EPFL+ECAL Lab’s Post

Worth the wait: _Understanding Use: Objects in Museums of Science and Technology_, ed. Tim Boon et al. (Open Access). In which Alison Boyle, James Inglis, Louis Volkmer and I show in our chapter, 'The Immaterial Turn?' that despite curatorial hand-wringing, museum objects tend not to feature in high-impact peer-reviewed history of science and history of technology journals. Rather, we show, they are important for a range of other communities of practice and outputs. https://lnkd.in/e4awmvGr

So inspiring presentation by Simon Njami, an independent writer and curator from Paris, on how museums should reload to represent all times in the same location and provoke contradiction, to include all places in a contradictory dialogue on the notion of the space, and to incorporate all the different notions of discourses.  Museums and museum professionals should think about for whom they are doing their programs and what the museum is for. 

📢 📽 The Fellini Museum was inaugurated on 19 August 2021, and it is the first worldwide exhibition hall dedicated to the famous Rimini film director.   🏛 This paper illustrates the innovative integrated system and installations planned for the optimal functioning and management of this smart museum. Moreover, in the second part, the author proposes a Genetic Algorithms-based method, for the optimization of the data network, the electricity network, and the air conditioning network. https://lnkd.in/gnfC7XnP   💡 In this way, it has been possible to obtain design solutions characterized by an optimal value of the cost/benefit ratio, considering the complexity of the environment and the need to respect the typical architectural/historical heritage.

Based on a historical study of media, our recent #OnlineFirst article reveals how institutional actors performed strategies of legitimation to develop the Louvre-Lens. Read "Legitimation Processes for a Branch Museum Development in a Post-Industrial City: The Louvre-Lens Museum in France" here: https://buff.ly/44yapIZ Authors: Melvin Grefils, Gorge Hélène, and Nil Ozcaglar-Toulouse from University of Lille 1 Sciences and Technology

📚 #NodeRecs: Echoing Exhibition Views: Subjectivity in Post-Digital Times. Edited by A.R. practice (Agnieszka Roguski & Ann Richter) When the exhibition enters the digital realm, as it is increasingly happening—when the display of art and culture can be enjoyed individually behind screens—then how does the exhibition view diffuse optically, technically, and culturally? And how does this transformation echo the new understanding of subjectivity? Echoing Exhibition Views. Subjectivity in Post-Digital Times explores the different medialities and intersubjective shifts that follow the moment of seeing a physical exhibition today. The digitized exhibition viewing is a starting point for artistic and theoretic reflections on post-digital culture, hyperreality and its relation to subjectivity. #DigitalArt #DigitalMseums #VisitingArtExhibitions #PostDigital #DigitalRealm #VirtualExhibitions #ArtTheory #ArtBooks

New article published in the journal Økonomi & Politik with Karina Skovvang Christensen, Morten Lund Poulsen and Niels Sandalgaard. The article analyzes the incentive structure of the funding model for Danish state-recognized museums, as proposed by the Working Group for Museum Reform in November 2023. It presents the elements and building blocks of funding models and highlights the dilemmas these models can create, potentially leading to tension between professional considerations and economic incentives. The analysis is anchored in a functionalist perspective, where the expected consequences of models are assessed based on theoretical and empirical knowledge. The potential risks of simplified performance targets and inappropriate incentive structures are discussed through a critical evaluation of the proposed funding model. The article contributes to understanding how funding models affect museum operations and emphasizes the need for well-considered incentive mechanisms. #museums #accounting #incentives #research #culture

Recently someone said to us, “The world we study is one big exhibition, if you bother to look”. They are right. And they inspired us. In this new short-form series, “The Art In Science”, we celebrate the art found in the worlds we live in and study everyday. The beautiful, the soothing, the unusual, the stunning, the captivating, the abstract, the literal. From cellular patterns to frozen landscapes to falling objects, science is art. Give it a look! https://lnkd.in/eyxA5jcC

A good survey of the state of the art in European #CitizenScience with lots of relevant information on #SciComm and #PublicEngagement #DataScience and more! Another #OpenAccess book on citizen science...

👀 COMING TO SUPERRARE ✧ November 8th “The Space Between” Presented by: Hildabroom Management x Colonna Contemporary x SuperRare This curated release features the work of 11 artists exploring the delicate balance between individuality and collective impact, as they navigate the evolving digital art landscape.  In this exhibition, the artists blur the boundaries between the digital and the tangible featuring works both digitally and physically native. Their work suggests that the relationship between these two mediums is not one of opposition but of mutual enhancement, creating a dialogue that enriches both types of their work. As we navigate the ever-evolving landscape of art innovation, these artists remind us of a fundamental truth: the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack. They stand as individuals, each with their own distinct voice, yet they move in unison toward a shared goal. In their hands, the future of art is both a collective endeavor and a personal journey—one where digital and physical realms are not separate worlds, but integrated experiences. https://lnkd.in/g9zMiZcQ

The ICOM Working Group on Collections in Storage will be organizing an international conference in Paris from 29 to 31 October 2024 on the subject of museum storage worldwide. Call for papers – Museum Storage: Current Situation and New Challenges The conference, which will be held at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in partnership with several institutions, follows the launch of an international survey on museum storage, the results of which will be shared in the coming weeks and discussed during the conference. International Council of Museums (ICOM) intends to continue to reflect on this topic by inviting professionals and researchers to discuss the communication and outreach actions related to museum reserves, the technological transformations and new types of storage that have been set up, as well as their possible development in the coming years and how they can best meet tomorrow’s challenges. Proposals for papers and/or articles will be accepted up to and including 15 May 2024.