During 2021, with the support of the Liepāja Culture Board, the Liepaja Media Art Archive was updated – arhivs.aste.gallery. The archive is created in cooperation with the Liepaja University Art Research Laboratory (MPLab). Phase 2 of the archive includes information for the period 2010-2020.
From 2010 to 2020, the Liepāja new media art community focused on in-depth research of specific media, specializing in various areas of media art – sound art, video projection mapping, eco-art, virtual reality content creation, etc. Initiatives also developed to disseminate the knowledge gained through studies and work to the general public through public discussions, presentations and creative workshops. Since 2013, the sound art festival “Sound Days” has been held, devoting one week each year to experimental sound production in May. But Liepāja University’s International New Media Art Week I-Week gradually grew into a media art festival UPDATE for a wider audience with an intensive online program for international audiences as well. In 2017, a student initiative flourished – an interdisciplinary cycle of open art education named OPEN LAB for youth audiences, in which new media artists and young people without prior knowledge could meet renowned artists from different fields of art (performance art, photography, etc.) and develop audiovisual projects that reflect the views of young people – the future generation – on current issues – false news, technological improvements, etc. in the form of hackathon. Promoting public media literacy is also one of the main goals of ASTE.
The Liepāja New Media Art Archive is available at https://arhivs.aste.gallery/. It can be used for further research and the study process of new media art. The archive was created by Paula Vītola, a doctoral student at the Liepaja University, Diana Lelis, a multimedia artist and writer, and Anna Priedola, the head of the Art Research Laboratory.
The project will continue in the coming years, with the introduction of a database of the most active artists in the community, convenient search engines and English translations of content.
