Curator joins LJMU for curating the web research project

Entitled ‘Curating on the web’ the project focuses on curatorial work that subverts the assumptions and mechanisms of the digital economy by devising new models for the production and display of contemporary art online. The project is  funded by the Italian Council / Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity, Italy, and will include sharing activities in collaboration with Walkin Studios in Bangalore (India) and Nation25 in Rome (Italy).

Marialaura is a curator whose work explores the intersections between art, technology and society, particularly the way in which technology morphs behaviours, relationships between people and with the environment. Since her AHRC-funded PhD with CRUMB (University of Sunderland, 2015), she has researched the field of curating on the web, contributing her research to edited books, magazines and journals, such as the Arts Journal (2019) and the Journal of Curatorial Studies (2017). Interested in working with various exhibition formats, she founded the curatorial platform or-bits.com (2009-2015) and has curated projects such as ‘#exstrange’ (2017) on eBay; ‘Silicon Plateau’ (2015-) in print; ‘The C(h)roma Show’ (2014) in an electronics shop in Bangalore, IN; ‘128kbps objects’ on basic.fm (2013) and ‘Search Engine’ (2012) across public spaces in Birmingham, UK. 

Marialaura has given lectures and workshops for a variety of audiences and organisations, from FICA and Art Asia Archive in India, to the University of Amsterdam, AV Festival and Fondazione Fotografia di Modena in Europe, to the New Media Caucus (NMC) conference and the Ross School of Business at University of Michighan in the US.

PROJECT TITLE

Curating on the web. Subverting the assumptions and mechanisms of the digital economy in today’s network of networks.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION 

Starting from a historical mapping of curatorial strategies on the web, the project will focus on curatorial work that subverts the assumptions and mechanisms of the digital economy by devising new models for the production and display of contemporary art online. If, since the 90s, curating on the web has proposed a revision of the concepts of artistic originality, authorship, collection & archive, and audience participation in artistic and cultural processes, in recent years curators and artists have started to develop strategies that directly respond to the corporatization and hypermassification of the products of the digital industry (from cloud platforms to mobile applications, such as those for productivity and monitoring). This project will explore the context and workings of such approaches, and the way they adopts strategies of appropriation, disruption and contamination of discourses, to propose a constructive critique of the impact of digital technology on art production, society and networked culture, and to create new support structures. In the light of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the project aims to open up a discussion on the role that curating on the web can have on discussing the complexities of our contemporary moment - inclusion, exchange and care. 

This research project is collaboration with the Exhibition Research Lab at Liverpool John Moores University (UK) and sponsored by the Italian Council / Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity (Italy), and it will include sharing activities in collaboration with Walkin Studios in Bangalore (India) and Nation25 in Rome (Italy).