VJ13

Commissions ⇔ Projects

Net/digital/participatory art has still not found the kind of place in museums and art institutions that takes full potential of connecting different publics, uses and aesthetics.

There is a will from some actors of the field to conform to traditional standards of recognition within the art field which goes with the importance given to the name, to the individuality of another rather than to process and to collaboration. The movement seems to be: let's adapt the processes and experiments of net/collaborative art to Art rather than to transform the 'exhibition' or the institution to open itself to the potential of net/collaborative projects.

Constant has since it's first engagement with electronic art in 1997, been excited about the potential of it changing the relationship between audience, author and institution and this was what started the Verbindingen/Jonctions festival in the first place. While we are certainly critical about many projects that are so-called collaborative or networked, but we remain convinced of the artistic value of this type of work. We decided it is time to test whether our imagination about a Verbindingen/Jonctions exhibition could become reality. VJ13 is an attempt to create a form of exhibition that takes the full potential of these artists/processes and make them accessible, considering the public as possible contributors in many cases.

The VJ13 exhibition reflects our interests in works, practices that are on the intersection between art and technology, which are exploratory and critical. We are interested to show the productions of people for whom ideas of networks, connections, community, sharing are central. These works tackle the poetics and politics of participation with a particular eye on the codecs, protocols, licenses, rules, practices, habits that regulate them.

Visualising networks, showing forms of exchange or reflection upon it can be thematic themes running through the works included in the exhibition; it means it will cross the disciplines of design, software-art, code-poetry and net-art. These can also be the dynamics of the work itself: a film produced through collaborative video editing, books written by different authors. The 'selected works' can also be the tools that 'enable' people to give form to these ideas.

Guide / catalogue

Questions about the exhibition itself: Online-offline: How to show projects that are produced online in a form that takes advantage of the space they are displayed in?