Access to cultural goods in digital change: art historical, curatorial, and ethical aspects

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Access to cultural goods is an essential prerequisite for exercising the human right to cultural participation (Art. 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Cultural goods relevant in this context include all artifacts that serve to convey information or to articulate and further develop a culture’s understanding of the world and itself: works of art, holdings of archives, collections and museums, publications of the results of scientific research, and the like.The digital transformation has fundamentally changed the possibilities and conditions of access to cultural goods, and will continue to bring about new forms and practices of production, reproduction, and reception of such goods, as well as interaction with them: In the course of digitization, on the one hand, dynamic and potentially democratic forms of access to cultural goods, to museums, collections, archives, but also to immaterial goods are emerging that exist exclusively in cyberspace or can be accessed in new ways by means of digital technologies. At the same time, new forms of access restriction are encroaching on the usage possibilities and usage rights of individuals and specific groups. Furthermore, digitality ties the production and reception of cultural goods to technological preconditions that can be characterized as second-order access conditions.The research group aims to analyze the changes in access to cultural goods caused by digitalization primarily – but not exclusively – with regard to art. It takes a look at the evolving opportunities as well as problems and conflicts that arise with them, from (1) an art-scientific, (2) a curatorial and (3) an ethical perspective. The research group will thus (1) significantly broaden the state of art research by analyzing the significance of access to digital technologies for art production and reception, by examining the opportunities and development possibilities that the digital transformation opens up for access to contemporary, but also to older art, and by reflecting on art-specific problems of accessibility concerning works of fine art other than those temporal and ephemeral art forms that have already been discussed quite extensively. It also aims to (2) explore the consequences for curatorial practice that arise with the changing ways of access and with the new restriction on access to certain art works and other collection goods brought about by the digital transformation. (3) Last, not least, it shall contribute to debates on copyright policy and legal studies with an ethical perspective on conflicts affecting access to art works and other cultural goods: the research group is going to elaborate and justify certain ethical principles that might inform legal policies and the ethical evaluation of existing legal regulations governing access to cultural goods.