A short history of Mediamatic

Thanks to its philosophical and historical background, Mediamatic offers an ever surprising, sometimes alienating view on the world of modern media.

Mediamatic focuses on freedom of thought and discovery, strives to uncover new insights, looks for the unaccustomed in the ordinary and the ordinary in the unaccustomed. The raw material for Mediamatic is analysis, polemic, experiment, speculation and sometimes pure fiction.

Mediamatic's only assumption is the idea that digital media deeply influence every aspect of human life.

Mediamatic Foundation organises workshops that investigate the artistic possibilities of the interactive media and organises exhibitions and the Salons, a regular gathering where media projects are presented. The Foundation also organises irregular symposia on the subject of new media art and theory. Under the Mediamatic Off-Line label Mediamatic published CD-ROMs and DVDs.

Mediamatic Foundation was established in 1985 and was originally founded to act as a meeting place and forum for video artists and TV dissidents. The Foundation published Mediamatic Magazine, an international bilingual journal in Dutch and English about the cultural and artistic implications of new media. Since 1993 Mediamatic also published a now famous series of CD-ROMs. The editors were Willem Velthoven, Jans Possel, Paul Groot, Jorinde Seijdel, Dirk van Weelden, Arie Altena and Geert-Jan Strengholt.

Mediamatic has been available on the WWW since 1993. Mediamatic.net is a social network. Members can contribute to the site with articles and can place announcements for events in the online calendar. The Mediamatic editorial staff also invites authors and artists to shed new light on the culture of new media. And Mediamatic editors write essays and dissertations on the culture of new media and review websites, CD-ROMs, books and festivals. Mediamatic.net is edited automatically with Anymeta. It matches the topical with heritage in a sometimes fuzzy, but always surprising way. Our sister organisation Mediamatic Lab designs and builds social networksites with Anymeta.

The last few years Mediamatic was located at three different places:
- Mediamatic Supermarkt : Rapenburg 91b, ingang Nieuwe Foeliestraat (until 2004).
- Mediamatic Post CS at Oosterdokskade 5 (2004-2008).
- Mediamatic BANK, at Vijzelstraat 68 (from 2008).