DISCOVER WHAT’S BEYOND THE ART YOU LOVE

IMPAKT is a media arts organization based in Utrecht and founded back in 1988. It presents critical and creative views on contemporary media culture and art in an interdisciplinary context. The aim of IMPAKT is to identify emerging paradigms in transglobal culture, by focusing on the relationship between society, media, technology and arts.

The main project of the organization is the annual IMPAKT Festival, a five-day multimedia event that includes exhibitions, film screenings, lectures, panels, performances, presentations and artist talks. 

Recently the team of IMPAKT has launched BEYOND ART, which is a mobile app and web platform that increases audience reach and enhances public engagement at Dutch art institutions before, during and after a cultural event or exhibition. BEYOND ART extends transient art events beyond a single encounter.

BEYOND ART mobile app and synchronized web platform allows art audiences to engage with artists, speakers and curators in meaningful, interactive and inspiring ways. With BEYOND ART, the audience is able to immediately access video/audio guided tours by curators, discussions between experts, in-depth video interviews with artists and theorists, further reading and inspiring media, and the recordings of panels, lectures, performances and other programs they may have missed or simply want to see a second time.

BEYOND ART allows organizers to include content from artists and speakers that are not able to physically attend an event. It will allow organizers to reduce expenses in their budget and the ecological footprint of their events, through decreasing the number of guests that need to fly in. This will allow to highlight and engage with content that time and budgetary constraints usually prevent. The platform also enables curators and programmers to directly communicate with innovative digital tools that enhance younger audience experiences with institutions.

.ART has talked to Arjon Dunnewind, director of IMPAKT, about how the idea behind BEYOND ART was born and where the project will lead in the future:

“After over 30 years in the arts and many discussions with like-minded institutions and practitioners, we have recognised that extending the lifespan, engagement and ongoing relationships of artistic festivals, exhibitions and events, is an issue shared by the entire cultural sector.
During our previous projects we saw a great deal of potential for how we and other arts organisations could use technology to increase engagement with our audience throughout our annual programming. We saw BEYOND ART as an incredible opportunity to produce a unique platform to do just that. With BEYOND ART are using innovative digital curation to enliven our entire programming and are able to focus on creating a versatile and user-friendly mobile and web platform that can be easily and effectively personalised by any art institute. We created a platform that could provide increased and personalised access for art-lovers, students, academics, art practitioners, art institutions and education institutions.
We are confident that we have created an impressive prototype and overall proof of concept that will be eligible and ultimately successful for future funding and development. In 2020, in conjunction with using BEYOND ART for our own programming, we will further develop our platform so that it is ready and fully beneficial to all of our partners and colleagues in the cultural sector.”

To learn more BEYOND.art

Also published on Medium.