Techno-colonialism: digitization and trafficking cultural goods

Published on December 6th, 2017


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Following the release of such videos by ISIS, many Western nation states reacted outraged and responded by claiming the preservation or rebuilding of some of the remains. While reinstating conventional methods of appropriation, and ignoring their own role in these (fake) destructions, a new player entered the marketplace: commercial companies specializing in 3D modelling and printing.

AHM CONFERENCE 2017
Materialities of Postcolonial Memory
University of Amsterdam, 7-9 December 2017

Trafficking of cultural heritage is nothing new, and it ranges from theft from cultural heritage institutions and private collections, to looting of archaeological sites or the displacement of artefacts due to war. Recently a new phenomenon can be added to this list: the filming of destructions of –fake– ancient relics, while the originals are quickly and illicitly traded on the profitable market of ancient artefacts. Following the release of such videos by ISIS, many Western nation states reacted outraged and responded by claiming the preservation or rebuilding of some of the remains. While reinstating conventional methods of appropriation, and ignoring their own role in these (fake) destructions, a new player entered the marketplace: commercial companies specializing in 3D modelling and printing.

The possibility of generating detailed copies of an artifact without the need to access it brings undeniable benefits to its accessibility and preservation. It allows people access to lost ‘treasures’. Rather than being interested in preservation of cultural heritage, foremost these companies are profiting from the reselling of copyrighted files. Drawing attention to the importance of a freely shared memory and using the power of technology, artist Morehshin Allahyari devised her own method to counter what she considers to be a new digital colonialism. Taking Allahyari’s and similar artists’ use of technology as a political medium and contrasting it to commercial initiatives, I will show how a decolonialist practice takes place and why it is important by addressing how re-use and re-interpretation allow for a new set of values to emerge in which destroyed objects, and their users, regain agency through digitisation.

 

Materialities of Postcolonial Memory

This conference is the annual international conference of the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (AHM) of the University of Amsterdam. This year, the focus is on key public debates around colonial legacies, the slavery past, migration and the materiality of postcolonial heritage.

As questions of racism are prominent in public debate, the colonial and slavery pasts represent more than ever key sites of both social encounter and contestation. The fields of heritage and memory studies, however, have been slow to respond to these urgent issues. This conference engages with these debates through the lens of materiality, broadly understood. Our understanding of materiality encompasses, on the one hand, the enduring, ruinous effects of colonialism around the globe, its often unarticulated material traces in former metropoles and colonies, as well as the mostly unacknowledged role of migration and displacement. On the other hand, we wish to address the range of interventions, from protest movements to artistic initiatives and museum spaces, which act upon the manifold legacies of past injustices in the present.

Reflecting on the materiality of bodies, objects, sites, ruins, traces and interventions, this international conference examines the awkward, aphasiac and contested memories of colonial and slavery pasts by bringing together scholars from heritage and memory studies, postcolonial and performative studies, critical race studies, archaeology and material culture, art history, archival studies and digital humanities, conflict and identity studies and other areas. We invite scholars to present papers which critically analyse these issues, and especially consider the role of materiality in their case studies.

 

Image credit: CultLab3D, Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics, Research IGD


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