This colloquium was initiated as a collaboration between Vašulka Kitchen Brno, a recently opened space and initiative for new media art, The Brno House of Arts, and The National Film Archive (NFA) in Prague. The organizers hope to create an opportunity for sharing knowledge and models of working practices concerning both artist-led and institutional strategies for presenting, collecting and distributing electronic, digital or software-based art. What current strategies are available to secure a place for digital art among the current models of displaying, preserving and distributing audiovisual arts?

On the first day of the colloquium, two lecturers will present and discuss two examples of new media initiatives in their current situations and histories, with an outline of other related initiatives in this area: the C³ - Center for Culture and Communication of Central Europe (Hungary) and LIMA from Western Europe (Netherlands). Both institutions are part of a broader network consisting of many European initiatives and institutions focusing on promoting, collecting, preserving and mediating digital art or moving images, and can serve as a good model of a small-scale platform with extensive, long-term experience of managing and preserving collections and databases of audiovisual art, both on the national and international levels. C³ was established in 1996 as one of the major projects of the Soros Center for Contemporary Arts Network for Eastern Europe. LIMA, a platform for media art, new technologies and digital culture, was founded in 2013 in Amsterdam as a follow-up to the former Netherlands Media Art Institute. It was closed because it lost its funding. NMAI itself grew out of the gallery MonteVideo, founded in 1978 by René Coleho, which merged in 1993 with another organization called Time Based Arts. Both lecturers will share their long experience in working with new media and present their opinions on how the position of new media will develop. Marek Pokorný - the director of the Municipal Gallery for Contemporary Art PLATO in Ostrava and František Zachoval the director of the Gallery of Modern Art in Hradec Králové comment the current approaches of Czech contemporary galleries towards art of moving image, Flóra Barkóczy intruduces the Artpool Art Research Center, and amon others Martina Pachmanová challenges the process of digitalisation from the perspective of gender.