching of art history. Panelists will answer a number of questions: How important is a specifically technical knowledge to an understanding of art history? What kind of resources are needed to effectively communicate, to students, the relationship between the history of technologies and the history of artworks? What pedagogical strategies have proved most successful for imparting an understanding of technological history to students of art history? What lessons may we take from DOCAM’s efforts in this direction? Is the DOCAM Technological Timeline a possible resource for teachers of art?   * Please note that this presentation was given in French but has been dubbed in English

Alain Depocas has been head of the Centre for Research and Documentation (CR+D) of the Daniel Langlois Foundation (DLF) since 1999. In this capacity, he manages a documentary collection that covers media, electronic and digital art history, works and practices. He has also developed a database to manage the collection and the information relevant to the areas of interest of the CR+D, and is the Foundation’s website manager. After studying art history at Université de Montréal, where he received a master’s degree based on the history of photographic theory, he was a documentalist from 1991 to 1999 at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, where he was in charge of the Museum’s mediatheque Web site. From 2002 to 2004, he was a co-director of the Variable Media Network under a partnership between New York’s Guggenheim Museum and the Daniel Langlois Foundation. Since 2005, he has been the research director at DOCAM, an international research alliance on documentation and conservation of media art.

Link:

• Technological Timeline