Encounters between visual and performing arts in festival culture in Europe in the 16th to 18th centuries

Since 2016, researchers of the project I+D+i ART-ES. Appropriations and hybridizations between the visual arts and the performing arts have been working on a virtual exhibition focusing on the hybridization of the arts in the Early Modern Period. Designed by the Visual Media Department of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and titled From real life into the world of art, this virtual space offers an experience midway between a scientific publication and an interactive presentation. Through an innovative combination of audio-visual media, the exhibition displays 15 narratives relating to historical festivals, entries, operas, ballets and artworks of particular significance within the history of art and theatre. By making the contents accessible online and allowing the users to choose specific routes, the exhibition addresses both the academic community and a wider audience.

In the first part of this symposium, Sabine Haag, general director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna), and the curators, Carmen González-Román (Universidad de Málaga) and Rudi Risatti (Theatermuseum, Vienna), will present the exhibition and launch it on the web.

This project is an opportunity to reflect, once again, on Digital Humanities and virtual formats, especially in present times, in which the pandemic strongly affected the activities of museums. In the second part of this symposium, the heads of important museums and cultural institutions will present and discuss different formats of virtual exhibitions, from the digital twin to those in which the narrative structure provides a multifaceted and interconnected vision with sound sources, 3D-animations, etc. (From real life into the world of art), through digital exhibitions conceived as “an archive of archives” (Rethinking Guernika). In this sense, the ‘exhibition’ value of interactive formats on the websites of museums, galleries or art centres will also be addressed. The experiences shown by the different speakers will allow for debate, in turn, on the objectives, difficulties, challenges and future perspectives.