Find here a .pdf version of the timetable for both days.

Find here a full, detailed list of programme descriptions and participant bios.

09:30 Registration & Coffee at Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam

10:00–12:30 Care and Legacy

Moderated by Gaby Wijers.

Gaby Wijers (director, LI-MA) – Welcome and introduction

Jacqueline Milner (professor of visual arts, Latrobe University Melbourne Australia) – Care Ethics and Art

In this keynote, Jacqueline Milner connects the social history of art and feminist perspectives on political theory and aesthetics to rethink the link between art and broader systems of power. She gives examples of how contemporary art and creative practices can model urgently needed alternative values and help us better value caring practices.

Matteo Marangoni (artist, founding chairman of iii) – Planned Obsolescence in Leadership: Intergenerational and Intercultural Transfer of Power in the Dutch Media Arts

This presentation will focus on how iii (instrument inventors initiative) was founded in The Hague in response to the crisis in the Dutch Media Art sector in the years preceding 2013, the lessons that were learned from that crisis and how that informed governance, power sharing and intergenerational transfer of responsibility within iii. The presentation will include a screening of the short documentary Ten Years of iii: Experiment, Ambition, Community.

Anna Olszewska (professor, AGH Kraków) – Re:Senster: Reactivation of the Edward Ihnatowicz Cybernetic Sculpture

Edward Ihnatowicz built the first computer-controlled sculpture that responded actively to sound and movement. On display 1970–1974 in Eindhoven, The Senster was effectively lost until being restored and displayed for the first time in 2018, and now showing since 2023 at REBOOT. Pioneering Digital Art. In this lecture, Anna Olszewska narrates this history and the conservation philosophy and methodology employed in The Senster’s restoration – and how the resulting strategy can aid in maintaining and reactivating other interactive embodied systems like it.

Sanneke Huisman (curator, LI-MA) and Klaas Kuitenbrouwer (researcher, Nieuwe Instituut) – REBOOT: Pioneering Digital Art

This exhibition by LI-MA and Nieuwe Instituut features key works from 1960 to 2000, plus new works by contemporary makers. The exhibition’s curators walk us through the making of, selected themes and the need to commission new work from contemporary artists, who took inspiration from these classics to explore how the debates they prompted remain relevant today.

12:30–14:30 Lunch, REBOOT exhibition tours & more

12:45–13:15 Tour #1 

13:15–13:45 Tour #2 

13:45–14:15 Tour #3 

13:00–13:30 The Senster activation in Foyer

13:30–13:45 Archives at Risk: Seeking Shelter

In this short talk, Eline de Graaf (Programme manager Network Archives Design and Digital Culture) introduces the archive of Doors of Perception, currently presented inside the cube in Nieuwe Instituut’s foyer

14:30–16:30 From Concept to Care (parallel sessions)

Attendees may choose ONE of the following sessions, taking place simultaneously.

The Legacy of Ideophone I

Ideophone I was first presented by Dick Raaijmakers in 1967 at the opening of Steim: the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music in Amsterdam. In this session, multiple speakers unpack the various reconstructions and new legacies of the work that have followed. Kees Tazelaar (the Institute of Sonology at the Royal Conservatoire, The Hague), who led the work’s reconstruction in 2011, talks about Raaijmakers’ concepts and Ideophone I. Bram Vreven (artist) details the 2023 preservation process that restored it to REBOOT and for future presentations. And Suzanne Visser (Kunstmuseum Den Haag) outlines the documentation needed for the transfer to and care by the Kunstmuseum, where the work will now reside in 2024. Moderated by Sanneke Huisman.

To Emulate or Not?, or How to Present and Preserve Net Art  

Emulation as a presentation or preservation strategy involves recreating the behaviour of old hardware environments on a contemporary computer, which enables obsolete software to be installed and run. Unlike migration, emulation allows the digital object to be accessed using the software originally used to create it. This session presents and discusses ways to present and preserve net art using emulation – or not. Featuring Dragan Espenschied (preservation director, Rhizome) on using emulation to present Olia Lialina's work, Claudia Roeck (time-based media art conservator, LI-MA, HEK) and Mauricio van der Maesen de Sombreff (digital artist / freelance engineer, LI-MA) on JODI's wwwwwwwww.jodi.org (1995) and Jan Robert Leegte's Scrollbar Composition (2000), and Martina Haidvogl (media conservator, lecturer, HKB) on the participatory web-based artwork Learning To Love You More (LTLYM) (2002-09) by Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July.

16:30–16:45 Break

16:45–17:30 How to Keep the Digital Art Canon Alive: Where to Go From Here?

The exhibition REBOOT. Pioneering Digital Art built on the Digital Canon of the Netherlands, compiled by experts in 2017–2019 and commissioned by LI-MA. The Canon was meant as a starting point for further analysis, debate and action – to bring the rich history of this art to the world, at the foreground in an increasingly digital-minded contemporary art context, and to open it to the public at large. To close Day 1, this session, with participants announced on the day, will reflect on the Digital Art Canon and REBOOT exhibition. It’s time to make next steps, open up the Canon and the discussion of the importance of digital art, its heritage and who's taking care. 

Day 1 of Transformation Digital Art ends at 17:30, but symposium attendees can take a later tour of the REBOOT exhibition, and also have free access to An Evening with Constant Dullaart at Nieuwe Instituut, beginning at 19:30.

(17:45–18:45 Final REBOOT exhibition tours)

17:45–18:15 Tour #4

18:00–18:30 The Senster activation in Foyer

18:15–18:45 Tour #5 

Images taken at REBOOT. Pioneering Digital Art by Pieter Kers (beeld.nu).