Centre for Advanced Study
“Access to cultural goods in the digital transformation”

The digital transformation has fundamentally changed the possibilities and conditions of access to cultural goods — i.e. to works of art, but also to the holdings of archives, collections and museums and to such “subjects” as the results of scientific research — and will continue to require new forms and practices of production, reproduction and reception of such goods in the future.

The Centre for Advanced Study Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change (KFG 33), funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) explores — especially with art as an example — both the new forms of access to cultural goods and the new forms of access restriction and access control made possible by digitalisation. In doing so, it also takes into account the fact that the digital transformation ties the production and reception of many cultural goods to technological preconditions that can be characterised as second-order access conditions.

| Events
© Banz & Bowinkel: „Palo Alto“

Lecture: “The Sculptural in the (Post-)Digital Age”

In her lecture “The Sculptural in the (Post-)Digital Age” on 13 May 2024, Prof. Dr. Ursula Ströbele discussed if it is still possible to give a definition of the sculptural in times of digital art (and art permeated by the logic of the digital). To this end, she examined traditional dictums from art theory with regard to their validity in relation to artworks based on augmented, virtual or mixed reality technologies. Ströbele also pointed out the institution-critical potential of digital technologies in art – especially with regard to questions of access to artworks.

| Events
© Li Hou-Han

Lecture: „Physical Loss and Digital Reclamation – The Curatorial Concept of the China Pavilion at the Venice Biennale“

On 6 May 2024, Dr. Jiang Jun presented the curatorial concept of the China Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale in his lecture “Physical Loss and Digital Reclamation – The Curatorial Concept of the China Pavilion at the Venice Biennale”. At the China Pavilion, digital access is provided to ancient Chinese paintings which would otherwise be lost for the public. Dr. Jiang Jun is curator, art critic and postdoctoral fellow at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai, and co-curator of the China Pavilion of the 60th Biennale di Venezia.

| Events
© doomu – stock.adobe.com

Workshop “Protecting and accessing cultural goods in wartime”

From 4 to 6 April 2024, the Centre for Advanced Study hosted the workshop “Protecting and accessing cultural goods in wartime – Case Studies and Lessons from Armenia and Ukraine”. War not only threatens the lives and physical integrity of people; cultural goods are also at risk of damage and total loss during war. Protecting them in the event of war is an important task for every community, and digitalisation enables new forms and modes of preserving cultural goods or their blueprints that give people access to them in times of war and even more so afterwards. Based on examples and experiences from Armenia and Ukraine, the workshop discussed practical questions and ethical aspects of the protection of cultural goods during war.

| Exhibitions & Videos
© Universität Münster | Stefan Klatt

“Where the plastics live”: Video about the exhibition online

In the winter semester 2023/24 the study project “Kunststoffalltage” of the Institute of Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology presented its results with an exhibition. Plastic artefacts were presented as “roommates” of student daily life: Objects such as remote controls and toothbrush mugs were used to interpret the everyday dimensions of plastic use. The project was directed by Prof. Dr. Lioba Keller-Drescher, Professor for European Ethnology and in-house fellow of the Centre for Advanced Study. This video provides an insight into the exhibition.

Further information on the exhibition can be found on the homepage of the Institute of Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology.