Urban Screen Network for the Digital and Interactive Arts
DROPSTUFF.nl is a ‘museum without walls’, a unique digital cultural infrastructure of interconnected public screens. These screens present media artworks and artistic games. The goal is to increase  visibility and to enlarge public participation in cultural products. DROPSTUFF.nl broadcasts an interactive artistic programming on a network of urban screens. These screens are located on (central) squares and railway stations, where a large and diverse audience passes by on a daily basis. Simultaneously DROPSTUFF.nl broadcasts on smaller screens in museums, cultural institutions, schools and via the Internet on live.dropstuff.nl. All screens and the website are mutually connected. Real interaction is possible through a synchronous broadcast on the smartphone, thus challenging passengers to participate and play games with other visitors at the DROPSTUFF-screens.

The ‘museum building’
The walls of the museum are screens at railway stations and squares, for example in The Hague, Utrecht and Eindhoven. DROPSTUFF.nl is continually in search for ways to further expand the (inter)national network and to integrate art into architecture and the environment. In addition, a mobile pavilion with a display of sixty square meters travels along highlights of the cultural agenda, both in the Netherlands and abroad. DROPSTUFF.nl includes presentations held at the Venice Biennale, Show Off Paris, Picnic Amsterdam, Lowlands and STRP Festival. The network is controlled through a central server by means of a self-developed digital narrowcasting system. This system creates communication between the screens and the audience , that can participate via their smartphone.

The programming and collection: artworks, open stage and partner program
DROPSTUFF.nl has a program that consists of a constantly changing range of interactive art and artistic games. These artworks are created by young, talented game designers and artists with different backgrounds. The DROPSTUFF curators’ mission is to make the programming a reflection of a broad range of views, forms and technical capabilities in the spectrum of the New Media Arts. To encourage a progressive development in content and technology, DROPSTUFF.nl actively positions itself as a client. DROPSTUFF.nl accompanies the artists and designers during the creative process, a process which is almost always experimental and technically complicated. All of the produced artworks are part of the digital collection of DROPSTUFF.nl.

In addition to professional art and games within the DROPSTUFF broadcasting, the public is encouraged to actively contribute to the content through submitting their own films, animations and games to the DROPSTUFF open stage. The DROPSTUFF curators select these entries based on quality and originality. With innovative use of new media technology DROPSTUFF.nl develops itself as a digital platform that not only brings high-quality cultural content to the attention of a large audience, but also provides an opportunity for active participation: Drop ya Stuff!

In order to strengthen the cultural infrastructure, DROPSTUFF.nl offers cultural organizations the opportunity to broadcast on the network of screens. On a regular basis content is delivered, often as part of a festival, event or another occasion that deserves to be put in the limelight. DROPSTUFF.nl provides these organizations a way to present their art to the public.

Media Awareness Education Program
DROPSTUFF.nl workshop facilitators travel throughout the Netherlands with a Media Awareness Education Program that focusses on the power of art in an era of digital media. DROPSTUFF.nl offers three workshops, varying in level and intensity. Media Awareness stands for all the knowledge and skills citizens can use to adopt a critical attitude towards media. This is greatly necessary in a complex, changing and fundamentally mediated world. Therefore, the DS_Educationprogram is designed to combine theoretical and practical experience  with different forms of new media. More specifically, the aim of the workshops is to encourage students to take an opinionated stance towards (media) art and freedom of speech. Subsequently they learn to shape their opinion into an artistic product. A selection of those products is broadcasted on the screens.

Scope and participation
DROPSTUFF.nl thus offers a new and open way of presentation and public approach to strengthen the Dutch cultural infrastructure as well as a platform for the creative (media) industry. Through innovative use of new media technology DROPSTUFF.nl is positioned between the relative density of the classical museum and the fully open stage of the web. DROPSTUFF.nl provides a place outside the walls of the museum and offers media artists a stage in the public domain. In this way DROPSTUFF.nl is capable of reaching a young and new audience that cannot find its way into the museum.

 

Click here to view our information brochure 2012-13 (Dutch only).