Digital Dynamics in Nordic Contemporary Art

Contemporary digital culture is both global and local, or 'glocal' as the catchword goes. The interplay of traditions and ideas matters and is necessary to explain the complexities we all are dealing with in our daily lives. This book offers a valuable contribution to the ongoing discussion by offering a Nordic perspective--or rather, perspectives: as the varied contributions show, the digital arts and cultural initiatives that originate in the Nordic countries are anything but monomanic. --Erkki Huhtamo, Professor of Design Media Arts and Film, Television and Digital Media, UCLA A rich source on the digital and the arts--great to explore. --Oliver Grau, Professor for Image Science and Member of Academia Europaea A timely introduction to the ways in which digital culture has changed art practice in the Nordic region. --Ina Blom, author of The Autobiography of Video. The Life and Times of a Memory Technology (2016) With this vast exploration of the artistic landscape, the media art compass points to a North that was not clearly mapped, revealing the political, social and aesthetic strata and their interweaving tectonics that underlies the most contemporary forms of Nordic art practices. --Maurice Benayoun, artist and Professor at City University of Hong Kong This book achieves to forge new pathways in the studies of contemporary art by expertly balancing regional, national, and international contexts for understanding Nordic artistic practice shaped by digital technologies. Short artist testimonials and chapters by seventeen experts in Nordic digital art trace the variety of influences that have been affecting the art scenes in the region. Structured around dynamics including materiality, perception, and collaboration, as well as nordic noir, political dialogues, and institutions, the text provides a much needed account that links people, places, and events within a matrix of local and global influences. Digital Dynamics in Nordic Contemporary Art both provides an indispensable survey and expands the art-historical canon by exploring uncharted territories. --Christiane Paul, Adjunct Curator of Digital Art, Whitney Museum Director/Chief Curator, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, Parsons/The New School