LI-MA Symposium: Transformation Digital ArtLI-MA Symposium: Transformation Digital Art

Transformation Digital Art 2024
LI-MA’s annual international symposium on digital art preservation
21 March at Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam.
22 March at LI-MA, Amsterdam.

REBOOT. Pioneering Digital Art
Collaborative exhibition from LI-MA and Nieuwe Instituut featuring key works from 1960 to 2000, plus new works by contemporary makers. Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam.
Extended until 12 May

There is a rich tradition of digital art and culture in the Netherlands and worldwide, but keeping such artworks accessible over time requires a great deal of care. With many iconic works under threat, LI-MA and Nieuwe Instituut both emphasise the urgency of preserving and archiving them.

This is the key concern of LI-MA’s eighth annual international symposium on the preservation of digital art, Transformation Digital Art, which will take place on 21 March at Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, and on 22 March at LI-MA, Amsterdam. Symposium visitors can also view LI-MA and Nieuwe Instituut’s collaborative exhibition REBOOT. Pioneering Digital Art – a presentation of such iconic works, and made possible by the kind of dedicated research and preservation discussed at the symposium. The exhibition will now be extended by six weeks, until 12 May 2024.

Transformation Digital Art 2024 is LI-MA's eighth annual international symposium on the preservation of digital art. This year it takes place over two days, at two different locations: on Thursday 21 March the symposium will be hosted by Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam and on Friday 22 March it will take place at LI-MA, Amsterdam.

Transformation Digital Art 2024 aims to show and discuss strategies for taking care of digital art for and by artists and institutions, archivists, curators, conservators and scholars. The focus of this year's edition is on Legacies. It celebrates the legacy of renowned media artists that over the years have influenced the creative discourse by questioning conventions within and beyond their disciplines, and it brings them in critical dialogue with a younger generation.

Fundamental to much of the focus on Legacies is the issue of care, which Jacqueline Milner (La Trobe University, Melbourne) unpacks in terms of feminist care ethics, political theory and ethics in her opening lecture. The closing panel addresses care as community and new platforms for knowledge sharing, including Isabelle Maund and Ugo Pecoraio, Florian van Zandwijk, and Constant Dullaart.

Another two sessions explore how to sustain care for two iconic large media installations: The Senster (1968–70) by Edward Ihnatowicz and Ideophone I (1970) by Dick Raaijmakers. Elsewhere, panels discuss presentation and preservation strategies for net artworks: Dragan Espenschied on emulation in exhibiting Olia Lialina’s work, Claudia Roeck and Mauricio van der Maesen de Sombreff on JODI's wwwwwwwww.jodi.org (1995) and Jan Robert Leegte's Scrollbar Composition (2000), and Martina Haidvogel on the participatory web-based artwork Learning To Love You More (LTLYM) (2002-09) by Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July. Elsewhere, Philippe Bettinelli (Centre Pompidou) addresses the unique challenges faced by museums acquiring NFTs. Other participants and topics can be found in the full programme for this year’s symposium, below.

REBOOT. Pioneering Digital Art features key works from 1960 to 2000, plus new interpretations by contemporary makers. The exhibition presents the impact of digital technology in art and society and builds on the Digital Canon of the Netherlands, compiled by experts in 2017–2019 and commissioned by LI-MA. REBOOT is an initiative of Nieuwe Instituut and LI-MA.

REBOOT includes twenty iconic works by Edward Ihnatowicz, P. Struycken, Dick Raaijmakers, Steina, Driessens & Verstappen and Debra Solomon, among others and newly commissioned works by artists Jonas Lund, Ali Eslami, and Janilda Bartolomeu, game designer Play the City, and others.

You can visit REBOOT until 12 May at Nieuwe Instituut, Museumpark 25, 3015 CB Rotterdam. Nieuwe Instituut is open Tuesday until Sunday 10.00–17.00 except on Thursdays, when it is open 10.00–21.00. See Nieuwe Instituut's website for specific times during which certain works are operational, and also see their schedule for related events.

• Download selected images from previous iterations of Transformation Digital Art here.
• Watch the REBOOT trailer here.
• Download selected images of REBOOT here.
• For more information, additional high-resolution images, interviews, or other press-related enquiries, please contact press@li-ma.nl.

LI-MA is the center of expertise for media arts. Our goal is to ensure the permanent accessibility of media art..