Panel Statement
Panel: New Media Art Education in Central and Eastern Europe in the Last Two Decades: experiments and transition
Speaking of non-institutional media art production in Estonia I rely on my personal experience of organising annual media art festival in Tallinn. We are a small and quite poor country in a situation where most of “culture makers” must be able to be successful by themselves. On the other hand this poorness situates us to be more creative and look after new extraordinary forms of cooperation, sharing ideas and continious self-learning. I think that living and creating art in small society gives us many benefits – fact that everybody knows each other makes relationships and groupworks much easier. On the other hand we have in situaton where we have less audience. What characterizes non-institutional media art in Estonia? First and best phenomenon is DIY – projects are born with hands-on method by using low-tech tools. Artists are often working in cellars or garages, old factories or rooftop flats. So I should say that artistic work and creativity do not depend on location. Secondly I would say that media art does not depend of small budget. Vice versa, I am happy to say that media art is evolving and constantly finds new outcomes. Third and more broad phenomenon is that media art is dissolved with other cultural forms and can be found everywhere. And this is continuing and ever-rising trend. Fourth is artists peculiar attitude of “big” problems. For example problems of surveillance society that have become popular abroad didn’t provoke fears or negatively minded works at all, instead our artists joyfully expressed condescension about it. Through artworks it was concluded that the surrounding cameras and carefully inspected personal data are an inevitable part of today’s society, which must be accepted and which should be used in art in the best way.
- Piibe Piirma is media artist, organizer and teacher based in Tallinn, Estonia. She has worked as designer and visual artist since 2002, also as teacher at new media department of Estonian Academy of Arts, in University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy and Estonian Entrepreneurship University of Applied Sciences (EUAS). Since 2006 Piibe Piirma was one of organizing team of Plektrum, an annual visual culture festival in Tallinn. She also worked as assistant on new media events like RAM3 (2003) and ISEA2004 in Tallinn. Piibe Piirma has organized several digital art workshops at Polymer Factory (alternative culture center in Tallinn) and Old Town Educational College. Since 2009 Piibe Piirma is doctoral student at Estonian Academy of Arts.
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