The director of the Netherlands Institute for New Media tells a story about Tjebbe van Tijen. “I asked him, ‘Are you an artist?’, and he said, ‘No, I am an archivist.’ So I asked him, ‘Are you an archivist?’ and he says, “No, I’m an artist.”
Such is the contradiction that lies apparent in the work of van Tijen, an artist whose multimedia projects – sometimes reprinted into long scrolls for gallery exhibition – deal with the political, economical, and cultural impacts to art throughout history, and make use of a great number of primary sources. On 23 October, the members of the New Media Roadtrip visited Mediamatic, a New Media consultancy/gallery space, and spoke with the artist about his most New Media work.
The design of the long scrolls, hanging delicately from the ceiling at eye level, demands the viewer to do more than simply glance. The depth of historical references is astounding, and to manage all of the content the artist has devised his own database system that allows him to “look for new ideas in old things and relate old principles to the latest discoveries.” This system is documented in this work, an example of the long, eye-level aesthetic. For Tijen, it is not enough to study art without considering the time period and the various cultural developments that surrounded the art's conception; the multimedia approach is his solution.
The works provide an important lens through which to view art, particularly newer forms of art. Tijen’s pieces help to situate art in a proper context that moves beyond the insularity of “art history” as a discipline, and becomes more enlightening for the less-informed viewer. It's a new media approach - to apply technology toward the reinvestigation of past cultural objects and events - and Tijen's work is among the best to utilize this.
-Paul Caine
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