Maria Drabczyk
Head of policy and advocacy, Board member , Centrum Cyfrowe
Highlights from the re#MEDIA workshop: Europeana for creatives
As part of its activities, TuEuropeana reached out to creatives to test and verify the potential of archival collections serving as inspiration for new designs.
The workshop
The idea for the re#MEDIA workshop at the School of Form in Poznań, Poland, was to stimulate the creative thinking around the digital collections of Europeana. By using the tools of design research, new media, application design, as well as alternative thinking on arts and fashion design and music and cinema resources, we wanted to demonstrate the potentials of the collections’ various re-use possibilities.
The workshop started in November 2016, after f 4 students from the university returned from the Europeana Labs workshop at THE ARTS+ Fair, organised as part of Frankfurt Book Fair. The group was composed of SoF students from various disciplines, such as Communication Design, Industrial Design, Fashion Design & Domestic Design. The workshop was run under the TEAM.WORK creative methodology, using the members’ individual interests and skills as well as going towards common goals.
School of Form re#MEDIA Team
Through a number of classes, including topics related to copyright and technical side or archival re-use, students learned the rules of creative re-use of digital cultural assets. The workshop concluded in the creation of a dozen unique designs inspired by digital heritage. Surprisingly, most of the artists transformed the digital formats back to the analogue art, giving them a new meaning through artistic installations, prints, or domestic designs. However, it also led to artworks displaying media in public, and artistic interventions engaging artificial intelligence, or installations connecting the analogue with the digital in adding sound recordings.
Exemplary re#MEDIA artwork: Digit(al) Culture by Piotr Butlewski: Short animation revealing structure of the digitized image from perspective of the machine, Photo credits: Malwina Toczek, NInA
The showcase
The results of the designing process were shown during a special event co-organised by the National Audiovisual Institute and the School of Form in Warsaw. The showcase started with a "guided tour" of some of the spaces at NInA, which had been used as the setting for artistic performances and screenings. It was followed by a debate between the experts and the public about the use of digital collections in artistic activities and cultural practices by artists, designers, curators, et cetera.
COCOON by Zhyldyz Kozhoiarova, cocoon-like structure, which isolates you from outer world and where you are only with yourself, surrounded by tunes and sounds coming from the archive; Photo Credits: Malwina Toczek, NInA
Bringing together young designers, curators and GLAM representatives, the debate was centered around evaluation of the re#MEDIA. It also questioned the needs and practices of creative re-use, as well as access strategies of digital collections holders in general. The discussion tackled the specificities of a conscious, contextualised use of citations and digitised artworks, historical documents, and texts, in relation to curated contexts, copyright and innovative technology.
re#MEDIA. debate panelists: Piotr Rypson (National Museum of Warsaw), Zuzanna Stańska, (Moiseum), Milena Popova (Europeana Foundation), Agata Nowotny (IDEPE, moderator), Krzysztof Łukomski (School of Form); Photo credits: Malwina Toczek, NIna
Also part of the core topics, education was referred as a spectrum bringing an endlesspotential for the archival reuse. However, the panelists flagged the need for a solid teaching for artists and collection holders that could lead to stronger collaborations in the future.In the coming weeks Sof, NInA and Europeana will jointly showcase all the new designs and prototypes. Please stay tuned and follow the social media channels for more updates.