Digital (Dis)comforts – The Future of Material Practices

The Internet is recognised as essential to meet our day-to-day needs across all spheres of life. Last year, as some countries went into lockdown, our reliance on the digital dramatically accelerated. Technology allowed communities to stay in touch and education and businesses to continue to function. The results, however, have been notably uneven across communities with varying degrees of access to and interaction with technology.

The museum world too was not exempt from witnessing the rise of digital responses. Ranging from the individual to the collective and organizational, new ways to search archives and collections and different forms of visiting and touring exhibitions emerged. For this event the History of Design MA cohort invites Kay Watson (Serpentine Galleries) and Suhair Khan (Google Art & Culture) in a discussion on the intersection of technology, culture and design.

We will discuss: What do we lose and what do we gain in the translation of material histories into the digital world? How did acquiring new objects to collections change with the shift towards increasingly digital platforms? Do physical objects hold the same value as before? What are the disparities caused by access to technology and / or the disparity that comes as a result of interaction with technologies? And much more.

The event offers a deep dive into what design historians need in order to practice and connect the digital and the physical within cultural spaces, to further understand the digital challenges and implications, but also the newfound opportunities, to connect the digital and physical within the cultural space.