Page 76 - The Black Box Book

has been, specifically in 2020, significantly affected by the closure of
museums and galleries. Alongside its existence as a curatorial project,
Black Box in the year 2021 facilitated a theoretical debate and analysis of
contemporary art with the participation of media art theorists, curators,
art galleries and festivals. Under the title Curating Online , a year-long
22
series of international online symposia on the transformation of art insti-
tutions due to the impact of the global pandemic Covid-19 was created,
articulating the transformation of curatorial models in the context of
the massive expansion of art production, distribution and presentation
into the online space. Attended by representatives of major national and
international museums, galleries and art festivals (Ars Electronica Linz,
WRO Wroclaw, Jindřich Chalupecký society, PLATO Ostrava, National
Gallery in Prague, Signal Praha, Sensorium Bratislava or PAF Olomouc,
among others), the symposia addressed the qualities and assumptions that
characterize the online presentation of art. Discussed were also changes
required in communication formats towards audiences accustomed to
the physical presence of art exhibitions or festivals; the specifics of cu-
rating on the web; critically confronted and evaluated were the strategies
of art mediation that traditional galleries and art festivals tested during
the 2020 lockdown.
Through various experts` presentations during the symposia, Black
Figure 11, 12: Black Box. (2021). Round Box contributed to the discourse on the organizational and conceptual
table discussions chaired by Marika Kupková and apparatuses of the art world (the museum, the gallery, the production
Monika Szűcsová during the symposiums Curating
Online #1 and Curating Online #2 Retrieved from framework of the exhibition, the personality of the artist and the curator,
https://cerna-skrinka.cz/symposium-1 as well as the bodies active in the field of art and culture at the level of
the state), which is being shaped in the context of online art presentation,
web curation, and the diverse ways of transforming artistic aesthetics and
production. By holding the symposia online, the lectures have produced
recordings23, which are archived on the Black Box website and which can
be used for further research and reflection on the current state of art and
cultural institutions, as well as art in general. Black Box as an archive can
be seen as a network of relationships, projects and events in the sense
proposed by Jussi Parikka (2009) when he argues that the function of
an archive is to organize and make visible the objects that are part of
our culture and to create hierarchical relationships between them. In this
context, Wolfgang Ernst (2009) draws attention to another significant

22 Black Box. (2021). Curating Online #1: Transformation of art institutions
into online modes. Loss of institutional aura?, April 21st and 22nd, 2021.
Retrieved from https://cerna-skrinka.cz/symposium-1; Black Box. (2021).
Curating Online #2: The show goes on? Media art festivals during COVID
times, October 20th and 21st, 2021. Retrieved from https://cerna-skrinka.
cz/symposium-2; Black Box. (2021). Curating Online #3: Cultural heritage,
creativity and the summer of artificial intelligence. Is everything a remix?,
December 7th, 2021. Retrieved from https://cerna-skrinka.cz/symposi-
um-3

23 Black Box (2020 - ). Curating Online Symposium (1, 2, and 3).
Retrieved from https://cerna-skrinka.cz/symposium-1
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