After following the development of art and culture in the context of the Internet since 1993 I am still fascinated: there seems to be no end to the sometimes surprising transformations in art and art criticism in this ever expanding field. The boundaries between media art and contemporary art, if they ever existed, are dissolving.
JODI - ICTI.me (2020) (Screenshot), part of We-Link, Ten Easy Pieces
We live in strange and uncertain times. This year started off in a positive way, with the Datami exhibition curated by Freddy Paul Grunert at Bozar in Brussels. The Datami exhibition came out of a collaboration between artists and scientists at the JRC EU science center in Ispra, Lombardy, Italy. I gave a talk at the finissage of the exhibition and was to join a brainstorm for the follow-up when the Covid19 virus appeared in Italy and a tragedy of which we can still see no end unfolded. My heart goes out to everyone caught in the middle, and my friends and colleagues there in particular. While it is hard to grasp what is happening and how to proceed from here we have to move forward and not lose hope. It is imperative that we do not give up on life, and this means also to not give up on art and philosophy as some of the most valuable things we can use to make sense of the world. Because of this I felt honored to be invited to we-link: Ten Easy Pieces exhibition organized by the visionary curator Zhang Ga, even if in a humble way, providing historical context to the show. The international, decentralized exhibition, involving many art institutions I deeply respect and value, among them iMal (Brussels), V2_ (Rotterdam), Rhizome (New York), MU (Eindhoven), HeK (Basel), Arts at CERN (Geneva), has an amazingly energetic feel. Meanwhile I am trying to finish a chapter for a media art encyclopedia for Bloomsbury and wrote a short article (I will post a link when it is online) about INFORMATION for Metropolis M.