Digital Residency

The Digital Residency is aimed at individuals interested in exploring aspects related to digital tools and their application in museums, the digitization of collections and archives, the study of the MAMBO Collection, and the digital practices associated with it. The goal of this residency is to promote research-creation projects based on the Museum’s content, including but not limited to digital artistic and educational responses to the collection, the development of interactive applications, the creation of virtual tours, archival digitization, multimedia content production, and any other initiatives that utilize digital resources.

Open Call Results

From July 8 to July 19, 2024, the call for applications for the Digital Residency was open. A total of 31 applications and proposals were received from Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, and the United States. Applicants included undergraduate and graduate students, artists, art historians, designers, journalists, art educators, social communicators, anthropologists, philosophers, educators, emerging researchers, and cultural managers.

For this edition, and due to the high quality of the proposals, two finalists were selected for the first edition of the Digital Residency: Sebastián Mira (Colombia) with his project “pixel quadrants,” and the international collective Digital Visual Studies (DVS) (Switzerland) with their project “Bogotá (re)imagined: Explorations with AI and the Digital Collection of MAMBO.”

About the Projects

“pixel quadrants” by Sebastián Mira presents a selection of works from the MAMBO collection that explores acts of landscaping and how we view the world to be part of it. Starting from a review and reinterpretation of the landscape genre within the Museum’s collection, specifically in the “Transformers” and “Proposal to View the Landscape” series by artist Rodrigo Callejas, Sebastián proposes creating a gamified online experience where these pieces are digitally recreated and form an interactive platform that addresses the possibilities of virtual landscaping and hypermateriality, while also reflecting on the relevance of the web and video games as exhibition formats.

The digitization of artworks and exhibitions serves as a material bridge for cultural institutions to bring their content closer to digital generations and audiences who may not necessarily have access to the museum but do have access to an electronic device with an internet connection. In this sense, “pixel quadrants” will circulate and reinterpret works from the Museum’s collection to reflect on the genre of “landscape,” now mediated through interactive interfaces.

The Digital Visual Studies (DVS) international collective will carry out the project “Bogotá (re)imagined: Explorations with AI and the MAMBO Digital Collection.” This study explores a curation of the MAMBO digital collection to (re)imagine Bogotá through the use of artificial intelligence. AI models are used to analyze artworks and extract visual and textual features, which are then integrated with the city. The project aims to reimagine and re-signify both the Collection and the city, creating new artistic experiences through this technology. The initiative seeks to offer new perspectives on the MAMBO Collection and the urban context of Bogotá, also addressing ethical and cultural issues related to the use of these technologies. Through this residency, the project intends to explore the possibilities and challenges of AI-assisted curation

About the Residents

Sebastián Mira (Colombia) is an artist and curator interested in practices of mutuality, friendship, and archiving. His work explores the manifestations of landscape in the virtual realm, the relationships between physical and digital spaces, and the methods of representing objects, beings, and places through screens. His work has been exhibited in Amsterdam, Bogotá, CDMX, Linz, Marseille, Medellín, New York, and the wwweb. He currently co-directs VIRREINA and MSD: an exhibition and residency space focused on contemporary land art practices, and a curatorial duo centered on haptic and affective experiences within the digital realm. In his spare time, he collects electronic pets, bricks, and architectural renders.

Digital Visual Studies (DVS) (Switzerland) is part of the Max Planck Society and the University of Zurich, Switzerland. The lab is multidisciplinary, situated between visual studies research and the use of digital tools such as artificial intelligence. The team comprises Ana María Zapata, a Colombian art historian and literati with a master’s degree in information and data science, who serves as the Editor-in Chief of the International Journal for Digital Art History and has extensive experience in digital visual studies and art history projects; Darío Negueruela del Castillo, the Scientific Coordinator of DVS, with a background in architecture and expertise in applying AI models to cultural research; doctoral students Ludovica Schaerf and Pepe Ballesteros, who specialize in computer science, computer vision models, and digital humanities; Lacopo Neri, an architect skilled in creating platforms and interfaces for research projects involving AI in culture; Andrea Alfarano, an engineer with a focus on AI models, especially in deep learning and latent space research; and Tristan Weddigen, director of the Max Planck Institute for Art History – Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome

Acknowledgments

These projects are supported by Digital Futures in Museum Practices, a research initiative led by Susana Vargas-Mejía and funded by the Government of Canada’s New Frontiers in Research Fund [Anita Sinner PI, Cristian Zaelzer Co-PI, Susana Vargas-Mejía Co-I, Trish Osler and Samia ElSheikh, NFRF-2022-00245].