PROPIEDADES DEL HORMIGÓN FRESCO 109

Both CultuurSchakel and The Hague municipality expressed their interest in new media art in our conversations. Stef Katwijk, staff member of the Cultural Policy Department of The Hague municipality, described he felt something was happing for some time now, “a renewal within the art world, by means of modern technologies”.31 _{Both he and Stephanie from CultuurSchakel} indicated they were interested in facilitating the practitioners that are part of this renewal, but encountered difficulties in consulting who these practitioners were. This is not surprising since the recognitions of ‘notions of a renewal’ do not necessarily lead to familiarization with those

30 _{From the AAA code of ethics on: http://s3.amazonaws.com/rdcms-}

aaa/files/production/public/FileDownloads/pdfs/issues/policy-advocacy/upload/AAA-Ethics-Code-2009.pdf

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involved. Getting acquainted with art expressions and practitioners within art forms both organisations acknowledge to have – as of yet – no expertise in, requires time. Both institutes conceded a lack of time to do research on these art forms was indeed a problem. A telling moment that describes the present difficulty for organizations trying to grasp this broad art field, while at the same time focussing on many other fields of art as well, occurred when I asked Stef to name some examples of what he considered to be new media art in The Hague. He suggested one practitioner and four art institutes that were paragons in his opinion. After looking into them later, I found out two of these institutes no longer existed.

In no way, I mean this example to implicate Stef and his knowledge of developments in this field. It is a mere illustration of how unknown this field is, even to policy makers who are sincerely interested in the topic. Realizing this, I decided that it was essential for me to first map involved institutes and practitioners in The Hague, if I were to help CultuurSchakel and – in addition – The Hague municipality. By thus serving not only CultuurSchakel but also The Hague municipality, I felt more artists could benefit from my inventory too. Since CultuurSchakel only focusses on non-professional practitioners, and I allowed for the possibility of meeting some professional artists as well, involvement of the municipality – who already uttered their interest in the topic – could be a welcome addition for those practitioners who fell outside CultuurSchakel’s scope but were also interested in becoming (better) facilitated by organisations or institutes in distributing, creating or promoting their art works.

The decision to also include practitioners that fell outside CultuurSchakel’s field of interest, was deliberate. I feel research on new media art is incomplete and even nugatory if I only focus on amateur artists. New media art is a trembling, lively and expanding field of arts, as this thesis will evince. By narrowing my focus through only looking for amateurs, I would not do justice to this field. This decision was made even before the official start of my fieldwork. On February the 22nd, I went to the Impakt gathering in Utrecht. Impakt is one of the biggest new media art events in The Netherlands, and I could not skip the opportunity of ‘drinks and art viewings’ with artists involved in this festival. It was no real surprise to me that all of the artists I talked to there were professionals that made money by means of their art works. For instance, their art was displayed on the festival and many of the people I spoke with were known in the new media art world. Indeed, three of the people I met there were amongst the first google hits I got while searching for new media artists in general. What did surprise – and even worry – me, was that all of them said they did not know any amateur artists. Even though this could have been a crowd of professionals that were not necessarily interested in non-professionals and could therefore not think of any, it made me realize I might unnecessarily limit myself and

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my research if I ignored their suggestion that new media arts was a field populated mostly by professional artists. It was in that moment that I decided to include professional practitioners as well: I would not spend my time only looking for something that might not be there, while I could comprise artists that might be interesting for CultuurSchakel in other ways than previously considered. My first encounter with new media artists in The Hague (at the KABK open day) proved this choice to be accurate.

There is another addition to CultuurSchakel’s question during my research that is important to note here. Although CultuurSchakel’s main interest is in practitioners, I already explained the importance of the audience within new media art. As indispensable part of these art expressions, I tend not to lose focus on the audience whilst construing an image of the people involved to CultuurSchakel and The Hague municipality. In the remainder of this chapter, I will therefore focus on all involved in ‘the making of new media art’: practitioners, audiences, institutes, museums and festivals. I will describe how they interact with art and its surroundings: the city, the spaces and places in which the art works gain their meaning.