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Virtueel PlatformWhat’s this thing called e-culture?How digital media is creating a new cultural arena and prompts us to rethink arts and cultural policy. A Dutch perspective. By Michiel Schwarz (2004) Digital media and information technologies have not only changed our world, they have also changed the way we see that world. And that world is increasingly a mediated world, where media are our milieu. Not surprisingly then that Internet and so-called ‘new media’ are altering the fields of arts and culture in fundamental ways. Digital media have not only made in-roads in the way visual artists, musicians, designers, film makers and other cultural practitioners work, they have created a new context. The digital domain has given rise to a new cultural arena. [ www.virtueelplatform.nl/article-324-en.html ] From ICT to E-cultureAdvisory report on the digitalisation of culture and the implications for cultural policyA couple of years ago, ‘ICT and culture’ was the usual phrase in any discussion of policy relating to digitisation or new media in the field of arts and culture. By 2002, when the State Secretary for Education, Culture and Science (in charge of Culture and Media) submitted his request for recommendations on the subject, the term used was ‘e-culture’. This was no coincidence. The term e-culture implied the need for a new type of policy. The Council for Culture fully endorses this. In fact, we would strongly argue that, when it comes to cultural policy, developments surrounding ICT and digital media must be considered within a broad and integral perspective. E-culture is not just ‘something to do with computers.’ The cultural implications of digitalisation are far greater than the mere instrumental exploitation of technical opportunities. E-culture is all about a new, digital dimension; a new and – until recently – undreamt-of medium with which existing culture must seek to interact and in which new culture is being generated. But e-culture is also more than just a new medium. Digital technologies and the Internet are opening the door to new forms of expression, changing the roles played by cultural institutions, and placing the audience and user increasingly centre stage. Netherlands Council for Culture Submitted to the Netherlands State Secretary for Education, Culture and Science, June 2003. English edition August 2004, The Hague |
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