Digitalisation of Art

Committee for Melbourne’s Digitalisation of Art event included a tour of ACMI on Tuesday 21 March 2023.

Melbourne’s art sector has evolved in the last two years by bringing art to you, wherever you are.

We heard an excellent keynote speech from ACMI’s CEO Sebastian Chan on how working for museums globally has influenced him to continue exploring diverse ways to digitalise art.

Thank you to our panellists Adele Schonhardt – Co-Director at Australian Digital Concert Hall, Caroline (Ralph) Ralphsmith – CEO at PayPal Melbourne Fashion Festival, Dr Sophie Galaise – CEO at Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Seb Chan who shared insights on how shifting to online performances during the pandemic accelerated the digitalisation of arts activities.

Thanks to our CEO Mark Melvin for warmly welcoming the attendees and Leanne Edwards for moderating the panel discussion.

The panel also provided ideas for future digital projects and collaborations, and discussed the challenges and opportunities for each organisation to monetise and expand digital art offerings whilst ensuring that artists and the general public have fair and equitable access and outcomes from new opportunities.

Attendees then joined a tour of ACMI’s exhibition The Story of the Moving Image, led by Seb Chan. ACMI makes art accessible at this exhibition via their “Lens” take-home devices, where people collect the artworks seen on their visit into an online collection to keep exploring at home. This exhibit is free to the public and a must see!

Arts and culture are important to us at the Committee, as we want all Melburnians have access to diverse experiences, and we will continue to support the sector.

It comes as no surprise that in our recently released Benchmarking Melbourne 2023 report, Melbourne ranks 4th out of 20 global peer cities for experience economy. Read more in the report here.