Acknowledgements

acknowledgements

This book is an outcome of a collaborative research project conducted by five research and art institutions in the Netherlands: Leiden University, Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Waag Society, and West Den Haag. Its point of departure was rather unlikely: the technocratic creative industries research and development agenda of the Netherlands, conceived by a neoliberal government in the 2010s. The government’s cultural policy had boiled down to scrapping arts-related research in favour of digital technology research and development (based on a partial misinterpretation of ‘creative industries’ as Silicon Valley-style start-ups). Funding for contemporary art was cut, too, in favour of programmes for the creative industries. These policies have caused much wilful damage to the art world in the Netherlands over the past fifteen years.

The representatives of these five institutions came together as the Workgroup Making Matters to explore ways of bridging art, design, and technology as an alternative to the paradigm of ‘creative industries’.

The research project and the book are financed by the Smart Culture programme of the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

We received a great amount of support from colleagues in our field: Lotte Betting, Loes Bogers, ginger coons, Garnet Hertz, Emily Huurdeman, Janneke van Kersen (NWO), Shailoh Phillips, Rosalien van der Poel, Marielle Verdijk.

We thank Hackers & Designers for their collaboration and the design of the book.

We thank Het Nieuwe Instituut, West Den Haag and Waag for contributing the work and research time of their people.