BRIAN CASTRIOTA
archaeological & time-based media art conservator
TALKS
2024
“On the Ethics of Retreat-ability, for and with the World.” Co-authored with Hélia Marçal, presented at Colonial Natures: The Challenge of Conservation, University of Cambridge, 11-12 June 2024.
2024
“‘Coming to Know’: Attunement as an Embodied Methodology for Conservation Practices.” Presented at University College London, 2 May 2024; online at Topics in Time Based Media Art Conservation, the Institute of Fine Arts - New York University, 17 April 2024; and online at Best Available Copy 4, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 10 April 2024.
Abstract: In conservation theory and practice considerable attention (and anxiety) has been directed towards strictly delimited notions of authenticity in the context of contemporary artworks and the ways conservators intervene in their materialization(s). This talk considers how a methodology of attunement—figured in the context of conservation—helps bring attention to the ethics, politics, principles, and affective potentials inscribed within a work of art that might otherwise go un-sensed or be disregarded, as well as the varied ways in which conservation practices might attend to and promote them. Thinking with agential realism and Indigenous scholarship, this talk considers how the objective referents of our ‘coming-to-know’ are the phenomena produced through our intra-actions. By recognising how properties and boundaries are emergent and enacted rather than a given, this talk figures attunement as a responsive deep listening, and methodological counter to the epistemic violences of habituated, extractivist, settler colonial logics that undergird dominant museological and conservation practices. In so doing, this talk considers how tuning into and becoming attuned to a work’s under-heard specificities aligns with an expanded notion of care.
Abstract: In conservation theory and practice considerable attention (and anxiety) has been directed towards strictly delimited notions of authenticity in the context of contemporary artworks and the ways conservators intervene in their materialization(s). This talk considers how a methodology of attunement—figured in the context of conservation—helps bring attention to the ethics, politics, principles, and affective potentials inscribed within a work of art that might otherwise go un-sensed or be disregarded, as well as the varied ways in which conservation practices might attend to and promote them. Thinking with agential realism and Indigenous scholarship, this talk considers how the objective referents of our ‘coming-to-know’ are the phenomena produced through our intra-actions. By recognising how properties and boundaries are emergent and enacted rather than a given, this talk figures attunement as a responsive deep listening, and methodological counter to the epistemic violences of habituated, extractivist, settler colonial logics that undergird dominant museological and conservation practices. In so doing, this talk considers how tuning into and becoming attuned to a work’s under-heard specificities aligns with an expanded notion of care.
2022
2021
2020
“Archives LIVE: Conservation In Motion.” Presentation and public artist interview with Jaki Irvine, aemi & Irish Museum of Modern Art, 21 October 2020. https://soundcloud.com/imma-ireland/imma-and-aemi-archives-live-conservation-in-motion-with-jaki-irvine-brian-castriota#t=11:54
2020
“Object Trouble: Constructing and Performing Artwork Identity in the Museum.” Online audio essay programmed in conjunction with the exhibition IMMA Archive: 1990s, From the Edge to the Centre, Irish Museum of Modern Art, 4 September 2020. https://imma.ie/whats-on/talks-online-brian-castriota-object-trouble/
2019
“In Conversation: Katie Paterson, Brian Castriota, and Lucy Askew.” Artist talk held at the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, 26 October 2019.
2017
“Towards a Collection of Artists’ Moving Image in Scotland: Collection Care, Maintenance, and
Preservation.” Lecture delivered at LUX Scotland symposium, The Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, 25 July 2017.
2015
“Examination and Code Analysis of Siebren Versteeg’s Untitled Film II (2004).” Presented at TechFocus III: Caring for Software-Based Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 24 September 2015.
2013
“Time-Based Media and the Mediation of Time: Equipment Significance and Obsolescence in Diana Thater’s The Bad Infinite.” Presented at the Mellon Research Initiative Colloquium Archaeology, Heritage, and the Mediation of Time, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, New York, 13 April 2013.
