Through the exploration of recent and present technological developments, Florian van Zandwijk (NL–1991) provides insight
into both technology and the sociocultural conventions that shape our experience of the world. As humans, we seem to have a limited capacity to foresee the consequences of our own technological inventions, both during their emergence and shortly after. Play, both as a methodological approach and as a subject in itself, plays a central role in Van Zandwijk’s practice, offering a way to critically examine and experiment with technological systems while exploring the dynamics of control and order. This fundamental human longing for control in an ever more rapidly changing world coincides with Van Zandwijk’s own search for insight, overview, and a deeper understanding of how society constantly reshapes itself through technology.
This approach as a new media artist takes shape in a variety of roles within the field of digital culture; as researcher, educator, designer, curator, moderator and concept developer. He is currently a member of mot, a collective where he develops commissioned projects. Together with Sjef van Beers, Van Zandwijk organises Significant Content, an artist talk format for makers on social media. Additionally, Van Zandwijk serves on the board of the LINK foundation, which promotes a unique collection of artifacts and stories from seventy years of microchip developments at Philips—innovations that have been fundamental in shaping today's digital age.