NADD Workshop: Preserving ExperienceNADD Workshop: Preserving Experience

Remembering social movements, historical events, periods now referred to as 'eras', or simply the daily life of past times can pose complex challenges. Information might be missing, contexts long lost, and hardware obsolete.

This workshop will look into the preservation strategies employed in oral history and virtual reality. Eric Kluitenberg, co-founder of Tactical Media Files, will elaborate on the concept of living memory and discuss approaches to and challenges with archiving it in practice. Susanne Neugebauer from Atria, the research institute for gender equality and women's history, will talk about the methodological steps and concerns of oral history projects. Zack Lischer-Katz from the University of Arizona will share some of his research on archiving VR, focusing on ways in which immersive media requires archivists and conservators to rethink preservation.

The event is aimed at students, researchers and professionals with an interest or practice in archiving experiences and immersive media. Following a series of presentations from the individual speakers, time will be allocated for a public discussion.

• 4.30pm: Welcome and introduction Alexandra Barancová (NADD)
• 4.40pm: Living memory talk by Eric Kluitenberg (Tactical Media Files)
• 5pm: Oral history talk by Susanne (Atria)
• 5.20pm Archiving VR talk by Zack Lischer-Katz (University of Arizona)
• 5.40pm: Questions and discussion
• 6pm: Programme ends

The Network Archives Design and Digital Culture organises workshops throughout the year aimed at sharing expertise and the development of new knowledge. Topics range from knowledge about the management, maintenance and accessibility of archives to concrete judicial aspects, or broader questions regarding the longevity of heritage and diversity in archiving.

Eric Kluitenberg is an independent cultural and media theorist, writer, curator and educator. He teaches currently at the ArtScience Interfaculty and the Interactive Media Design program of the Royal Academy of the Arts, University of the Arts The Hague. He is also the editor in chief of the Tactical Media Files online documentation resource.

Susanne Neugebauer is an archivist. She works on collecting archives and ego documents, with the preservation, digitisation and harvesting of archival materials and with the management and accessibility of born digital and social media archives. She was project leader of an oral history project at Atria in 2019 on forced labour in sewing workshops and laundries of the convent community De Goede Herder (Kinderdwangarbeid meisjes Goede Herder).

Zack Lischer-Katz is an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, School of Information. He was previously a Council on Library and Information Resources postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oklahoma Libraries, where he studied the preservation challenges of virtual reality (VR). He received his PhD in Communication, Information, and Library Studies from Rutgers University, and his MA in Cinema Studies from New York University. He studies the materiality, discourses, and phenomenology of visual documents and technologies, including film, video, and immersive media. His current research looks at how VR and 3D technologies can be used to support research and education and the associated curatorial, ethical, and epistemological challenges.