Making Lemonade. Towards a digital future for the arts.

The Cultural Service of the French Embassy in Korea, the Goethe-Institut Korea and the Art Center Nabi are co-organising the online symposium Making Lemonade from 14 to 16 April 2021.

Making Lemonade is a three-day online festival that questions the impact of digital practices and tools on artistic creation and dissemination on an international scale. By presenting good practices from France, Germany and Korea, the online symposium seeks to paint a portrait of the digital future of arts and culture through five round tables, five presentations and three artistic interventions.

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the structuring of international cultural exchanges, and transformed many events and festivals into online events. New cultural content has emerged in this context, often considered as temporary formats, waiting for a "return to normal". However, the prolongation of the health crisis is now leading us to rethink the potential and opportunities offered by the digitalisation of arts and culture in the longer term.

Inspired by the expression "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade", a saying that encourages an optimistic attitude in the face of adversity, Making Lemonade questions the impact of cultural digitisation. The first day of the festival was marked by speeches from Erol Ok, Director General and Acting President of the French Institute, Johannes Ebert, Secretary General of the Goethe-Institut, and Kyu Won Kim, Executive Director of Culture and Arts Research Division at KCTI(replay available here). German artist Manuel Rossner presented his virtual exhibition Surprisingly This Rather Works, and spoke about the revolution brought about by NFTs and digital art(replay available here). Annemie Vanackere, Artistic Director of the HAU Hebbel am Ufer theatre, Gilles Alvarez, Artistic Director of the Nemo Biennial and Jinyeob Cha, choreographer, then exchanged views on the new creative opportunities offered by digital technology for the performing arts, presenting several initiatives that have been implemented during the closure of theatres(replay available here).

During the second day of the festival, dedicated to visual arts and virtual reality (VR), Making Lemonade had the chance to welcome artist Hayoun Kwon, who spoke about the real-virtual link in his work, and shared his work with the audience (replay available here). L'Oiseleuse with the audience(replay available here). Previously, Tina Sauerländer, Artistic Director of the VR Art Prize, Jay Kim, XR Curator at BIFAN, and Olivier Fontenay, Head of the Digital Creation Department at the CNC, spoke about funding, distribution and mediation of VR(replay available here). The day ended with the pitch of 5 innovative digital projects in the field of visual arts: the Immersive Digital Gallery of the National Museum of Korea, the Museum of Everyone project in Animal Crossing by Hong Leeji, curator at the MMCA, nextmuseum.io, the VR experience En tête à tête avec La Joconde developed by the Musée du Louvre, and Fabbula(replay available here)

On Friday, Lutz Leichsenring, co-initiator of the United We Stream project, Chloé Jarry, member of PXN and producer at Lucid Realities, and Seong Min Ham, Culture and Art Contents Manager at Naver, discussed the existing or to be built economic models for the production and distribution of digital or online works, and the impacts of the health crisis, notably on the development of streaming and new formats(replay available here). The Korean artist Hojun Song proposed an interactive performance on Zoom entitled Don't Compress Me, which questions the predictability of art and the growing influence of artificial intelligence(replay available here). Finally, the festival closed with a discussion on the future of digital in art(replay available here). Soh Yeong Roh, Director of the Art Center Nabi, Daehyung Lee, Curator, Marcus Lobbes, Artistic Director of the Academy for Theatre and Digitality and Judith Guez, Director of the Recto VRso festival, spoke about the reproducibility of artworks in the digital age, the environmental cost of non-fungible tokens, the adaptability of audiences to new art forms and the current role of art.

All Making Lemonade sessions are available for replay on YouTube on the Art Center Nabi channel, in English or Korean.

Project leaders: Amanda Mouëllic, Cultural Attaché and Erwan Jambet, Cultural Officer