The ONB Labs Art Program 2022/2023 was ONB’s third artistic experiment to foster creative use of digital library collections. Four art students created four browser based digital artworks. For the release of the artworks in our ONB Labs Artspace we set up a temporary physical exhibition at the Literature Museum of the Austrian National Library.
The ONB Labs Art Program was ONB’s third and most extensive project for fostering creative use of digital library collections. For this project we invited art students from three Austrian art universities to make digital artworks based on documents from four different digital collections. The outcome were four digital artworks that can be explored in the ONB Labs Artspace.
The ONB Labs Art Program was not only about artworks, it was also a program for comunity building. The ONB Labs gained new experiences from the collaboration with art students and art educators. Therefore, we wanted to get together as a comunity of practice and came up with the idea of a Finissage event.
Exhibiting browser based artworks
The ONB Labs Art Program Finissage took place at the Literature Museum of the Austrian National Library. The whole process of planning and designing the event was done in close collaboration with the artists and the supervisor Manuela Naveau. We agreed on having a kind of exploratory space for the artworks in one room while having space for discussion and exchange in the entrance hall of the Literature Museum.
That digital browser based artworks need displays for presentation was clear. Having only a small budget at disposal, we designed four media stations. We kept the design simple in order not to distract too much from the artworks.
Each artist added additional material to the media stations. Katharina Birkmann added a 3-D model of the imaginative architecture of her artwork. Miguel Rangil, Valentina Rodriguez and Lisa Puchner, who used historical postcards for their artworks, arranged repro prints of historical postcards around the media station.
Forum for exchange
A discussion forum was opened in the second room. We invited visitors to stroll between the two rooms. Seated on a sofa, the ONB Labs team members Sophie Hammer and Martin Krickl invited the artists and the supervisor Manuela Naveau to share their perspective on the Art Program.
