Book XXXI
The current drive for visibility on the internet and social media encourages adaptation and manipulation of art documentation from both artists and memory institutions. A value shift is currently taking place whereby the documentation of an artwork on the internet becomes more important than the original artwork itself.
Meanwhile, due to the universal and compelling design of social media, smartphones, tablets and computers, a leveling takes place on a large scale in how we take in knowledge via screens. This awareness hardly plays any role in the digitization of art collections and how art (documentation) is viewed online.
Book XXXI is the result of the hypothesis that the current use of the internet and future digital techniques will ultimately lead to the elemination of the distinction between the original and its copy. Book XXXI is an art based project by which critical questions are asked about the obviousness on how documentation and digital applications, such as online art archives, are used for promotion, historiography and research.
The current drive for visibility on the internet and social media encourages adaptation and manipulation of art documentation from both artists and memory institutions. A value shift is currently taking place whereby the documentation of an artwork on the internet becomes more important than the original artwork itself. Meanwhile, due to the universal and compelling design of social media, smartphones, tablets and computers, a levelling takes place on a large scale in the way in which we take in knowledge via screens. This awareness hardly plays any role in the digitization of art collections and the way in which art (documentation) is viewed online.
These statements are the result of a visual and theoretical study of the hypothesis that the current use of the internet and future digital techniques will ultimately lead to the elemination of the distinction between the original and its copy. This study, Book XXXI, is an art based project with concepts for installations, interventions and exhibitions in which critical questions are asked about the obviousness on which documentation and digital applications such as online art archives are used for promotion, historiography and research. Book XXXI can be offered as a short essay (or otherwise) as contribution to Stedelijk Studies Imagining the Future of Digital Archives and Collections.