KBF: Art and Creativity in a Digital World

KOCHI:
A host of ideas on how best to reconcile the authorship and aesthetics of artistic spaces with the dynamism and open-endedness of digital landscapes will form the crux of an upcoming Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) workshop in the city.
Helmed by noted technology advocate Sree Sreenivasan, the open-to-public seminar – titled ‘Digital, Mobile, Social Lessons for Artists and Other Creatives’ – will be held at Sacred Heart college in Thevara, Ernakulam, on Friday, July 29, from 10 am-12 pm.Sreenivasan was most recently the first Chief Digital Officer at the iconic Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York – the world’s largest encyclopedic museum widely known as‘The Met’.
Sreenivasan is perhaps best known for bringing The Met into the social media age, having overseen the creation of the museum’s first app, made its extensive collection more accessible via a cleaner, mobile-friendly website and invited influential Instagrammers inside during closing hours.
Promising a “fun, fast-paced” discussion about “all things digital”, the seasoned Tedx talker – in his first speaking event in Kochi as part of a social media speaking tour across India – will share insights from his two-decade-long career on the future of media, education, arts and culture.
“The future of all businesses is storytelling; and connecting the physical and the digital, the in-person and the online,” he said, stressing the need for artists to gain technological fluency, even literacy, in order to better market their creativity and share their narratives in a world of digital natives.
Sreenivasan contends that the art world’s enthusiasm for all things digital can be seen as acceptance of online spaces and social networks not only as tools for marketing, but as vehicles to facilitate wider engagement and conversations.
“Digital tools and new technology offer many avenues for connecting and telling stories, about art-making, about creativity, and the people and organisations working in creative fields. Social media has a way of democratizing the thinking process, of making the audience privy to processes in a way that was impossible before. But how do you do that effectively and authentically? That is what this workshop is about,” said KBF Secretary Riyas Komu, noting that the workshop would explore ways to navigate the perceived tensions between art and social media.
The workshop is supported by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, in partnership with the Sacred Heart College, Thevara.