ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the local and international interpretations and critiques of new media art, by examining to what extent Indonesian new media art communities can be considered avant-garde. It analyses how new media art communities collaborate with international and local universities, schools, NGOs and social groups in their efforts to re-engage with the praxis of life and break with the modernist ideal of the autonomy of art as promoted in Indonesia's major art academies. The chapter shows the development of EFP from the study and teaching of new media art and the organisation of video and new media art festivals, to the efforts made to embed art and technology in a broader social context of local development and environmental sustainability. The first two avant-garde principles are illustrated by the emergence of new media art spaces and communities in Indonesia since the late 1990s.
