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International Mondotheque Meeting
MiM MaM AV MC NR FS PH
#mondotheque irc@freenode.net
REPORT
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Mondotheque Update: what happened so far, tour of mondotheque.be, why this meeting -- Femke
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Presented at/in different contexts,
(Public Library, Constant V/J, Bergen
http://www.bek.no/
, Solitude Workshop)
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Important the project has resisted reduction to a slogan
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Mons: "The Heart of the Action"
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Google Cultural Institute: Mundaneum is one of several archives taken into
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Problematics: Lack of metadata, unclear licenses, bad descriptions, unclear missions / agenda under the pretentious banner of a "Cultural Institution" -- often portrayed as "just engineering" in the time of real cultural distress.
High resolution images as a lesser kind of representation.
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Google's attempted approach to be a "structural archive" partner; resisted by the owner of the archive (
Fédération
Wallonie
-Bruxelles
) (Publically stated at Public Domain event
2014
by St
é
phanie M
a
nf
r
o
i
d
)
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http://digitalarchives.mundaneum.org
Even though the deal didn't go through, many digitized documents nonetheless appeared on some cultural institute related page.
(Some notes on the GCI at the end of the Pad from irc)
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2015: Mons 2015 & Otlet enters the public domain, sloppy press release from mundaneum about "Otlet becoming open data"... Collaboration with wikisource to publish a new Trait
é
. Could not confirm this with actual ppl involved with wikisource; apparently just a press release vaguely hoping for support from "wikipedians"
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http://www.mondotheque.be/
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How to take part in the re-opening of Mundaneum in June...
(proposal below)
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MC: How to organise in Mons? It is hard to speak about the presence of Google. What public? Not interesting if only usual suspects show up. Google is not seen as a problem (gifts without retours). Universitaire/education/cultural institutions all silent. No experience of interest in changing the 'discours etabli' du Parti Socialiste, everyone wants to believe in digital innovation valley.
Maybe this is why would be interesting to produce a publication/guide that can put the ideas around the discussions in Mons beyond this event. This events just lack a critical attitude because it favours
innovation as inertia
. In Sweden the collaboration with Google was literally described as entertainment park but more interesting :) (will upload audio of the Culture Minister praising this)
. Self-censorship. Naturalized use of G.
Bring attention to the museum, the collection and the exhibition in general, as a politically contested space where organizing history and information is never innocent, it always present a specific way of seeing the world.
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PH: What about the performative function of it? Would be excited to play it! A portable conference ... a tale.
Also a counter Institute? Maybe we could create out own "institution" to tackle this theme. Very Very Serious Business. ;)
MM: A reading, enacting the story. Perform the story. Go through press releases, transcriptions and make that available.
Perform the institution.
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Scraping Culture: Responses to Cultural Institute
http://www.mondotheque.be/wiki/index.php/Scraping_culture
-- Michael M + Robert O + Geraldine. MM: Discussing DevArt -- only Google APIs pass
Yeah it was totally Degenerate Art style of curation. lol
MakeArt crumbles, DevArt emerges
In fact you MUST used a google api to make "dev art". Also is important to realize that im not trying to say that we have a pure art history before GCI dev-art, institutional/corporate culture is part of a specific way of “seeing art”.
PH: Should we apply for Google funding. MC knows how. Remaking an interface to the Google scans, annotating it. Make an e-pub of it. Make a spoof of Cultural Institute (or Google Books?). Vandalize the CI site. Problem of yet another Mediawiki. Critique of the interface.
The CI site is very locked you cannot even View Source there is no API, but an add-on to vandalize as overlay very possible.
no right click!
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A displaced walk, all about Brussels, while in Mons. Play with displacement. Location, location, location:
http://www.mondotheque.be/wiki/index.php/Mundaneum_walk
-- Femke + ?
natacha?
Live guide: You call while you are in the exhibition. A Query. A social search engine. Anatomy of a search.
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The incident tent. A crime scene/archeology in Mons. Have a bookscanner.
this is interesting because this project - much like their failed project Google Books - comes in a time when cultural institutions are short on funding and have to deal with the economic and access demands posit by networked culture. By bank rolling a digitalization process, public-institutions don’t need to rely on public money for it. So the relation with books/digitalization is spot on i think.
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21-25 September 2015: Mondotheque in Mons? In October/November: Quinzaine numerique (October/November): Arts2 + Mundaneum sont partenaire. Maybe there is space to do something where different audiences meet each other. Call not out yet.
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MM 'Google on paper' -- physical books, electronic books. Traite as an e-book ... it is a paper book!
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Investigative journalism about Google in Mons? -- Pierre H + Quentin No
i
rfalisse
- cartography? - fiscal questions, political ones, security
. Connect to location, location.
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Uncategorized: Internationalism/Colonialism ... Archive research ... Anatomy of a Query?
Information Technocolonialism (IT)
Sinzeanna? Geraldine?
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Similar situations in other locations -- Roel
?
Interview Dries Moreels* (July/August) -- Who would like to join? Femke + Alexia + Martino (prepa)
Miscellaneous
MC: Google Cultural Institute in Bozar??
MaM: What about the relation to Europe anti-trust regulations?
-----------
PLAN
We try to go see the opening of Mundaneum together, with notebooks. Aim: to think of an alternative guide that weaves together what's inside and outside (Audio? Google Glass? Map?), in Mons, Brussels, elsewhere. Prepare The displaced walk/Guide for displacement.
27 June
A research meeting/session, visiting Dusan Barok in Mons. Chance to work together on the Guide for displacement, and prepare the digital edition of the Traite. Not public.
12 and/or 13 September
In the summer, Alexia and Femke (with preparations by Martino) meet Dries Moreels* to interview him about the deal that the Ghent University Library made with Google Books 7-8 years ago.
July/August
FS goes to be in the panel of Otlet Salons and announces the work for Quinzaine and does some Radical stagnation
https://otletsalons.wordpress.com
25 September
As part of Quinzaine numerique (if it happens), we organise an event around the re-edition of the Traite. Location: Arts2, in collaboration with Mundaneum and Jeudis du Libre
5 + 6 November
- Connect to Mundaneum via Arts2
- Contact Mundaneum about making sources available - see what if yes, or no.
- Connect to Jeudi du Libre + Wikisource
- Think about output/platform/content
- Invite Benoit Peeters?
PLANNING
Current situation: 750 eur reserved on budget Constant + possibly support VG projectsubsidie (news in June)
http://snelting.domainepublic.net/files/mondotheek_aanvraag.pdf
* Dries Moreels [BE] was verantwoordelijk voor collectievorming bij het VTi, later informatiebeheerder bij BAM en is nu als Library Development & Innovation Coordinator werkzaam bij de Universiteitsbibliotheek Gent. Als één van de verantwoordelijken voor de uitvoering van de overeenkomst van de bibliotheek met
Google Books is hij goed op de hoogte van de dagelijkse technische en legale realiteit van digitalisering en informatiebeheer op grote schaal. Betrokken bij de ontwikkeling van diverse Open Source tools voor gegevensbeheer zoals Librecat, zullen we ons samen laten inspireren door mogelijke overeenkomsten en verschillen tussen de informatiesystemen van vandaag, en die van Otlet.
IRC attendants!
Geraldine.
Re: Google i am interested in the notion of this institute as a new wave of colonizers, where SV is even colonizing the colonizers who loot culture and retool it inside their museums. Now GCI is "dematerializing" colonial archives and erasing/ignoring the underlying history and violence that made possible this collections.
In August i will present an installation related with the GCI in the context of the colonial collections "made" by Robert Wallace in Indonesia. (more info here)
http://anexact.org/125-660-Specimens
I am writting and essay related to GCI too, if anyone want to answer little questions for my research would be great. Please get in touch if you are up for some little questions for the essay. (FS already involved in the context of Paul Otlet).
Another interesting development is the "digital revolution" show of Google (
https://www.barbican.org.uk/digital-revolution/explore/dev-art/
)
which was presented in Barbican, Were Google presents " a new kind of art, art made with code: dev art" (LOL) The Show tour to Sweden and i have all the documentation of the opening, it was framed obvioulsy under and entrepeneurship and innovation rhetoric, a bit Disneyland in the 50 ths. There hasnt been so much criticla press about it but here is agood break down (in swedish)
http://www.expressen.se/kultur/en-ytlig-revolution/
Re: How to take part in the re-opening of Mundaneum in June...
Audioguide:
One idea i had for the Digital Revolution exhibition in Sweden was to make an audio guide to reframe the content of the show within the actual counter revolution (
https://vimeo.com/91276777
) so we would use the mega infrastructure bankrolled by google and the state to bring this overlay with another version of this history. Maybe interesting an audio guide that people can download in their phones while visiting the Mundaneum.? A bit related with the walk of Femke?
Re information technocolonialism:
The Google corporate culture conveniently meets the status quo of museums to transform everything in information, organize it and storage it digitally in a cheap way, appealing to “high- resolution” as the closest form of experience “master-pieces”, “gems” and “national treasures” on the web and given for granted that art and culture are just objects in museums. But even objects in museums are different than seeing a digital copy of an object itself.
Of course, it can also may be the opposite, maybe you will be able to discover much more of a picture in super high-resolution through staring at the brush pixels than 1 meter aways behind a bouncer or a glass box. In the Google Cultural Institute potentially every pixel can be charged with meaning. But, isn’t this what museums has always been doing? Charging every material quality of an object with a meaning determined by a certain context?
No matter its resolution, information is here a lesser version the thing it represents, in this case “masterpieces” exhibited in museums or articulated in another way, communication only as information is a lesser version of communication.
I also have thsi domain called Elefanter.nu (whose digital revolution) who meant to be a response to the Digital Revolution show. Was thought as a bigger project and due lack of funding got stalled. If anyone interested to use it as magazine focus on this themes, is there and we could do something.
Geraldine! discussing the possibility of an alternative guide ..
(audioguide proposal up here)
. We'll need a bit more time with the proposals :-) more soon
https://www.google.com/search?q=site:withgoogle.com