ISEA2026 Special Track

6th Summit on New Media Art Archiving

Call for Participation Accepting: Papers, Panels, Short Archive Presentations and Round Table Discussions

Deadline: TBC 

Description

The Summit on New Media Archiving is a gathering of scholars, art practitioners, academics, archivists, curators, and technicians who are interested in critical issues related to media art histories. Through the exchange of knowledge, this summit hopes to facilitate the documentation, preservation, and dissemination of information related to both physical and online archiving of electronic and emerging art. As digital and electronic arts continue to evolve, preserving artworks and archiving information requires rethinking traditional archival methods. It is necessary to continually adapt to new technologies, methodologies and practices. This summit serves as an important international platform for discussing the theoretical and practical challenges of archiving new media art.

History

The Summit on New Media Art Archiving emerged from two roundtable discussions held first at ISEA2018 in Durban, South Africa then at ISEA2019 in Gwangju, South Korea. These discussions served as a foundation for expanding connections amongst new media art institutions and archivists. Consequently, the First Summit on New Media Art Archiving took place virtually at ISEA2020 in Montreal during COVID, followed by subsequent Summits at ISEA2022 in Barcelona, ISEA2023 in Paris and ISEA2024 in Brisbane, culminating in the 5th Summit hosted at ISEA2025 in Seoul. Additionally, in February 2025, a workshop was held at ZKM in Germany, focusing on connecting new media archives worldwide. This year the 6th Summit on New Media Art Archiving will be held in conjunction with ISEA2026 in Dubai during the week of 10-19 April 2026 (most likely the first 2 days – TBD).

For more information about the Summit, please click here 

For more information about ISEA2026, click here.