Description
Book SynopsisOver the past few decades, the Nordic region has witnessed large shifts in its political, social and international outlook. Meanwhile, its art, commonly described as introverted, contemplative and wild, is also undergoing changes. As technology embeds itself further into the contemporary art scene, there is a renewed need to examine the role of art in society and everyday life, and to consider how the digitalization of art has tackled socio-political realities, locally and in the wider world.
Digital Dynamics in Nordic Contemporary Art includes a collection of testimonials from 78 artists, connected to Nordic art, who employ concepts and/or tools relating to the digital in their practice. Their statements form the basis of the essays in Part 2, penned by leading scholars affiliated with the Nordic art context, which inquire into the digital influences on contemporary art, with particular attention paid to the national and international Nordic socio-political context.
Landscapes, nature, minimalism, melancholia – this book examines how these traditional Nordic tropes hold up in the growing field of digital contemporary art, and asks: to what extent have digital dynamics been adopted into the imaginaries and practices of Nordic artists?
www.digitaldynamics.art
Trade Review'Rich source on "the digital & the arts" – great to explore.'
-- Oliver Grau, Professor for Image Science and Member of Academia Europaea
'This book achieves to forge new pathways in the studies of contemporary art by expertly balancing regional, national and international contexts for understanding Nordic artistic practice shaped by digital technologies. Short artist testimonials and chapters by seventeen experts in Nordic digital art trace the variety of influences that have been affecting the art scenes in the region. Structured around dynamics including materiality, perception and collaboration, as well as Nordic noir, political dialogues and institutions, the text provides a much needed account that links people, places, and events within a matrix of local and global influences. Digital Dynamics in Nordic Contemporary Art both provides an indispensable survey and expands the art-historical canon by exploring uncharted territories.'
-- Christiane Paul, Adjunct Curator of Digital Art, Whitney Museum Director/Chief Curator, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, Parsons/The New School
'Contemporary digital culture is both global and local, or "glocal" as the catchword goes. The interplay of traditions and ideas matters and is necessary to explain the complexities we all are dealing with in our daily lives. This book offers a valuable contribution to the ongoing discussion by offering a Nordic perspective – or rather, perspectives: as the varied contributions show, the digital arts and cultural initiatives that originate in the Nordic countries are anything but monomanic.'
-- Erkki Huhtamo, Professor of Design Media Arts and Film, Television and Digital Media, UCLA
'A timely introduction to the ways in which digital culture has changed art practice in the Nordic Region.'
-- Ina Blom, author of The Autobiography of Video. The Life and Times of a Memory Technology (2016)
'With this vast exploration of the artistic landscape, the media art compass points to a North that was not clearly mapped, revealing the political, social and aesthetic strata and their interweaving tectonics that underlies the most contemporary forms of Nordic art practices.'
-- Maurice Benayoun, artist and Professor at City University of Hong Kong
Table of ContentsForeword
Introduction
Part 1
Directory
Artist Testimonials
On Being an Artist with the Digital
On Digital Tools, Methods and Research Processes
On Materiality and Behaviour in Digital Art
On Art Between Forms and Fields
On Perception and Art’s Experience
On Nordic Aesthetic Conditions and Identification
On Participatory Practices and Collaboration
On Art and Society
On (Alternative, Urban and Public) Spaces for Digital Art
On Art and Representation
On Art, Nature and Environment
Part 2
Dynamic Seclusion: Nordic Noir and Digital Culture
Jonatan Habib Engqvist
Concretism and Danish Digital Art: New Political Dialogues from an Avant-Garde Perspective
Jens Tang Kristensen
The Art of Instituting
Jamie Allen and Bernhard Garnicnig
Representation, Complexity and Control: Three Aspects of Technology-Based Sonic Art
Jøran Rudi
Uneasy Listening: Perspectives on (Nordic) Sound Art after the Digital
Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
Reformulations of the ‘Natural’ World: Jana Winderen’s Sound Installation The Wanderer
Ulla Angkjær Jørgensen
The Intertwining of the Digital and the Biological in Artistic Practice
Laura Beloff
In Between Worlds
Björn Norberg
Virtual Worldmaking: Cultivating Digital Art Practice
Elizabeth Jochum and Mads Deibjerg Lind
Computational Diffusion and Art’s Radical Rematerialization
Tanya Toft Ag
Critical Thoroughness: The Dynamics of the Artist as User and Producer of Digital Elements
Mette-Marie Zacher Sørensen
Interactivity Dynamics
Lorella Scacco
Where the Inaction Is: The Politics of Digital Things and the Significance of the Lab… In the Practices of Laura Beloff, Kollision and Mogens Jacobsen
Morten Søndergaard
Visions and Divides in Icelandic Contemporary Art
Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir
Digital Dragons of the North: On Digital Dynamics and New Nature in Nordic Aesthetics
Stahl Stenslie
Conclusion: Horizons for Nordic Contemporary (Digital) Art
Tanya Toft Ag
