Organizing the Un-organizable: How Digital Tech Reshapes Artistic Legacy
Join Francine Snyder (Director of Archives at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and editor of I Don’t Think About Being Great: Selected Writings by Robert Rauschenberg) and Noah Landow (Founder and CEO at Macktez) for an informal conversation between an expert in art and artist archives and the founder of a technology consulting firm.
Even in the art world, traditional cataloging practices born from the physical limitations of 3x5 index cards, paper files, and of shelf space constrained how we record, search for, and document the many records and ephemera that surround an artist’s life and their artistic practice. Modern technologies offer "limitless" digital canvases, but create new hurdles for searchability and semantic meaning. What lessons can be learned from the past, and how can we take advantage of opportunities offered by a new era of widespread digitization, preserving our cultural history and granting broader access to it, while exploring the tension between conventions of record-keeping and the radical, non-linear philosophy of the artists themselves?
Whether navigating the specific complexities of Robert Rauschenberg’s archives, where staying true to the artist’s vision includes preserving phonetic spelling and grammatical idiosyncrasies in his writings as intentional or "word play", or developing open-source taxonomies for global institutions, the work of a modern archivist is as much about building intuitive technology as it is about protecting and providing access to physical objects.
Join us at the Macktez office, after work, over light snacks and sips, for an exploratory conversation on the tools and methods used to organize the "un-organizable." We’ll dive into how thoughtful digitization projects can expand access to physical collections rather than replacing them, the mundane “magic" that goes behind-the-scenes indexing, and how non-standard languages and personal perspectives like dyslexia can inform the way we build taxonomies. We’ll explore how we can better use technology to ensure that the stories behind our most important creative legacies remain accessible and intact for the decades ahead.
Photography, audio, and video recording may occur at this event and by attending you consent to such recording media and its release, publication, exhibition, or reproduction.
Event Structure
We ask that guests arrive between 7-7:30 pm to minimize disruption during the talk.
7 pm - Doors open, opportunity to mingle over snacks and sips with other attendees
7:30 pm - Guests take their seats for the talk
8:15 pm - Informal mixer resumes
On Attendance
We have a limited capacity. If your plans change, please update your registration so someone else can join.
A bit about Macktez, and why we host this series
Macktez is a technology consultancy collaborating with organizations going through dynamic change.
Our goal is to form a lasting partnership between our team and our clients, so we can anticipate their technology challenges and help them navigate growth, disruption, and other evolving conditions.
Each event in our Tête-à-Tech series is an opportunity to explore a specific cultural, scientific, historical, and personal issue. We fire at the synapses that connect each topic to other fields of interest and to our individual lives. And we do so in a comfortable environment to facilitate conversation that can be casual, surprising, and illuminating.
To learn more, visit us at macktez.com.