Vince Dziekan

Interdisciplinarity and Exhibition-Making

"The World Is Everything That Is The Case" contact sheet of images from the exhibition.

The World Is Everything That Is The Case. Curatoriate: Sean Cubitt, Vince Dziekan & Paul Thomas; Exhibition Manager: Chris Malcolm; Participating Artists: Karen Casey, Mark Cypher, Tina Gonsalves, Mark Guglielmetti, Nigel Helyer and Mitchell Whitelaw. Exhibition: John Curtin Gallery, Perth, WA (1 June – 5 August 2012). From Top Left: (1) Tina Gonsalves, Chameleon 2008-10. Emotionally interactive video project exploring emotional contagion. Variable dimensions; (2) Mark Cypher, Propositions 2.0 2011. Suitcase containing sand, Kinect camera, projector, games engine software. Variable dimensions; (3) Nigel Helyer, Weeping Willow 2011. Mixed media and audio. 250cm (w) 130cm (d); (4 & 8) Mitchell Whitelaw, Local Colour 2011. Cardboard, vinyl. Variable dimensions; (5 & 9) Karen Casey, Meditation Wall 2011. Video projection. Variable dimensions; (6) Mitchell Whitelaw, Local Colour 2011. Cardboard, vinyl. Variable dimensions; (7) Mark Guglielmetti, Travelogue: a recording of minute expressions 2011. Digital media installation, electronic components, LCD displays, software, code. Variable dimensions; (10) Nigel Helyer, Weeping Willow 2011. Mixed media and audio. 250cm (w) 130cm (d); (11) Installation view with Karen Casey, Meditation Wall 2011 and Nigel Helyer, Weeping Willow 2011; and (12) Mark Guglielmetti, Travelogue: a recording of minute expressions 2011. Digital media installation, electronic components, LCD displays, software, code. Variable dimensions.

The museum has traditionally played a powerful role in determining the contours of the disciplines associated with the creative practices of curation, artistic production and exhibition design. The art object and the cubic environment of the gallery are manifestations of the museum’s institutional values. The forms they take shape our aesthetic appreciation and cultural understanding of art, as well as the expectations that we have come to place on it. More recently though, the impact of digital processes has begun to transform art’s exhibition complex, composed as it is from the interrelationship between artefact, gallery space and the museum apparatus. In Virtuality and the Art of Exhibition: Curatorial Design for the Multimedial Museum, I articulate a proposition for a more interdisciplinary approach to exhibition-making. Curatorial Design responds to the challenges facing contemporary curating practice and its associated modes of cultural communication by exploring how digital mediation and spatial practice can be productively integrated.

Nigel Helyer, Weeping Willow 2011. Mixed media and audio; from The World Is Everything That Is The Case, John Curtin Gallery, installation view, 2012.

Nigel Helyer, Weeping Willow 2011. Mixed media and audio; from The World Is Everything That Is The Case, John Curtin Gallery, installation view, 2012, photo: Vashti Innes-Brown
The World Is Everything That Is The Case. Curatoriate: Sean Cubitt, Vince Dziekan & Paul Thomas; Exhibition Manager: Chris Malcolm; Participating Artists: Karen Casey, Mark Cypher, Tina Gonsalves, Mark Guglielmetti, Nigel Helyer and Mitchell Whitelaw. Exhibition: John Curtin Gallery, Perth, WA (1 June – 5 August 2012).

To elaborate on these ideas, my presentation will speak to the importance of electronic media art practice for informing museum technology practice in the multimedial museum. From the pencil to the pixel, artists have always been the first and most relentless in pushing the boundaries of new media. Innovative digital experiences designed by the likes of Art+Com and United Visual Artists (UVA) exemplify how new technologies can extend the scope of art by augmenting the cultural contexts in which art is exhibited. Artists help museums to understand their own use technology, by transcending bits and bytes in order to create transformative encounters with content, context, and the communities that create and consume them. Further, as a by-product of this discussion, I will preview some formative ideas motivated by the opportunity to introduce a new exhibition component into the programming of upcoming Museums and the Web conferences.

Biography

Photo of Dr Vince Dziekan

Vince Dziekan, Istanbul 2011 (Delivering the “Curator’s Case” for the exhibition, The World Is Everything That Is The Case; Marble floor tile, Hagia Sophia).

Dr Vince Dziekan is Director of Graduate Research in Design in the Faculty of Art Design & Architecture at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. In addition, he has research affiliations with the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, the Foundation for Art & Creative Technology (FACT) in Liverpool, UK and is Digital Media Curator of The Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA).

His research focuses on the impact of digital technologies on curatorial design and the implications of virtuality on exhibition-based practices. This interdisciplinary investigation has been articulated most recently in his first book, Virtuality and the Art of Exhibition: Curatorial design for the Multimedial Museum (published by Intellect Books, UK). He has published in relation to related topics in various peer-reviewed journals and presented at numerous refereed conferences, both nationally and internationally. He has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions in Australia and through his independent curatorial practice. In August 2009, he presented his demonstration exhibition, The Ammonite Order, Or Objectiles for an (Un) Natural History at Ormeau Baths Gallery in Belfast, Northern Ireland as part of the ISEA2009 juried exhibition. More recently, he co-curated The World Is Everything That Is The Case for ISEA2011, Istanbul, Turkey, which also formed part of the satellite program of the 12th Istanbul Biennial.

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