Temporary Library of Media Art / Denmark is a collection of printed publications covering the Danish Media art field. This collection represents the most comprehensive knowledge and documentation of media art in Denmark, in terms of ultralocal histories of artistic practices and platforms in the field. The project aims at strengthening the media art field’s presence, not only in and around the broader art scene of Denmark, but also and more importantly as part of an international field. Having the context of the International Erasmus Master in Media Arts Cultures as well as being a Leonardo LASER host makes Aalborg University and the Aalborg University Library the ideal ultralocal platform for the temporary library in Denmark.

 

Like with the sister project in Norway, the intent is to contribute to the future development of the media art field in Denmark, and internationally, by providing a solid basis of the field’s history and collected knowledge in one, comprehensive archive. The project further encourages growth in printed media arts publications in Denmark, which is necessary not only to provide an overview of the historical importance of media arts in Danish culture and its interconnectedness with the international communities of Media Art but also to encourage the ongoing development of the field in the future.

The research into publications carried out by Mogens Jacobsen, Morten Søndergaard, and Alessandro Ludovico. They have not only gathered works from what are well-known projects locally, but also uncovered what Morten Søndergaard refers to as the “unheard avant-gardes in Scandinavia” and which Alessandro Ludovico defines as “sleeping knowledge”: publications that have been published only in few copies, most often in the context of an experimental media art platform or practice, and in several cases forgotten in some storage.

However, the language barrier and the fact that most of the publications were written in Danish of course also makes these publications “unheard” and “sleeping” in another sense: the temporary library also presents the opportunity for the hermeneutic process of translation, bringing further contextual and cultural complexity to the field. The media art field is thus bigger than it is aware of, and the temporary library project proliferates this unheard richness of artistic and creative experiments with media and technology.

 

Temporary Library of Danish Media Art, therefore, does not only serve as a discursive platform to explore, uncover, and analyze the unheard media art practices in Denmark; it also connects the local practices to the international scenes and circuits of media, technology, science, and art the effects of which on real invention and culture is so often overlooked and undervalued.

 

The Temporary Library project was initiated by Alessandro Ludovico. The Danish edition is produced and maintained by AUB - Aalborg University Library. It was first launched for the MicroPOM – the Politics of Machines Micro Edition in Aalborg, Denmark, May 10-11 2022.