In the work of artists and scientists technology plays a major role, and as such forms the interconnecting link between these two disciplines, in various and constantly changing medial forms. In the 19th century the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge introduced the term intermedia for these cross-overs. Technology provides the means for artists as well as scientists to tread beyond the beaten track and break new grounds. Even if art is dominated by technology, this does not necessarily mean that art is about technology.
The talks on art and technology are held by leading and much talked-about artists, designers, performers, students, scientists, specialists or experts. They will give us an insight in the ways technology plays a role in their work. The talks will be about the role we allow technology to play in our daily lives, about the existing and the new role of technology in art and society, about the way our current body culture is boosted by technology and the consequent body cult in the mass media, art and pop culture, and also about concrete products that are made with the aid of traditional and high-tech application of materials and processes.
Studium Minerva intends to cater for a broad audience of students, teachers, alumni, amateurs and anyone interested, from any field of action.
Programme 2011-2012
Berend Strik (1960)
7 December 2011
19.30 - 21.00 h.
Location Praediniussingel, Groene Zaal [Green room]
English speaking
Painter without paint
Travel impressions, family photographs, souvenirs, icons from art history, Roman Catholic heritage, pop music and futuristic fantasies. This is merely a random selection of visual artist Berend Strik’s sources of inspiration. For over twenty years the artist has caused a furore, tempting and manipulating the viewer with his technique of brightly coloured embroidery applied on photographs.
Berend Strik does not exclusively restrict himself to the use of one medium but operates in various areas in the periphery of visual art, which gives his combined embroidery, application work and collages a fascinating overall picture. With his work, Strik creates a seemingly pleasing ambiance. However, being a sharp observer, he manipulates the everyday scenes by inserting social and political elements into the image, ‘under the skin’, as it were. Berend Strik effectively makes use of the techniques of the art of painting, such as the effects of light, composition and colour application. His technique is labour-intensive and performed to perfection.
Hans den Hartog Jager (1968)
18 January 2012
19.30 - 21.00 h.
Location Praediniussingel, Groene Zaal [Green room]
English speaking
Over the top
When Mark Rothko had made his last paintings in 1970, that was the end of beauty in contemporary art. Beauty had become suspicious: it was deemed not innovative, nor was it critical or revolutionary. ‘However, the desire for beauty in art remained, and the last few years it is on its way back, be it in a different guise than we were accustomed to. The installations and videos of artists such as Olafur Eliasson, David Claerbout, Anish Kapoor and James Turrell knock art buffs out of their everyday life, throw them back on to their deepest emotions and make them forget time, as these works, rather unexpectedly, bring an element of sublimity back into art.’
In this lecture, the author and art critic Hans den Hartog Jager tells us about the fall and rise of beauty in contemporary art, thereby suggesting a new approach of looking at the concept of beauty in art.