ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community 2017 online exhibition

a visual medium does not just present images,
it surrounds them with a world
Gilles Deleuze

Beyond this insight, during the 20th and early 21st centuries the use of new (computer-fueled and digitally structured) media ushered in a basic transformation in human communications that allowed new ways to present, perceive and interact with knowledge itself. Among the new information formats to emerge were digital repositories and archives organized around particular themes or simply designed to document the activities of artistic and scientific research projects. We think that these archives are indelible proof of a distinct multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary ethos that permeates new media culture.

In this context, the 2017 ACMSIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community online exhibition – Designing Knowledge – seeks to showcase online digital repositories and archives that make use of new media, art and design, and computer graphics in order to enable the creation, dissemination and preservation of new knowledge landscapes in areas such as archeology, anthropology, art history, cultural heritage, all areas of geography, cartography, information and library studies, history, literary studies and museology. We would like to showcase novel treatments of data and implementation of concepts such as cultural analytics that illustrate new knowledge frameworks as in digital humanities (including tangible and intangible representations of heritage); digital heritage (including online artifact exhibitions from science, art and the humanities) and quantified self (or “self knowledge through numbers”, and including genome data, neurodata, and performance data).

What capabilities does the new media and computation afford these electronic knowledge forms? For example, How are techniques such as interactive visualization, responsive design, and crowdsourcing being used to promote new ways of creating accessing and structuring content? How are the combinations of diverse fields through multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary methods and ways of working reshaping the fields of knowledge and the boundaries between them?

The exhibition is open to practitioners and scholars in the arts, humanities and sciences who are interested in showcasing work that illuminates how the new media both promotes and enables new modes of thinking and doing. We seek to explore whether the condensation and concentration of information of diverse disciplines in such information depots is helping to spawn new theories and ways of thinking as well as new practices and ways of doing constructing artifacts that allow us to experience the knowledge of these domains differently. We also seek to promote a better understanding of the role that art and design might play in the creation of such devices.

Selection process

The works presented for inclusion will be gathered through an open call followed by an evaluation process carried out by a team of international advisors. In order to complement our sample, we also intend to survey the ACMSIGGRAPH archives, as well as tender invitations through our networks.

Submission process

In order to be considered for inclusion, works should be submitted using the following guidelines:

  1. Uniqueness An abstract between 300–500 words explaining the most important conceptual aspects which differentiate and identify your work as unique. The submission should explain how the new media and computer graphics technology are brought together through online resource development to promote new ways of thinking and doing things in the disciplines mentioned above. The abstract should be descriptive and include the title of the work, the author(s) name, date of completion, contact information and the primary reasons for undertaking this endeavor.Metadata: At least ten key index terms (tagwords) describing the contents of the work must be included in a separate paragraph.
  2. Knowledge and activity A short (no longer than 3:00 minutes) video documentary or storyboard in MPEG4 format explaining how the artifact (digital archive) is used in activities that involve the creation, dissemination, transformation, and sharing of knowledge should accompany the documentation. The documentary should include a title screen with the name of the author(s) identify the knowledge fields, activities and processes engaged as well as the outcomes produced.
  3. About the work Three to five images of at least 1000 pixels in width in JPG format. Of these images one must be dedicated to displaying the submitted work’s information architecture or schematic model, depicting the systemic organization and contents (boundaries) of the digital artifact. This model should show the link(s) and relations between the different parts and provide a description of the input (raw) data, the tools used to process it, the possible modes of interaction with the data itself and the knowledge resulting from such exchanges.
  4. About the author(s) A short (250 words) biography about the author(s) and people involved in the making and (or) using the work.

(Submission is now closed)