Initiatives and projects

One example of the result of the ‘intervention’ of different disciplines with technology is De Digitale Stad (DDS) a digital community founded in 1995. It provided Internet access to a first generation of ordinary Dutch citizens with idealistic tendencies and might be seen as a forerunner of social networks as Hyves and Facebook. Before long it had 100,000 connections in and around Amsterdam and had given birth to the commercial Internet provider XS4ALL. Another initiative was Nettime (founded by Dutchman Geert Lovink and others, also in 1995). A lively exchange of ideas, theories and announcements in the field of e-culture came into existence on the Internet. A group of artists and technological experimentalists were set apart for this, and a communal code was developed regarding availability, openness, respect, authorship, spam etc. This became an inspirational example for the codes of behaviour for the Internet and e-mail which apply to this day and which we call ‘netiquette’. And then there is SubmarineChannel, an innovative and interactive cross-media (stage, web, TV, radio, telephone etc) platform that aims to develop, produce and present productions via internet, and that also highlights international samples of similar work.

The aforementioned organisations are internationally renowned standard bearers and important art institutions in the present-day cultural landscape of the Netherlands. They have gone through a long process of growth and institutional professionalisation during which many questions have been asked about identity. Yet just as in their early years, they have remained fluid partnerships, filled with yet another generation of pioneering designers of change.