THURSDAYS@ARGOS
LECTURE
05.04.07 // 20:30

Geert Lovink
New Media Arts at the Crossroads
The emerging new media arts genre is in a crisis. Not that 'new  
media' are on their way out. What we're talking about here is a  
‘luxury’ problem: in what direction to grow futher. After an initial  
period in which time and again the question “what is new media” was  
raised, we have now moved to a second phase, in which large parts of  
the population have become familiar with multimedia, cell phones and  
the Internet. However, new media arts still operates in a self- 
referential ghetto, dominated by techno-fetishism. In the meanwhile,  
the world at large has moved from utopian promises about virtual  
reality and cyberspace to a culture of massive use. Taking this  
'democratization' of new technologies in mind, what are the  
implications of this shift for the 'electronic arts' branch? Should  
new media artists and their (few) institutions seek collaboration and  
integration with the museum and gallery art? Should new media remain  
a seperate category, with its own festivals and exhibitions, or be  
integrated into the broader 'contemporary arts'? Or should we rather  
further institutionalize the new media discipline?

Geert Lovink (NL/AUS) is a media theorist and activist, Internet  
critic and author of Dark Fiber, Uncanny Networks and My First  
Recession. He worked on various media projects in Eastern Europe and  
India. He is a member of the Adilkno collective and co-founder of  
Internet projects such as The Digital City, Nettime, Fibreculture and  
Incommunicado. He is founder and director of the Institute of Network  
Cultures, professor at Interactive Media (Hogeschool van Amsterdam)  
and associate professor at the Media & Culture department, University  
of Amsterdam. In 2005-2006 he was a fellow at the Berlin Institute  
for Advanced Study.

followed by debate





THURSDAYS@ARGOS
05.04 LECTURE – GEERT LOVINK NEW MEDIA ARTS AT THE CROSSROADS
19.04 CONCERT - TOSHIMARU NAKAMURA & NICHOLAS BUSSMANN / MARCUS
SCHMICKLER & HAYDEN CHISHOLM
26.04 LECTURE - DANIEL ROSENBERG LINE AND TIME
03.05 LECTURE + SCREENING - HERMAN ASSELBERGHS & ROSI BRAIDOTTI IN
THE FUTURE PERFECT
17.05 LECTURE - JON IPPOLITO & JOLINE BLAIS ART AFTER INSTITUTIONS
24.05 CONCERT - DISCODESAFINADO / MACHINEFABRIEK

ARGOS, Centre for Art & Media
Werfstraat 13, 1000 Brussel
www.argosarts.org