Join us for a conversation between pioneers of web art JODI (Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans) visiting from the Netherlands and Tāmaki Makaurau-based artist Roman Mitch, hosted and moderated by artist and Senior Lecturer School of Design Innovation at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, Walter Langelaar. In their very first visit to the Southern Hemisphere, Joan and Dirk will discuss topics across digital arts, the Internet, interface politics, and computational aesthetics.

Based in Dordrecht, the Netherlands, JODI (Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans) investigate and subvert conventions of the Internet, computer programs, and video and computer games since 1994. Radically disrupting the very language of these systems, including interfaces, commands, errors and code, JODI stages digital interventions that destabilize the relationship between computer technology and its users.Joan and Dirk have a background in photography and video art respectively, and both attended CADRE, the electronic arts laboratory at San Jose State University in California; Dirk Paesmans also studied with Nam June Paik at the Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf. The duo works together since 1995, and is represented by Upstream Gallery in Amsterdam.

Roman Mitch is a cerebral playmaker, pocket painter and friendly interdisciplinarian. His research interests focus on the relationships between conceptual art and the computational from a Māori perspective. Roman has a DocFA from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland and is Programme Leader in the School of Information Technology at Whitecliffe College in Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland. Recent exhibitions include Out of Time (Aotearoa Art Fair, 2022), Red Teddy (Te Tuhi, 2022), Chess (Mokopōpaki, 2020), Variously Equal Terms, HĀTEPE (Mokopōpaki, 2019) and Girls! Hit Your Hallelujah (Mokopōpaki, 2018).

Walter Langelaar is an artist/activist originally from the Netherlands, and an academic in the School of Design Innovation at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington since 2013. His work in media arts and design questions our digitally networked cultures and infrastructure through artistic critique in varying dimensions such as sculpture, installation, online performance and cultural programming.