MEDIA DIGITAL ART AND CULTURE IN FLANDERS BELGIUM - BAM

In Flanders art and media have great history together. With the advent of
electronic media artists seized the opportunity during the 1970s to apply
audiovisual media, until that time only accessible to broadcasting networks
and the film industry, themselves in a context of performance, happenings
and conceptual art. The International Cultural Centre (ICC) in Antwerp is the
first official contemporary art institution in Flanders. During the 70s and the
early 80s the centre will play a pivotal role for national and international
avant-garde artists, with a strong focus on conceptual art, video, performance
and installations. We are reminded of such artists as Leo Copers, Lili Dujourie,
Guillaume Bijl, Luc Deleu, Marie-Jo Lafontaine, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven,
Danny Matthys, Filip Francis etc.
During the 1980s a new generation of artists emerge out of various
disciplines, such as visual art, film, music and theatre. They use sound and
the electronic image as a plastic instrument to work with space, images and
sound or as a means to produce their own –experimental- stories. In Wallonia
the RTB ‘ateliers de production’ (‘Vidéographies’), prove essential for video
works bordering with documentary and video is shown in the context of
visual art by such curators as Laurent Busine and Laurent Jacob. In Flanders
and Brussels the Audiovisuele Dienst (Audio-Visual Service) at the University
of Louvain provides editing facilities to artists. The Nieuwe Workshop and
later the Beursschouwburg in Brussels and Montevideo in Antwerp play a
major part as a meeting place for artists and as a screening platform. Several
new ‘electronic art’ organisations arise and throughout the years they evolve,
together with these new art forms. Argos is founded in 1989 as a video art
distributor. This activity is extended to presentation, reflection and video
preservation and during the 1990s it becomes a centre for art and media,
seeking alliance both with visual art and the history of the (experimental)
moving image. With regards to sound the Institute of Psychoacoustics and
Electronic Music (IPEM), was founded in 1987 in the lap of Ghent University.
During Antwerpen 93, cultural capital of Europe, an ambitious programme is set
up around visual culture, which exemplifies the changes in the moving image,
historical references and cross-references between disciplines. A determining
programme in the disruption of the pigeonholes which surrounded cinema,
video, experimental film, visual art and other art disciplines; a trend which
makes way everywhere during the 90s. Video is omnipresent, in museums, art
halls, galleries and art fairs, cinemas, theatres and concert halls. During the
80s Flemish video artists such as Koen and Frank Theys, Walter Verdin, Stefaan
Decostere, Cel Crabeels, Peter Missotten,.. meet with international recognition
and their work is shown all over the world during festivals and exhibitions.
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