Sunday, February 18, 3 – 6 pm
On the occasion of the completion of the digital archive project www.museum-moenchengladbach-1967-1978.de, Museum Abteiberg welcomes visitors and members of the press to the final launch of the website and a celebratory event with a timely focus. It is a question that project initiators Susanne Rennert and Susanne Titz have been pondering for several months now: What does it mean to realize a project like this one online, specifically in the current context? In 2020, when they decided to present their historical research not as a book, as originally planned, but as a digital archive, technologies such as ChatGPT had not yet appeared on the broader horizon.
Yet since then, the landscape for realizing such a concept — one aimed at democratically expanding the audience and reach of the project — has evolved significantly. On February 18, we will explore the contemporary challenges associated with communicating and preserving cultural knowledge in the age of artificial intelligence, looking closely at our multi-year pilot project from three different perspectives: legal/copyright, technological, and art historical/social scientific.
PROGRAM (in German):
WELCOME REMARKS CHRISTIANE SCHÜSSLER Deputy Mayor for Education, Culture, and Sports of the City of Mönchengladbach
INTRODUCTION SUSANNE RENNERT & SUSANNE TITZ Project initiators
I. SAFEGUARDING CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE IN THE AI AGE: COPYRIGHT PERSPECTIVES ON THE DIGITAL ARCHIVE PROJECT MARIE-THERESE WIRTZ Institute for Information, Telecommunication and Media Law (ITM) at the University of Münster, Head of Art Law Clinic, an interdisciplinary research project
II. DEMOCRATIC ARCHIVE OR DIGITAL EXTRACTION SITE? A TECHNOLOGICAL-DESIGN PERSPECTIVE IN THE CONTEXT OF A.I. SHAHRIAR ASSADI Industrial designer and art director, Cologne, co-founder of the A204 design collective
III. CLICKING THROUGH ART HISTORY: SOME THOUGHTS ON DIGITIZATION AND CRITICAL ASPECTS OF COMMUNICATION FIONA McGOVERN Junior Professor of Curatorial Practice and Art Mediation at the University of Hildesheim
IV. MUSEUM ARCHIVES EVERYWHERE: TWO COLLEGIAL PERSPECTIVES ANTJE BRITT MÄHLMANN Artistic Director, Museum Schloss Moyland, Bedburg-Hau JÖRG VAN DEN BERG Director, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen
V. PANEL AND AUDIENCE DISCUSSION
*Due to the large volume of text and material, the website will initially appear in German only. We are, however, aware of the considerable interest in the history of the Cladders era in Mönchengladbach, which is why we wanted to provide information about it now. Our goal is to make this long-awaited resource accessible to the international research community as quickly as possible. We hope to offer an English-language version of it at a later date.
This digital archive is a pilot concept; it was designed and realized with support from Museum Digital, a funding program of the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is preceded by “VON DA AN (FROM THEN ON): Spaces, Works, Visualizations from the Anti-Museum 1967–1978,” a 2017/18 exhibition and event project curated by Susanne Titz, Susanne Rennert, and Olivier Foulon with funding from the Rhineland Regional Association (LVR), the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Kunststiftung NRW, and the German Federal Cultural Foundation (Kulturstiftung des Bundes). www.museum-moenchengladbach-1967-1978.de manifests what was originally planned as a print-only publication of the historical research project Johannes Cladders, The Exhibitions and Box Catalogues of the Städtisches Museum Mönchengladbach, 1967 to 1978.
