Digital Art in Belgium



Last Monday 05 Dec., as we announced in a previous post, we went to IMAL event ART + GAME to attend a discussion about the situation of digital art in the Wallonie and the contrast it has with other communities, in particular Flanders. The conclusion? From the beginning we could understand this: there is still a lot to do (not to say almost all)

As an introduction Régine Debatty (http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com) one of the most known blog reporters of the moment, held a speech. In it she gave an interesting overview of the state of digital art and it’s new trends: genetics, fashion, games… She told us how well her space was doing, with plenty of visitors per day and how new media are more and more accepted by institutions and the end public.

After Régine there was a debate with:

- Elisa Vainsel, Cabinet de la Ministre de la Culture et de l’Audiovisuel, Fadila Laanan.
- Bruno Vandezande, Cabinet de la Ministre Marie-Dominique Simonet (Communauté française/Région Wallone - Nouvelles technologies)
- Dirk de Wit, Digitaal Platform, http://www.digitaalplatform.be/
- Brecht Van Eslande, Vlaamse Audiovisueel Fonds, http://www.vaf.be
- Serge Flamé, directeur de l’Institut des Arts et Diffusion, conseiller pour le Cabinet de la Ministre Marie-Dominique Simonet (Communauté française/enseignement supérieur)
- Marc Wathieu (http://www.multimedialab.be) et Michel Cleempoel (http://arts-numeriques.net/), professeur en Arts numériques dans l’enseignement supérieur artistique (ERG et ENSAV)
- Yves Bernard, conférencier Arts Numériques (http://www.erg.be/blogs/artNumeur/) et directeur d’iMAL

We could see a big contrast between the support digital art is getting from the Flemish community and from the Walloon government. Elisa Vainsel accepted the fact that there is still a lot to do, but they are doing big efforts to change this situation. In fact this event was an example of this, as IMAL is supported by the Walloon French Community, and they are discussing the possibility of creating an international festival of digital art. Let’s dream…

On the other hand the Flemish community is in another stage. Brecht Van Eslande was quite explicit and clear with how much the Flemish community invests in the audiovisual and the digital.

All the speakers accepted there must be much more collaboration between the people responsible for education, scientists, politics and artists. New media open a new field where all these parties are involved and it opens new ways of learning, expressing and connecting ideas. Developing this field is looking into the future.

It was quite interesting to hear about possible collaboration and it’s great challenges, but there was something we were missing from the beginning: at no point during the discourse was there any talk about a possible collaboration between the two communities. Why? Aren’t new media breaking boundaries? Isn’t it a good field to start talking about interchange of ideas and experiences? Is there nothing to learn from the other? Wouldn’ it be better to try ande develope Belgian art? Isn’t that, as we said, the way of looking into the future?