Versions

From 28-11-2009 until 07-02-2010

Opening Friday, 27 November, 5:00 p.m. Continuous performance by Constant Dullaart

The exhibition 'Versions' deals with the ‘comment culture’: commentary as a medium. With the popularity of social networks and blog sites on the internet, such as Flickr, Facebook, Hyves, YouTube, Blogger, etc., commenting on each other has taken on a new dimension. In his publication Zero Comments (2007) the Dutch network theoretician Geert Lovink describes this phenomenon as a nihilistic impulse and an erosion of mainstream media. At the same time it is often said that comments online are like conversations in newsrooms – sloppy and stupid and often wrong - but they are the raw stuff where journalism starts from. 'Versions' shows artists' practices and an aesthetic related to this comment culture.

The Netherlands Media Art Institute invited a number of artists for whom reacting to one another influences their own work process. For these artists the internet is the place par excellence to quickly launch ideas, react to one another, or adapt existing work and reuse it. Through this process photos, animations or videos rapidly grow into more complex and aesthetic artworks. Sharing and commenting on each other's work leads to questions about the position and perception of the work in the context of the internet and beyond it. To what extent can one speak of uniqueness and originality of the works? Who determines what can or can not be done, and what happens to individual identity within the group process? How does this process translate into the physical, static space of a gallery? Questions about the significance of appropriation, authenticity and agency in the era of 'comment culture' run like a thread through the exhibition.

A number of the works in the exhibition are a direct reflection of this online comment culture. In an extremely short time, through simple means an elementary concept or image is adapted by different people, constantly creating new versions of the same idea. A number of artists did new works for the exhibition, which make a translation from the transient internet to the static space of the gallery.

'Versions' is curated through the collaborative efforts of Annet Dekker, Constant Dullaart & Petra Heck.

Interview artists:

 Opening hours exhibition:
Tue - Fri from 11.00 - 18.00 hrs
Sat and each first Sunday of the month 1300 – 1800 hrs.
The exhibition is closed on 25, 26 December and the 1th of January
Special opening on 29, 30 and 31 December, 2 and 3 January from 13.00 - 17.00 hrs

Entrance 4,50 (2,50 with discount). Museumkaart free

Thanks to: Powered by BeamSystems