European Ivy Academy of Art, Lyon, France May 2025
I. Introduction: Charting New Terrains in Art at the European Ivy Academy of Art
The contemporary art landscape of 2025 presents a panorama of unprecedented complexity and dynamism. It is an era defined by the pervasive integration of advanced technologies into nearly every facet of human experience, alongside a profound, often critical, re-examination of fundamental artistic principles, their historical legacies, and their evolving societal relevance. Navigating this terrain requires not only creative agility but also rigorous intellectual inquiry. Artists and researchers are increasingly compelled to address intricate questions that span diverse fields, from ecological ethics to the nature of consciousness in a digitally mediated world. This period of intense transformation underscores the vital role of artistic investigation in making sense of, and responding to, the pressing concerns of our time.
This paper advances the thesis that a crucial and illuminating nexus of contemporary artistic research and practice resides in the dynamic, often paradoxical, interplay between materiality, traditional and evolving craft practices, and the pervasive influence of digital technologies. This is not merely a confluence of stylistic trends but rather a fertile ground for profound conceptual inquiry, critical reflection, and significant innovation. The ways in which artists engage with the physical substance of their work, the skills and traditions of making, and the ever-expanding digital realm are revealing new aesthetic possibilities and challenging long-held assumptions about art itself. The interdependence of these three domains—materiality, craft, and digitality—is becoming a defining characteristic of advanced artistic practice. They are no longer discrete areas of concern but are increasingly entangled, shaping and reshaping one another in a continuous feedback loop that propels artistic exploration forward. This intricate relationship forms the central focus of the investigations undertaken within institutions dedicated to the highest levels of artistic and intellectual pursuit.
The European Ivy Academy of Art, situated in the historically rich and culturally vibrant city of Lyon, is committed to fostering an environment where such critical intersections can be rigorously explored. Lyon, with its deep-rooted history in material innovation, from its renowned textile industries to its pioneering role in the history of cinema, provides a uniquely stimulating context for an academy focused on the evolving nature of artistic creation. The Academy’s dedication to research, critical thinking, and creative experimentation reflects the esteemed traditions of European art education while simultaneously embracing the imperative to innovate and engage with the contemporary world. This paper, therefore, emerges from that ethos, seeking to contribute to the ongoing discourse by examining the nuanced ways in which materiality, craft, and digitality are collectively shaping the future of art.
II. Reconsidering Materiality: Beyond the Object to Embodied Engagement and Ecological Awareness
The early 21st century has witnessed a significant “material turn” across the arts and humanities, a renewed and intensified focus on the physical substances, properties, and processes that constitute our world and our artworks. This intellectual movement, often associated with theories of New Materialism, challenges entrenched subject-object dualisms that have historically positioned matter as passive, inert, or merely a vehicle for human intention. Instead, New Materialist perspectives advocate for an understanding of materials as active participants in the creation of meaning, possessing their own agencies, histories, and inherent expressive capacities. This shift encourages a move beyond seeing an artwork solely as a static object towards recognizing it as a dynamic event, a site of interaction where the artist, the materials, and the viewer engage in a complex dialogue. The very notion of materiality is expanded to encompass not just the physical stuff of art but also its provenance, its conditions of existence, and its capacity to affect and be affected.
Artists are increasingly engaging with materials in ways that foreground these inherent properties and narratives. The choice of material is often a deliberate act of unearthing embedded socio-cultural stories, ecological implications, or even autobiographical resonances. For instance, an artist might work with reclaimed wood to speak of deforestation and memory, or utilize specific pigments to allude to historical trade routes and colonial legacies. In such practices, the material is not simply a medium but a collaborator, its inherent characteristics—texture, weight, density, mutability—shaping the conceptual direction and affective power of the work. This approach recognizes that materials can “speak” or act in ways that influence both the artistic process and the viewer’s ultimate experience, fostering a deeper investigation into the nature of things through their tangible qualities.
This renewed attention to materiality inherently promotes a more profound, embodied, and sensory engagement with art. In an age increasingly dominated by screen-based, often disembodied interactions, the physical presence of art—its texture, temperature, scent, and the way it occupies space—offers a vital counterpoint. The experience of art becomes a means by which viewers are located within their own corporeal selves, reminded of their sensory capacities and their physical relationship to the world. This emphasis on the tangible can be understood, in part, as a response to the perceived ephemerality and abstraction of an increasingly digitalized existence. As daily life becomes more mediated by intangible data flows and virtual interfaces, there is a corresponding, perhaps compensatory, gravitation towards experiences that are grounded in physical reality, where the “force of things” can be directly encountered and felt.
Furthermore, the reconsideration of materiality is inextricably linked to a growing ecological consciousness within the art world and society at large. Artists are increasingly scrutinizing the environmental impact of their material choices, considering factors such as sustainability, toxicity, and the full life cycle of the substances they employ. This involves questioning the origins of materials, the energy consumed in their production and transportation, and their ultimate fate. The use of concrete by an artist, for example, might serve as an allegorical commentary on humanity’s encroachment upon the natural environment. This ecological dimension transforms material selection into an ethical act, reflecting a broader understanding that artistic practice does not occur in a vacuum but is deeply implicated in the material conditions and ecological challenges of the planet. The choice and treatment of materials thus become sites of ethical reflection, extending beyond aesthetic concerns to encompass the socio-political histories and environmental consequences embedded within them. This engagement signifies a maturation of artistic practice, where creative expression is increasingly intertwined with a sense of responsibility towards the wider world.
III. The Persistence of Craft: Skill, Tradition, and Technological Symbiosis
In parallel with the renewed focus on materiality, the 21st century has seen a significant resurgence and critical re-evaluation of craft within contemporary art. This involves moving beyond outdated and often hierarchical distinctions between “art” and “craft,” and instead recognizing craft as a vital and sophisticated mode of artistic inquiry characterized by the “skilled and thoughtful act of process and/or material-oriented making”. Central to this understanding is an “ethos of doing things well,” a commitment to deep material knowledge, refined skill, and meticulous care in execution. This contemporary embrace of craft is not a retreat into nostalgia but an active engagement with its rich potential for innovation and expression, particularly as it intersects with new technologies and changing social contexts.
Tradition, within this framework, is not viewed as a static or restrictive set of rules, but as a living source of knowledge, skill, and cultural memory. Artists are increasingly drawing upon traditional craft techniques—be it weaving, ceramics, metalwork, or printmaking—not as a mere revival of past forms, but as a means to critically engage with history and to innovatively reinterpret established practices for the contemporary moment. These traditions often embody centuries of accumulated wisdom about materials and processes, offering a depth and resonance that can be powerfully harnessed in new artistic explorations. The act of engaging with traditional craft can also be a way of preserving cultural heritage and connecting with narratives that might otherwise be lost in an era of rapid technological change.
A particularly dynamic area of contemporary artistic practice lies at the nexus of craft and technology. Far from being mutually exclusive, traditional craftsmanship and cutting-edge technologies are increasingly being brought into symbiotic relationships, yielding entirely new aesthetic possibilities and conceptual frameworks. Artists are demonstrating how the precision of digital fabrication tools like laser cutters or 3D printers can be combined with the nuance of hand-finishing or traditional assembly techniques. For example, intricate patterns generated by algorithms can be translated into complex woven textiles using computer-assisted looms, or digitally sculpted forms can serve as templates for objects realized in clay or metal. Similarly, traditional drawing or painting techniques can be augmented and transformed through digital manipulation, creating hybrid works that bridge analogue and virtual realms. This fusion allows artists to achieve levels of complexity, precision, or scale that might be unattainable through purely manual or purely digital means alone. Technology, in this context, does not replace craft but rather extends and amplifies its capacities, leading to what might be termed a form of “hyper-craft,” where the boundaries of skilled making are pushed into new territories.
The renewed appreciation for craft also brings to the fore considerations of labor, time, and care. The embodied knowledge, focused attention, and often considerable time invested in craft processes offer a potent counterpoint to the speed, disposability, and frequently impersonal nature of mass production and digital interaction. This “ethos of care” inherent in much craft practice can also be a vehicle for social commentary and activism, as artists use labor-intensive techniques to address issues of social justice, community, or cultural identity. The contemporary turn towards practices rooted in the handmade, the tactile, and the labor-intensive can be interpreted as a form of “digital detox,” a conscious or intuitive seeking of slowness, tangible engagement, and focused attention in a world saturated by fast-paced, fleeting digital stimuli. It represents a reclamation of embodied skill and a desire for a more grounded, physically engaged mode of being and creating.
IV. The “Neomateriality” of the Digital: Unveiling the Tangible in the Virtual
The pervasive discourse surrounding digital art and technologies has often been shadowed by what Christiane Paul terms the “myth of immateriality”. This is the notion that the digital realm exists as a purely abstract, disembodied space, separate from the constraints and consequences of the physical world. However, a growing body of critical inquiry and artistic practice robustly challenges this assumption, asserting that digital processes, platforms, and artworks possess profound and undeniable material underpinnings. From the rare earth minerals extracted for hardware components and the vast server farms consuming enormous amounts of energy, to the global networks of undersea cables and the mounting crisis of electronic waste, the digital is deeply enmeshed in material realities and their ecological implications. To ignore this is to overlook a significant dimension of our technological age.
In response to this, Paul proposes the concept of “neomateriality,” which refers to the complex confluence and convergence of digital technologies with various materialities, and, crucially, how this merger reshapes our relationship with both the digital and the physical, as well as our representation as subjects within this new paradigm. Neomateriality encourages an understanding of the digital not as an escape from the material, but as a new layer of material engagement with its own specific properties, affordances, and limitations. Artists are increasingly at the forefront of making these neomaterialities visible, exposing the often-hidden infrastructures, processes, and consequences of our digital lives.
Artistic explorations of digital materiality take diverse forms. Some artists focus on revealing the physical infrastructures that support the virtual world, creating works that map data flows, visualize server architectures, or comment on the environmental impact of technology. Others delve into the sensory and affective qualities of digital materials themselves—the aesthetics of glitches, the tactile feel of virtual environments, the visual representation of code, or the behavior of artificial intelligence. There is also a significant trend towards creating hybrid objects and experiences that deliberately blur the boundaries between the physical and digital, where tangible forms interact with virtual information, or where digital processes leave palpable traces in the material world. For instance, pioneering artists have long challenged the dualism of “cyberspace” versus “meatspace,” viewing the computer as a two-way channel through which the physical and the virtual continuously influence and transform each other. Projects emerging from advanced research labs explore software as an artistic medium in its own right, using generative algorithms, machine learning, and augmented reality to create poetic and unexpected engagements with technology that highlight its underlying structures.
The concept of neomateriality also extends to the embodied experience of the user interacting with digital art and interfaces. The haptics of a touchscreen, the physiological sensations induced by a virtual reality headset, the way our posture adapts to prolonged screen use, or how digital information flows shape our physical movements and perceptions—all these are dimensions of our material engagement with the digital. The digital, therefore, is not something that happens “elsewhere,” but is an active force that shapes our physical bodies, our environments, and our understanding of reality. The vast, resource-intensive, and often concealed material reality of the digital—its data centers, e-waste streams, and energy demands—can be seen as constituting a new, invisible landscape. Artistic practices that unearth or critique these “digital footprints” function as a contemporary extension of earlier Land Art or Environmental Art movements, raising critical awareness about the ecological toll of our virtual engagements. Furthermore, if the digital is indeed material, it is also inherently subject to the laws of entropy: malfunction, decay, and obsolescence. Artistic explorations of digital glitches, data corruption, the aesthetics of outdated hardware, or the “ruins” of abandoned virtual worlds offer a poignant commentary on the supposed perfection and timelessness of digital technology, revealing its intrinsic fragility and temporal nature.
V. Conclusion: Synthesizing Futures – The European Ivy Academy of Art’s Vision for Artistic Inquiry
The explorations outlined in this paper underscore the profound and continuously evolving interconnectedness of materiality, craft, and digitality as central forces shaping contemporary and future artistic practice. These domains are no longer, if they ever truly were, isolated fields of inquiry. Instead, they are revealed as deeply entangled, mutually influential spheres where the most compelling artistic innovations and critical reflections are currently taking place. The artist’s hand, whether wielding a traditional tool, manipulating code, or shaping raw matter, is a hand entangled in the complex material and technological realities of the 21st century. This entanglement is not a constraint but a source of immense creative potential, prompting new questions, new methods, and new forms of expression.
In this dynamic landscape, the role of artists and dedicated academic institutions like the European Ivy Academy of Art becomes increasingly critical. Such institutions are uniquely positioned to foster the deep, critical, and innovative engagement that these complex themes demand. They serve as vital laboratories where experimentation is encouraged, where interdisciplinary collaboration across art, design, science, and humanities can flourish, and where new conceptual languages and practical methodologies can be developed to address the intricate intersections of the material, the crafted, and the digital. The most forward-thinking art academies are evolving beyond the mere transmission of established skills to become critical nexuses—sites where these complex forces are not only studied but actively synthesized, interrogated, and re-imagined. They are becoming crucibles for the production of new knowledge and new forms of practice that are acutely responsive to the urgencies of our time.
The artistic inquiries emerging from this nexus of materiality, craft, and digitality inevitably resonate with broader societal and global challenges. They speak to issues of ecological sustainability, the ethics of emerging technologies, the preservation and reinterpretation of cultural heritage in a rapidly changing world, and the enduring human search for meaning, connection, and embodied experience in an increasingly technologically mediated existence. The critical examination of materials forces a confrontation with resource depletion and environmental responsibility. The engagement with craft offers models of skilled, thoughtful labor and sustainable practice. The interrogation of digitality compels a deeper understanding of its societal impacts, both positive and negative.
Ultimately, the European Ivy Academy of Art is dedicated to nurturing the kind of transformative artistic thinking and practice that can arise from these critical engagements. The vision is for an artistic inquiry that is not afraid to grapple with complexity, to challenge assumptions, and to imagine new possibilities for how art can contribute to a more thoughtful, ethical, and resilient future. This implies an educational imperative: to equip future generations of artists not only with technical proficiencies but, more importantly, with the critical capacity, ethical awareness, and intellectual agility required to navigate and shape the intricate material, technological, and socio-ecological landscapes they will inherit and transform. The enduring power of art lies in its capacity to reframe our understanding of the world and our place within it, and it is this transformative potential that the Academy seeks to cultivate and champion.
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