Lost in (Digital) Space

The symposium »Lost in (Digital) Space. Authorship in the Digital Age« on 4^th June 2016, invites visitors to cut a path through the obscure thicket of the information, risks and artistically communicative possibilities of the internet – in the form of a discussion with representatives of the performing arts and media technology institutes as well as with professors of audiovisual design.

These days, almost all knowledge and information seems available in digital form, but at the same time, it is impossible to assimilate and therefore unconnected with the intellectual tradition of free and unrestrained thought. Within the hierarchy of memorizing, the question is now raised regarding the creativity of the individual as a moment of assimilating volumes of information that have never been seen before.
 
What is the importance of intellectual experience in virtual realities, digital forums, and when dealing with artificial intelligence? To what extent are the new communicative approaches through the web 2.0 and the semantic web changing our understanding of authorship? Are they expanding the digital channels and pathways of our communicative abilities, or have we already become lost in the maze of the world wide web? Has the spontaneous, creative individual made a mockery of themselves and surrendered their creative authorship to digital technology? Are creative artists available as authors?
 
This symposium will address these questions in the form of presentations, discussions and interviews. Creative artists from different sectors will be attending and talking about their ground-breaking journeys and experiences - including Sidney Corbett (composer and professor), Kathrin Passig (non-fiction author and blogger), choreographer Wanda Golonka, video artist Chris Kondek, and Steven Walter (cellist/artistic director of the PODIUM Festival). The following people have also been invited to attend as the representatives of leading international media institutes: Gerfried Stocker (artistic director of the Ars Electronica Centre Linz), Peter Weibel (chairman & CEO, ZKM | Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe), Andreas Hykade (director of the Institute for Animation, Visual Effects and Digital Post-production at the Film Academy of Baden-Württemberg), and the film and media specialist Robin Curtis (Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf).