Hi, welcome to .txt!
.txt collects various writings, ideas, processes, and scribbles by artist Alexandra Crouwers. .txt is a work in progress, a continuation of 20 years of scattered online writing on subjects such as my own artistic parcours as well as others’ practices, media archaeology and digital art, ecological themes (extinction, anxiety, activism), and the position of the arts and artists in society.
Posts
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Welcome to .txt
Announcing .txt, the return of the blog! Wary of 20 years of social media platforms and general internet enshittification, I posted this little rant to LinkedIn, of all places, on May 18, 2026.
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Half Woord
(Dutch) Text written and read on the occasion of the book presentation and opening of the exhibition ‘Letters to Survivors’ by Toon Teeken in antiquarian book shop Demian, in Antwerp. April, 2026.
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New Media in Deep History
Originally published on my initial research blog, The Appeal of the Unreal, in april 2019, this (recently re-edited) post is part of a lineage of thoughts and research on how contemporary (media) art practice may relate to the widest possible scope of art history.
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Digital art & the knowledge gap of the contemporary art world: an advice.
First published on LinkedIn, this ‘rant’ responds to the gap between the so-called media arts and the traditional art world, exposing a lack of institutional knowledge about artistic engagements with (digital) media.
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all | ideas | transhistoricity
Is there an ‘indigenous’ Europe?
What does “indigenous” mean in Western European countries like the Netherlands and Belgium? What stories and knowledge of the land have been lost over the course of centuries? Have we lost ourselves, perhaps, too? Is there a way to reconnect to our own ‘indigenousness’?
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Exhibiting Absence and The Trail of Hansel & Gretel
This chapter (in progress) touches upon the contradictory nature of the habitat diorama in particular. Featuring Karen Wonders, Donna Haraway, Palais de Tokyo and Ludwig Museum Budapest.
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This Emptiness is Normal
Exhibition text for Revenants at Wouters Gallery in Brussels, curated by Rectangle. With Kelly Richardson and Nicolas Sassoon (& Rick Silva). January 21 – February 20, 2023.
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WAGMI: an awkward dance of art and crypto
Article for HART art magazine about collecting digital art in the NFT space. Published on paper in issue 222, March 2022 in tandem with the first of an online column series highlighting a work from my collection.
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The Plot, The Compositor, and Mourning/Mistakes
A peer reviewed publication, as part of VIS Nordic Journal for Artistic Research issue #6, Contagion by Alexandra Crouwers. October 19, 2021.
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Digital dioramas at the Moesgaard Museum (DK)
A report on a research visit to the Moesgaard Museum, and its digital stereoscopic prehistory dioramas. Augustus 2021. Aarhus, Denmark.
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Non-fungible experiments
NFTs: an adventuresque experimenza into the world of blockchain and crypto. In 2021, I ventured into the NFT phenomenon as part of a cohort of eco-aware artists that began to engage with an energy-efficient alternative to the more well known blockchains. It was riveting: a report.
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Living Planet, Dead Space
The representation of biodiversity, animals, and ecologies at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Brussels. A critical review of the Living Planet hall at the Brussels Museum of Natural Sciences (“…resembles a high-end shopping mall more than a natural history museum”), which opened in the Fall of 2020.
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Dear customer service,
“The more things change, the more they remain the same.” An essay, based on a complaint I sent to a product’s customer service, lamenting the loss of a particular taste after the company changed it dramatically. A version was published in 2021 in VIS Journal #6.
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Ips Typography
A collaboration with Joebob Graphics. Ips typography is a font of which the design is based on spruce bark beetle traces. The European spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus) leaves intricate traces in bark, resembling an alien alphabet. The font is only partly legible.
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The hand stencil and stone tool emoji proposals
It can be difficult to find agency in an internet dominated by large corporations. By way of an artistic contribution, I submitted two proposals for emoji, new additions to the expanding digital pictogram vocabulary.
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Handtassen van jeansbroeken
Initially posted on my (now defunct) Facebook profile, and picked up by performing arts platform Etcetera, this ‘rant’ responded to yet another case of ‘art bashing’ by populist politics who refuse to understand the potential of the arts, and the self-reliance, resilience, and resourcefulness of many professional artists.
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195.1 million views (and counting)
This is a report on the astonishing potential of reaching audiences of millions through web-based art – in this case, distributed through a GIPHY artist account. 2019 – 2020 and 2023 – ongoing. Counter update May 2026: the gifs on my account are at 534.6M views.
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Mistakes: the artist talk
‘Mistakes: the artist talk’ (2020) is a video essay (or rather: Powerpoint on steroids), made during the first Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. It responds with immediacy to the unusual situation, connecting the European spruce bark beetle outbreaks to the human respiratory virus, and pop culture to eco-anxieties.
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The dioramas of the AMNH
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York is famous for its dioramas. This post is a report of my research visit to the AMNH in March, 2019. It was part of a residency, which unfortunately was cut short due to the Covid pandemic. See also: Mistakes. The artist talk.
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all | digital art | essay
Skeuomorphism
A skeuomorph object desires to be something else. Skeuomorphism imitates another material or object. It is intwined with simulation technologies. This post is a WIP.
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A life-sized doll house.
Château de Breteuil near Paris, houses a collection of automata and period room dioramas, depicting historical events that may or may not have taken place in the castle. Visited Oct. 2019.
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A Brief History of Visual Trickery.
A timeline overview of visual illusions and illusionist effects: from Paleolithic to the present.
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Choir of a gothic church diorama
Report of a research visit to Daguerre and Bouton’s only remaining diorama at the church of Bry-sur-Marne: a 19th century high-tech religious theatre experience.
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Titanic sinks in real time
Here are some highlights from a YouTube playlist I made for animation and film students of LUCA in Brussels, in the hopes it would help them understand (digital) media art better.
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Hark! The clock of Notre Dame strikes!
A review, published in 1844, of the Diorama theatre show in London by reporter J. Saunders: a lively account of this pre-cinematic, immersive experience. Diorama theatres showed enormous, semi-translucent paintings that were animated using light- and sound-effects.
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The Artist in His Museum
In different ways, Peale’s 1822 self-portrait ‘The Artist in his Museum’ finds itself on a threshold. I like to use the painting as an analogy for artistic research, lifting the curtain to reveal the knowledge of other disciplines to feed the art.
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Forced Perspective, Avian Edition
It turns out humans are not the only species that uses visual trickery: the bowerbird constructs elaborate architectural seductions, complete with forced perspective.
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Himalaya at Dawn
Powell Cotton Museum | Quex House & Gardens | Birchington, UK | quexmuseum.org | Visited June 2019 | Himalaya at dawn (constructed in 1905) is considered to be ‘the oldest untouched diorama […]
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On screens as dioramas as screens
Note: this is a repost of an April 2019 entry on my portfolio website. Illusions behind glass The screen has become omnipresent in our lives: starting with TVs entering our homes, then […]
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Dark Rides
A meandering reflection on the many problems with Dutch theme park Efteling’s ‘dark ride’ “Droomvlucht” – a favorite ride of Dutch extreme right wing politician Geert Wilders. Do note: the Efteling’s fairy tale theme and use of special effects occupy a special place in my artistic trajectory. It is a love/hate relationship.
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all | ideas | transhistoricity
The Fiction Fix: Cognitive Fluidity & Fake News
Steven Mithen explains cognitive fluidity in his book The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science. Our brain mixes up different realities, leading to surprising combinations. I propose an idea that follows up on this: perhaps some people’s desperation for a fiction fix helps them fall into conspiracy traps.
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Bling: why people like shiny things
An insight on why people like shiny things, based on my own affinity with shiny surfaces.
