I am organizing a symposium titled “Refresh/Reset//Reformat: Digital Kintsugi” at the Bard Graduate Center on April 3, 2020 and am looking for speakers. Following is a description of the event. Please contact me at jesse.merandy@bgc.bard.edu if you are interested.

Refresh/Reset//Reformat: Digital Kintsugi
In the Japanese art of Kintsugi, or golden joinery, lacquer and gold powder are used to repair broken pottery, mending fragments together in a way that draws attention to the breakage, embracing it and the repair as vital elements of the object’s history. This seminar looks at the many ways that digital tools serve to illuminate and mend breaks including the reconstruction of physical objects in virtual space, the reassembling of collections and materials in online archives, and the recovery of forgotten historic moments and lost and marginalized voices through web-based projects and exhibitions. It will consider how the digital can expose divisions and fragmentation, recovering or preserving their importance, and also explore what is at stake when the same tools are used to obfuscate or erase these breaks. Ultimately, questions of what is repaired and restored, how, and why will serve to provoke contemplation about loss and memory in a world that increasingly relies on the digital for preservation and commemoration.