What is the most urgent need that you have?
More in-depth studies of and knowledge about the nature, direction and possibilities of new media art.
What is the best/ interesting case or project on new media arts that you have just recently experienced?
Lost & Found presented on the 27th of June 2008 the project I LOVE ALASKA (50′) by Lernert Engelberts, Sander Plug and Misha de Ridder which was commissioned by Submarine, a Dutch Cross-Media Production Studio. This documentary takes as it’s starting point the search terms used by AOL users. This information was, by mistake, published online by AOL in 2006. In this 50 minute documentary we are introduced into the intimate world of one of the AOL users. A woman who is referred to only as a number. We find her struggling with an affair that started online, her guilt and bisexual feelings, her longing to be more attractive and popular, ideas to move to Alaska and so on. As is typical for internet searches, she switches erratically from looking up ‘fun things to do with teenagers in Alaska’ to ‘I hate Oprah’. Unlike many others internet users, however, she often uses rather long and detailed sentences. While most people will type in two or three words (e.g. vegetarian restaurant Amsterdam), she will ask from the internet things like: ‘how to make a man smile on a first date’ or ‘how to deal with your husband when he finds out that you have been having an affair with someone you met on the internet’. By asking such long questions, we get the feelings that the internet is more than a tool to this woman. She ascribes to the internet almost God-like qualities and powers, hoping that it will answer her emotional and personal questions, solve her problems and soothe her woes. While we get to know this woman through her search terms, we see beautiful images of Alaska – the place to which she might be moving. The makers edited her search terms and left some of them out of the documentary. They also typed in her questions and were startled to find out that even these long sentences generate search results. I have chosen this project because it uses new media not only to create something but takes it as it’s very subject. It reflects on issues of privacy in a very subtle but nevertheless powerful way.
In your opinion, is there a potential for change on and change through a policy level, i.e. has the status of policy as an accelerator/ a meaningful factor for practice changed?
In 2007 and 2008, the Mondriaan Foundation, together with the Dutch Film Fund and the Dutch Cultural Broadcasting Fund, have funded interdisciplinary new media projects through the so-called Interregeling for eCulture projects. With the Interregeling we aim to support projects that use new media technologies in innovative ways and that thereby reflect upon the place and use of digital technologies in society and culture at large. We have supported projects that had an explicit societal aim, that generated technological innovations through experiments and/or that aimed for technologically informed developments within the arts. Through the Interregeling we have facilitated projects that are part of a growing body of initiatives that do not fit into traditional categories and that therefore often fall outside of the criteria used by funding bodies. With the Interregeling, an important and necessary step has been taken towards the funding of such projects. So the answer to the questions above is affirmative: policies can have a positive influence on the position of and development within new media practices. Given that they 1.) recognise the characteristics and nature of new media art (e.g. experimental, technologically informed, users becoming producers, temporary, presented on different platforms, et-cetera) and 2.) are flexible enough to take into account changes within the field of new media studies without changing course and direction every, say, six months. My answer to the first question relates to this very aspect of course. For new media funding policies to be effective, it is important to have in-depth knowledge about the nature, direction and possibilities of new media art.
