Mediamatic is a science lab meets art studio meets gallery meets kitchen meets garden meets classroom on Dijkspark, a small piece of land between the railroad tracks coming from Centraal Station, and the water of Dijksgracht (dijk canal). It is a space of making connections across several fields.
On our CSW social design trip, we were given a tour of Medimatic where saw lamps based on the scientific art of Ernst Haeckel, “hearts” grown from pig cells, a mycelium bricks lab, tattooed and preserved fish on display, and an hydroponic system where carp and vegetables were raised to serve in Mediamatic's restaurant.
They also have outdoor urinals, where the urine is used to power evening video art projects.
https://www.mediamatic.net/en/page/84357/pure-gold
Some of their projects are pragmatic, some funny, some both. Like many Dutch things.
From their website:
Mediamatic Foundation is a cultural institution. We are interested in cultural developments that go hand in hand with new technologies, and in new technologies that cause cultural development.
We organize exhibitions, salons, lectures, workshops and screenings. We develop software and art projects, and are an on-again, off-again publishing house.
Why not?
This time I went to see (and smell) the opening of Art Olfaction Amsterdam, with a friend as well as CSW alum Katie Dretler who was in town. Katie had a conversation with Julianne Lee, one of the visiting artists from IAO, who apparently knows many CSW Alum!
Mediamatic worked with the Institute for Art and Olfaction to open a scent based lab. IAO, based in Los Angeles, “is a non-profit organization devoted to experimentation through cross-discipline arts and technology projects with a focus on scent.” (https://www.mediamatic.net/en/page/370991/meet-iao) They have many olfactory workshops, games, and other events planned, some of which I hope to participate in.
Part of what I really love about Mediamatic is the space: there is a greenhouse restaurant space, greenhouse hydroponics, a barn-like exhibition space, the olfactory lab, the mycelium lab, meeting rooms, rooms for the artists who are working there, and outdoor food growing spaces.
It is truly an incubator for possibilities, for imagining the unimaginable, for crossing boundaries we often don’t even realize are there. They put theories into use:
food + hydroponic farming + catfish raising = restaurant and social food events
science + video + need for public urinals (yes, there is a need)= public video art exhibition
Like our integrated studies courses at CSW, Mediamatic's space allows for connections to be made, and the impossible to become possible. While this is partially focused on conceptual spaces which allow ideas to happen, the physical space allows for experiments and equipment needed for these connections to happen. These spaces allow for the artists, scientists, and other creatives to work together, in new and innovative ways.
After my first visit, I emailed Marilyn DelDonno of CSW’s science department to tell her about the space, saying, “I want one!”
I still do, because why not?
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