Computational Museology
Ahead of the opening night of the Terapixel Panorama Exhibition, we invite you for an exclusive event with Prof. Sarah Kenderdine, a leading researcher in interactive and immersive experiences for galleries, libraries, archives, and museums and winner of the SNSF 2024 Optimus Agora Prize.
Museums have long preserved human knowledge through stone, paper, and film. Today, computation reshapes how we create, curate, and experience cultural memory. Vast archives are translated into data; immersive environments reconfigure how we see and feel history. Yet alongside these new possibilities come uncertainties: formats change, code decays, and technologies become obsolete.
Kenderdine’s practice probes these tensions, expanding the museum into a space of immersion, interaction, and scale—while asking what might be lost as fast as it is gained. This gathering brings together artists, scholars, and technologists to reflect on the futures of cultural heritage in the age of computation.
How can computational methods reimagine the museum? What does it mean to preserve memory when the medium itself is unstable? Join us for an evening of dialogue on immersion, data, and the futures of museology.
*This event is by invitation only. If you are interested in attending, please request an invite.
Program
- 4:00pm – Doors open
- 4:15pm – Keynote
- 4:45pm – Guided tour of the Terapixel Panorama Exhibition with Prof. Sarah Kenderdine
- 5:15pm – Roundtable discussion
- 5:45pm – Event ends (public exhibition opening starts at 6pm)
iCal / Outlook
Event start time
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San Francisco
4:00PM
Keynote
Professor Sarah Kenderdine is a leading researcher in interactive and immersive experiences for galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. She is Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, where she directs the Laboratory for Experimental Museology (eM+). From 2017 to 2024, she served as Director and Lead Curator of EPFL Pavilions and now holds the position of Curator-at-Large. Professor Kenderdine is internationally recognized for pioneering the field of computational museology—an innovative framework that integrates machine intelligence with data curation, ontology with visualization, and public engagement with embodied, kinaesthetic interaction. Her research advances new paradigms of cultural production and experience across immersive and interactive media. She has conceived and produced over 110 exhibitions and major installations worldwide. Her forthcoming book, Deep Fakes: A Critical Lexicon of Digital Museology, will be published by Routledge in 2025.
Speakers
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Bio
Sara Velas
Director & Founder, Velaslavasay PanoramaSara Velas is an artist, curator, graphic designer, gardener, researcher, urban humanist and native Los Angeleno. She is the Founder and Director of the Velaslavasay Panorama, an institution dedicated to the panorama phenomenon that she established in the year 2000 on Hollywood Boulevard to explore tropes of cinema and visual storytelling in collaboration with a wide range of artists, designers, movie makers, cultural practitioners and more. An Honorary Member of the International Panorama Council, Velas led the creation of the world’s only collaborative USA><China panorama. Sara and her longtime collaborator Ruby Carlson lead IRMA 360 (Immersive Research Media Associates), a consulting art and entertainment firm, and currently serve as editors for the Visual and Creative Essays section of the Panorama and Immersive Media Studies Yearbook. Born in Panorama City, California, Sara Velas studied Painting in St. Louis, receiving her BFA from Washington University in 1999.
