23rd & 24th September 2010

This year’s forum addressed the theme of Craft & New Technologies. We are seeing exciting and innovative new work being created as an increased number of makers, designers and artists explore digital and new technologies in their practice. New technologies are also permeating the museum environment and influencing the way objects are displayed and interpreted, forming new relationships between object and viewer.

For the curator these new developments present a number of challenges; such as how do we collect these works? How do we approach issues of display and interpretation? And how are such works stored, documented, and cared for?

This year the event ran over two days. The programme for Day 1 was a series of talks that explored some of the contemporary curatorial issues around the collecting, curating, conserving, displaying and interpreting of digital and digitally produced works. Speakers included Max Fraser – design author, curator and editor and publisher of LONDON DESIGN GUIDE; Ele Carpenter – curator, artist and researcher in visual arts and new media culture; Janis Jefferies – Professor of Visual Arts in the Department of Computing, Goldsmiths University of London and Louise Shannon – curator and Deputy Head of Contemporary Programmes, V&A.

Day 2 featured a tour of Metropolitan Works, one of the UK’s largest Digital Manufacturing Centres, housing a range of new technology for prototyping, manufacture, research and experimentation. Two makers accompanied the tour, introducing how they used the facilities, and how this is shaping studio practice today.

Day 1: Thursday 23rd September
09:30 – 16:30: Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX

Day 2: Friday 24th September
10:00 – 12:30: Metropolitan Works, 41 Commercial Road, London E1 1LA
13:30 onwards: visit to Origin, Old Spitalfields Market, Brushfield Street, London E1 6EW

Photos and transcripts are available here.

Previous events
2010
2009
2008
2007

Downloads
If you have problems downloading the files below please right-click the link and choose ‘save target as’ or ‘save link as’ from the menu.

• Booking Form (187KB Pdf File)
• Booking Form (213KB Word File)