Amplifier for Art, Science and Society
  • Symposium

Archiving Intangible Cultural Heritage & Performing Arts

Location

EPFL Campus

Monday
6.
9:00
 
 
Tuesday
7.8.18
17:30

The symposium examines strategies for encoding, retrieving and re-enacting intangible heritage (e.g. rituals, festivals, performances, and music) in ways that allow these archives to be ‘alive’ in the present. It does so by bringing together historical materials with creative visualizations derived from advanced documentation processes including motion capture, motion-over-time analytics, 3D reconstruction, and panoramic and high-speed video. The gathering brings together world leaders in the research, documentation, preservation and public engagement with intangible cultural heritage and performing arts through digital means.

The documentation, reproduction and presentation of immaterial cultural forms (ICH) pose significant theoretical and technological challenges. Ephemeral traditions (e.g. performances or rituals) require cultural scholars, technologists, artists and scientists to work together with communities to develop new methods for sustaining and enlivening ICH. The symposium examines strategies for encoding, retrieving and re-enacting intangible heritage in ways that allow these archives to be ‘alive’ in the present, bringing together historical materials with creative visualizations derived from advanced documentation processes including motion capture, motion-over-time analytics, 3D reconstruction, and panoramic and high-speed video. Exposing the potential to revivify cultural heritage, these digital archival materials also form the basis for new curatorial opportunities and public engagement strategies. These ‘living archives’ may be re-interpreted and re-performed through the mediums of augmented and virtual reality and interactive media art, utilizing new immersive and interactive display paradigms to perpetuate the performances for future generations.


This Symposium and Summer School is stimulated by a growing worldwide interest in Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) and performance studies. The gathering brings together world leaders in the research, documentation, preservation and public engagement with ICH through digital means. It intends to stimulate interest and advance discussion through more than a dozen seminal speakers, all leaders in the field of performing arts and ICH.


The aims are to:

  • explore new models for data curation of intangible cultural heritage and tools for its dissemination
  • engage with new strategies for the ‘re-enactment’ of living archives for public audiences
  • create innovative tools and opportunities for technology transfer
  • stimulate the network of digital intangible heritage practitioners across Switzerland and the world.