This event is organized in conjunction with a conference at Stockholms Universitet taking place between 27 November 2019, 9.00 AM - 29 November 2019, 5.00 PM.

Free entrance

As the field of media archeology has manifested simultaneously in various areas of media theory, media historiography, contemporary digital culture, media art, and electronic literature, questions of materiality have moved to the forefront. Media archaeologists have shifted scholarly attention from “messages,” narratives, or contents to the mechanisms of mediation, obsolete and forgotten material relics, and alternative modes of production of the past.

Such theoretical and practical concerns not only allow us to approach media arts with a fresh critical vocabulary, but also highlight the common grounds between archaeologically informed studies of media and artistic practices. Indeed, scholars such as Erkki Huhtamo have long credited media arts as an important instigator of media archeological research. Archaeological artistic practices may open alternative modes of production of the past, for they facilitate going beyond the linearity of writing, as Wolfgang Ernst claims.

By bringing together scholars and artists in various areas – from sound and moving images to digital textual and game forms, the Media Matter: Media-Archaeological Research and Artistic Practice conference will further discussions and reflexive engagement with how artworks have informed archaeological approaches. Equally important, it will also provide an opportunity to consider how the work done by media archaeologists have come to influence artistic engagements.

Artists:

Jin Sangtae, Seoul, South Korea. One of the pivotal musicians of the Seoul South Korean electronic and improvised music scene, Jin Sangtae performs with non-musical objects collected through his experience, projected into instruments, and then re-organized into the space. He uses hard drives and several materials that can be connected as his main instruments, and he also plays laptops, radios, car horns and electronics.

Lina Selander, Stockholm, Sweden. Photographer, filmmaker, and installation artist, Lina Selander explores in her work historical junctures in the history of media technologies and political systems, as well as the condition of images as memories, imprint, and representations. Her work has been shown internationally, including in Moderna Museet and the 2015 Venice Biennale.

Ola Nilsson, Stockholm, Sweden. Artist who works across a variety of media such as installations, objects, text art, sound art and text-/sound art. His work originates from his interest in time, place and analytical processes. During the past few years, he has focused on memory, identity and the fragile construction of life.

Joel Danielsson and Louise Öhman, Sweden. An artistic duo whose artistic practice focuses on moving image, photography, text, sound, objects and spatial installations. Through that, they explore a circumscribed theme, which has a re-occurring interest in the ontology of the image. Their work has its focus on the haunting movement, the movement over time and its corruption and continuation. A re-appearing element within their work is the focus on the human will to disrupt the progression of time and its will to petrify the continuous movement and the endeavor to restore its previous positions.

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Samproduktion Stockholm Universitet