MEDIA DIGITAL ART AND CULTURE IN FLANDERS BELGIUM - BAM

In retrospect, Flanders and Belgium have always had the disconcerting habit
of questioning the medium and the relation between things and their images.
Take, for example, Magritte’s astonishingly simple ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’,
which pointed out the difference between the object and its representation.
But this black pearl of surrealism also put a big question mark over the arts
and the way we look at pieces of art and try to contextualize them.
The twentieth century became a breeding ground for all kinds of
media of which the internet only constituted the latest but definitely the most
abundant offspring. The Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan famously
stated: the medium is the message. But if that was the case, artists had to ask
themselves: which medium should I pick? The eternal question between shape
and content showed its stubborn face again.
Although the question was not new, the (re)production and the
dispersal of the artistic works in the media era were. They exploded in an
unprecedented way. Flemish artists have applauded, welcomed, incorporated
and maybe even caused a part of that productive explosion. “Media art and
digital culture in Flanders” gives a generous, surprising and stimulating
overview of our artists but also of the research, the organizations and the
support the Flemish government offers. As minister of Culture I see the concept
of digital culture becoming more and more of a tautology. Not only because
art is more and more digitally conceptualized and created but also because
all of our culture becomes more and more digitalized.
For example, Walter Verdin used the details and intensity of ‘The
Descent From The Cross’, the masterpiece by Rogier Van der Weyden, to render
them into a sophisticated, videotaped choreography in ‘Sliding Time’. History
and technology blend together in an incredible feat. The same could be said
about Johan Grimonprez’s striking and influential documentary on hijackings,
‘Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y’. Others like Frederik De Wilde consciously seek the
boundaries of arts, biotechnology and genetics, even – in contrast with
sliding time – to challenge time itself.
Blending, crossover, cooperation are key words in digital culture:
important changes in comparison to other eras. Other aspects of the digital era
are much more difficult to grasp. The questions and paradoxes surrounding the
medium and the mediated, the symbol and the symbolized remain. I hope this
publication – an encore of our cultural heritage – will prove a formidable guide
through the labyrinth of the media era.
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