New Media M.A. Research Blog | Media Studies, University of Amsterdam

New Media Art and the Aura

New Media Art. A Short Introduction In the last three decades, the term new media art gained massive popularity and became the official label for a wide range of artistic practices that use new media technologies (Quaranta). However, defining this...

By Daria Bojan on 09/19/16 Comments Off

Paper Based Print to Counter Digitalization

In an age where paper based prints are diminishing and digitalization is the ever winning cheaper option, there is luckily always a countermovement. This month Recently, the mobile-to-magazine app for iphone, was debuted. The new app for iOS is...

By Lara Molendijk on 09/16/15 Comments Off

Computers can now paint – Reproduction of famous artists’ work

The last four hundred years have been crucial in human history as major changes were analyzed. During these years, the evolution of human kind grew exponentially with the help of increased communication and increased mastery over nature (Wiener). Our...

By Alixia Garceau on 09/15/15 Comments Off

Digital Modularity: The Roland System-1M

In the past year synthesizer manufacturers Moog and Korg have released re-issues of their famous analog synthesizer models of the past. Just as many other companies that reacted to the nostalgia surge of the past 15 years, so did...

By Dennis Leeftink on 09/15/15 Comments Off

Stream, and put some money in the tip jar

Are streaming services musicians’ friends or foes? Startup ‘Whitestone’ aims for industry revolution and introduces ‘the music of the future’ in a new, independent music experience platform. Could this be a step towards a brighter future for music online? Over...

By Lisanne Buijze on 09/14/15 Comments Off

Google: Art Project

The ‘Googlised’ Indsutries We live in the age of information, in the digital age, maybe we can say we live in the age of Google if we think of the term ‘googlisation’, on the other hand this is not...

By Blanka Szamos on 11/07/14 Comments Off

Functions of representation in a work of art & MMORPGs

Interactive Digital Art ‘‘Do Not Touch” is an interactive crowd sourced music video for Light Light’s song ‘Kilo’. The video was created by Amsterdam based art collective Moniker. Before the experience starts users are being notified that their cursor...

By Giel Veenstra on 09/18/14 Comments Off

“SOMEBODY”. Because “Texting is tacky. Calling is awkward. Email is old.”

By encouraging real-life interactions between strangers, Somebody is one of the most interesting apps launched lately. While messaging becomes an ordinary activity incorporated in most people’s lives nowadays, the artist Miranda July, in a partnership with the fashion brand...

By Gabriel Reis on 09/18/14 Comments Off

The Apple Watch: Fashionable and Tangible

Images of wearable computers range from 1940s detective Dick Tracy through to Michael Knight’s 80s wrist watch. The cartoon detective’s watch, in particular, has reached iconic status in the electronics community. As perhaps one of the strips most recognizable...

By Ivar Dusseljee on 09/15/14 Comments Off

On the Road Trip Mixtape

I grew up listening to albums from beginning to end. Each of my CDs had a character of its own, presented as a cohesive piece over the course of a half hour or more. Songs flowed in a narrative bound by mutual...

By Max Kortlander on 09/09/14 Comments Off

The BB.Suit: Wearable Tech as Fashion’s New Playground

Borre Akkersdijk’s BB.Suit combines built-in technology with 3D printed fabrics offering an aesthetic approach to electronics that challenges the notion of wearable technology. This high tech jumpsuit is a collaboration between the University of Technology in Eindhoven, 22Tracks, CRISP,...

By Ivar Dusseljee on 09/08/14 Comments Off

Tangible Data Visualizations

We live in a world of three dimensions (alright 4, and a spattering of more depending on which school of quantum theory you adhere to). However, when it comes to visualizing data, the results are surprisingly 2-dimensional, and mostly...

By Philip Anderson on 04/22/14 1

[Thesis] Google Art

A new view on museum and virtual museum traditions Although this MA thesis was submitted last semester, it remains relevant for how we peruse our cultural heritage today. I would like to share the abstract with you. Abstract...

By Fenneke Mink on 04/15/14 Comments Off

The Digital Book: curating emails via the EPUB format

During the first block of the Spring semester, a group of MA New Media students took part in the elective The Digital Book. This course aims to contextualise the rise of digital publishing in theoretical terms, focussing on themes...

By Rose Rowson on 03/21/14 1

Invading Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect and the Ecology of Fear

Sonic Warfare: Sound. Affect and the Ecology of Fear is a book written by Dr. Steve Goodman, who has a PhD in Philosophy, but to a whole group of people he might be better known under his alias: Kode9,...

By Vincent Sloof on 10/31/13 Comments Off

Beamer + Art + Space x 1 night

What is BYOB? Bring Your Own Beamer is a concept originated by Amsterdam-born, NY-based artist Rafaël Rozendaal. Since the first event in 2010 in Berlin, the idea has spread to many cities worldwide, reaching upwards to 150 editions. In...

By Paula Carmicino on 10/12/13 Comments Off

From Geo to Neo: Can NeoCities Provide a Creative Utopia for Contemporary Web Culture?

Established in 1994, one of the most popular websites worldwide by 1997, and bought by Yahoo! For $3.57bn in 1999, the US branch of GeoCities closed in 2009. Hailed as a structural precursor to the socially centred web as...

By Cristel Kolopaking on 10/09/13 1

We Are Dread: A Review of the Dread Exhibition at De Hallen, Haarlem

By Lani Shadduck & Lucy Chinen “Dread trembles in my pocket. Dread chirps incessantly. Dread flashes and bounces. Dread summons me a hundred times a day to pay attention to my phone or my laptop, and stiffening...

By Lani Shadduck on 10/09/13 Comments Off

Duffy on Bowie – Foam

Review – Christoph Rauch & Gustavo López New album recently released, almost 50 years on the road. Simultaneous exhibitions sold-out over the world. 2013 is definitely David Bowie’s year. The chameleon artist, keeps surprising his fans and critics with...

By Christoph Rauch on 10/05/13 Comments Off

From the Digital into the Physical: 3D Printing

In the west district of Amsterdam there is a building called the “old ACTA”, which is an old dentist academy and is now used for student housing and as a place where artists have their workshops. A few weeks...

By Pascal Janssens on 09/07/13 Comments Off

Making Visible the Invisible: Information Visualization Through a Fine Art Lens

“Big Data will replace ideas, paradigms, organizations and ways of thinking about the world.” –Steve Lohr It is difficult to mention the present-day ubiquity of data without resorting to clichés. We are frequently reminded that data is in use...

By Maya Livio on 03/14/13 Comments Off

The Not-So-Functional Art: Putting Information Visualisation Back Into Context

“It’s always been a tricky balance between getting the story across, and making a great image. But thanks to some serious computing power, we’ve arrived at a crunch point. In one corner of the ring is information, and in...

By Mathias Schuh on 03/13/13 2

Open Knowledge and Visual Information

Open knowledge takes root What exactly is at stake with the advent of open knowledge and widely shared information? Let’s take ourselves back just over a decade to a time in which information and especially creative information was being...

By Geoff Kim on 03/11/13 Comments Off

[Event] Unlike Us #3 | Social Media: Design or Decline

This March, the Unlike Us conference is taking place in Amsterdam for a second consecutive year. Hosted by Amsterdam’s Institute of Network Cultures, the event gathers academics, artists and activists to discuss ‘social media monopolies and their alternatives’. Unlike...

By Larissa Hildebrandt on 02/28/13 Comments Off