PhD | The Relationship Between Art and Technology

PhD-Candidate: Bart Barnard | University of Amsterdam | Supervisors: René Boomkens & Gerard Visser (LU) 

As a result of the increasing reliability of contemporary transport and communication technologies, a new relationship between art and technology is emerging. It seems that both the art work and these technologies bring forth their own world; a world that is independent of the direct physical environment that surrounds it. Technology and art achieve this feat precisely because of their abstraction from this environment. Instead, they create their own environment in which to operate.

This research investigates in a philosophical manner this new relationship between art and technology. Its guiding question is whether, how, and to what extent contemporary transport and communication technologies demonstrate an art character; and if so, in what way these technologies and contemporary art influence each other. Starting point is the hypotheses that the use of these contemporary technologies reintroduces the primordial art character of technology, while at the samen time maintaining the exploitative character of the technological world view at a different level.