MEDIA DIGITAL ART AND CULTURE IN FLANDERS BELGIUM - BAM

“I am a media artist. Mass media signals are a source of inspiration to
talk about life. Women figures are actually triggers. I represent women
in a very forceful manner, because I experience them as elementary
creatures who deal with their femininity very openly and consciously. (…)
Naturally the entire commercialization of eroticism is a phenomenon of
our time which learns us something about how society evolves to certain
extremities. I’m dealing with a complex, mediatized society in which I
grew up and of which I don’t understand certain aspects. (…) The quickly
evolving technological progress has made an enormous impact on man.
Our feelings of lust are being channelled and regulated.” (AMVK in art
#40, p.5)
AMVK is convinced that media have an enormous impact on daily life. In her
case, living and working in this kind of environment has also affected her work
as an artist in a profound way. Oddly enough she needs to explicitly mention
its influence in this interview, as if most viewers do not experience media as a
part of their lives. People seem to forget fast and easily that they are living in
an environment dominated by media (billboards on the street, television in the
living room, ...).
A R S C O M B I N A T O R I A
Media art deals with the art of combination, working with the means at hand.
Jumping from the final decades of the twentieth century to the beginning of the
twenty-first and from the Antwerp metropolis to Kortemark, a country town in
the far west of Flanders, this is where we find Nick Ervinck (1981). Just like AMVK
Nick Ervinck is a child of his time. This shows in his work and defines him as a
media artist.
Ervinck creates sculptures. Growing up with video games, he has been creating
all of these sculptures on computer. Since he considers both surroundings to
be part of one and the same reality, Ervinck’s sculptures can be realized either
in the virtual reality of his computer or in the reality of his studio. In many
cases he even combines the two, realizing his sculptures both on computer, by
means of soft- and hardware, and in his studio with a plane, cutter, electric drill
and other machines. The technological and artisan aspects go together quite
naturally, as do the virtual and the contemporary.
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