For over 20 years the Aotearoa Digital Arts (ADA) Network has furthered the fields of new media art and digital culture in Aotearoa New Zealand, from legacy instruments such as mailman lists and discussion forums, through to more contemporary social media channels and forays in Web3. Meanwhile, the attention towards digital art has significantly shifted from its 90s and early dotcom boom obscurity, onto more recent tendencies via a global pandemic and NFT hypes that mostly resulted in local funding bodies and policy makers playing catch up, while global new media art scenes became more concerned with the conservation of born-digital work and the preservation of its carrier systems and machines.

This talk will present an overview of the past, present and future of Aotearoan digital arts, ranging from perspectives on historical genres and classification, to methods and tactics regarding the archiving of digital culture through taonga and assets, as well as the sociopolitical dimensions of its networked infrastructure.

Walter Langelaar, Aotearoa Digital Arts (ADA) Network: Walter Langelaar is an artist/academic whose work in media arts and computational design questions our digitally networked cultures and infrastructure through artistic critique in varying dimensions, such as sculpture, installation, online performance and critical intervention.
Since 2024, Walter chairs the Aotearoa Digital Arts (ADA) Network, a network researching the expanded field around media, new media, electronic and digital art.

The ADA Network enables communication between artists, curators, teachers, critics, theorists, writers and the interested public. ADA develops public understanding of digital art through its online forum, through publications and exhibitions, and by touring speakers, holding master classes and symposia.