In 2016, the key areas of Culture.pl's activity have been enriched by the rapidly developing fields of technological art and new media. It is their activity in this field that inaugurated Polish participation in the International Symposium on Electronic Art in Hong Kong.
Founded in the Netherlands in 1990, ISEA International is a non-profit organisation dedicated to fostering international academic exchange and collaboration between professionals and institutions working with art, science, and technology. The main activity of ISEA International is to organise the International Symposium on Electronic Art. The symposium, held yearly since 1988, has become one of the most important international events of technological art.
In May 2016, thanks to the efforts of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Polish cultural institutions for the first time had a chance to present themselves at this prestigious conference. In Hong Kong, Anna Szylar, co-ordinator of the institute's art & technology programme, presented the most interesting state-of-the-art museum narratives from Poland. In her presentation, she focused on new media strategies used in the exhibitions of POLIN, the Warsaw Rising Museum, and the Chopin Museum, as well as on the possibility of using new technologies as tools for telling Polish history in the 21st century.
The museums invited to take part in the symposium are distinctive in their openness towards interacting with their audiences. In recent years, the institutions have focused on integrating new technologies for developing narrative methods of understanding history and cultural identity. They offer audiences new ways of experiencing and learning about history, allow visitors to actively participate in the museum's narrative, and leave space for independent interpretations of the nation's legacy.
The 22nd International Symposium on Electric Art, titled Cultural R>evolution, took place place between 16th and 22nd May 2016 in Hong Kong.
The presentation of Polish cultural institutions at the conference was prepared by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in collaboration with the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, the Warsaw Rising Museum and the Fryderyk Chopin Museum, in partnership with the HAT Center.
The project was realised as part of the programme for worldwide promotion of Polish technological art, co-ordinated by Culture.pl