Digital Arts An Introduction To New Media Bloomsbury New Media Series Cat Hope Full
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Bloomsbury New Media Series
ISSN 1753-724X
BLOOMSBURY
NEW YORK • LONDON ♦ NEW DELHI • SYDNEY
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc
www.bloomsbury.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information
storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from
action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.
Acknowledgements ix
1 Introduction 1
What is Digitality? 2
What is Digital Art? 3
Digital Art and its Relatives: Understanding the Typologies 5
New Media Art 5
Electronic Art 6
Computer Art 7
Internet Art 8
Post-Media Aesthetics 8
Behaviourist Art 9
Telematic Art 10
Virtual Art 11
Unstable Media Art 12
Perspectives on Technology, Culture and the Digital Arts 13
Democratization 13
Globalization 15
Interdisciplinarity 17
An Outline of the Following Chapters 19
contents vii
viii contents
Bibliography 231
Index 247
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank the series editors, Leslie Haddon and Nicola Green, for their editorial
advice and detailed input on chapter drafts. Our appreciation goes to the School
of Communications and Arts (SCA), Western Australian Academy of Performing
Arts (WAAPA), CREATEC Research Centre and Debbie Rodan at Edith Cowan
University for sustained practical support on many levels. Also to Sally Knowles
and the Faculty of Education and Arts (FEA) at ECU for the opportunities they
provided to complete early drafts of individual chapters during writing retreats. We
are particularly grateful for the wonderful contribution made to the final copy by
Linda Jaunzems.
Our sincere thanks goes to Lelia Green for her ongoing mentorship and collegial
support, without which this book would not have been possible. Lelia has continu
ously and generously supported the authors through thick and thin. We are very
WHAT IS DIGITALITY?
The term ‘digital’ is a ubiquitous part of our vernacular in todays ever more
globalized world. The digital revolution of the 1990s introduced computer power
to the public at an unparalleled rate (Lovejoy et al. 2011: 2). This period entailed
a significant transfer in the production, storage and distribution of data to digital
technologies. Multimedia or hypertext documents combining text, images, sound
and video have become standard. Living in the ‘digital age’ now, we frequently come
across ‘digital technology’, ‘digital information’ and of course, ‘digital art’, but what
does it mean for something — including creative work — to be digital? Indeed, to
understand digital art as a movement, we need to start from the ground floor and
examine briefly the mechanics of digitality. Typically, the digital is defined as new
technology in contrast to older, pre-digital or analogue forms. In digital media,
input data - as light (images), sound (audio) or spatial configurations (text, graphs,
diagrams) - is converted to numerical patterns, which are then processed and manip
ulated in various ways by a computer’s hardware and software (Lister et al. 2003: 14).
Through digital processing, the physical properties of phenomena become numbers
or abstract symbols.
In this sense, ‘digital’ simply means the ‘assignation of numerical values to
phenomena’ (Lister et al. 2003: 15-16). Hence, ‘digital’ is a mathematical format
and process for storing, transferring and modifying information. Algorithms in
computer software subject the data to numerical processing. For example, digital
image files consist of discrete modular components; assembling these modules into
an image requires a series of mathematical executions (see Chapter 3). The numerical
system behind digitality is binary, employing variations of 0s and Is to produce alter
nating states that underlie how devices function: for example, off or on, current or no
current. The conversion of data to a binary schema enables the transfer and storage
of information to memory technology (hard drives), digital disks (CDs or DVDs)
or online repositories (file hosting and storage services). The modern mathematical
processes behind digital technology were founded in the work of German mathema
tician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646—1716), English inventor Charles Babbage
(1791-1871) and in the 1930s, English mathematician Alan Turing (1912-54) (see
Chapters 2 and 6).
When traditional media (e.g. newspapers, video, records) are digitized, they
become dematerialized at the same time. The process of digitization involves the shift
from the physical domain described by physics, chemistry, biology and engineering
to the symbolic domain explored by computer science (Lister et al. 2003: 16). In
other words, the materiality of the original (i.e. paper, magnetic tape, vinyl) is super
seded by an immaterial binary pattern and, therefore, the original medium becomes
largely redundant. Requiring specialized technology, such as specific software, digital
data (released from their physical media) can be compressed, accessed at high speeds
and readily manipulated (Lister et al. 2003: 16).
Whereas digital media exist in a state of flux, analogue media are comparatively
fixed. Analogue media, including newspapers, photographs, tapes and films, tend to
be associated with technologies of mass production. Yet analogue processes transfer
data to another physical object (an ‘analogue’), such as light, sound or handwriting,
where it is encoded and stored to a physical medium (i.e. grooves on a vinyl record,
magnetic particles on a tape or ink on a sheet of paper). An analogous relationship
is thus forged between the original data and the tangible medium. For instance,
the analogue reproduction of a book employs movable type and ink to produce a
physical imprint of the original on paper (Lister et al. 2003: 15). In contrast, a book
written on a computer undergoes a different process; every letter of the manuscript
generates a binary value in response to the touching of the authors fingers to the
keyboard. The resulting digital document can be exported in various ways (e.g. as an
email attachment, PDF or ZIP file) and eventually published as an e-book without
ever being printed to the traditional, material medium. Electronic broadcasting
media were also historically analogue. For example, the physical properties of images
and sounds were converted to wave forms of differing lengths and intensities, corre
sponding to the voltage of transmission signals.
Reflection
What are some of the ways that digital technologies have revolutionized your life and the society you live in?
How often and for what reasons do you use digital devices? Can you think of any disadvantages to using ‘the
digital' over ‘the analogue'? We will return to these sorts of questions in Chapter 2.
Reflection
Describe a few examples of digital art that you have seen or experienced in the last week, either online, in
public or in a gallery or museum setting. What is distinctive about these digital artworks?
Electronic Art
The typology ‘electronic art’ is perhaps the most inclusive for our discussion, aside
from the broad category of ‘art itself. It is also the term that has evolved the most
since its initial historical emergence. Often interactive and participatory, electronic
art incorporates electronic components in the production or display of a work. The
range of electronic technologies is vast, and comprises the internet, computing,
robotics, mobile devices and virtual reality platforms, as well as the ‘old’ media
of radio, teleconferencing, video, television and film. Moreover, dance, music,
performance, writing and installation pieces can be classified as electronic art if
they incorporate electronic dimensions. Encompassing both old and new media,
electronic art should not, by default, be classified as digital art. However, the
adjective ‘electronic’ is often invoked interchangeably by critics in referring to digital,
computer, internet or information-based art. We suggest that it is most instructive
to think of the term ‘electronic art’ as denoting a particular period in the history
of Western art, culture and technology. Indeed, the origins of electronic art can be
traced back to the early to mid-twentieth century when innovators, notably Marcel
Duchamp and, later, Ben Laposky, began to encounter and incorporate technologies
in their works (Lovejoy 2004: 1). Electronic media, such as tape, projections and
the computer, allowed artists to devise new modes of aesthetic representation and
creative possibility. Within electronic art, video art is a central subgenre, especially as
the medium melded over time with television, film and music (Rogers 2013; Rush
2003). Beginning in 1965 with the release of the Sony Portapak, video art demon
strates how progress in electronic and, later in the twentieth century, digital art has
paralleled developments in technology and science (see Chapter 2 for art-historical
precedents). The practices included within electronic and video art have developed
rapidly since one of the first video artists, Nam June Paik, placed a magnet on top
of a television set to distort the imagery, as discussed in detail in Chapter 2. Named
after the analogue video tape, contemporary video art uses the digital media of
CD-ROMs, DVDs and real-time streaming.
Computer Art
‘Computer art’ is another wide-ranging classification with shifting boundaries.
It encompasses most forms of software, database, internet, browser and game
art, as well as computer music. Broadly defined, computer art takes advantage of
computing technology to create or display an artwork. As a subset of computer art,
computer music refers to compositions that involve computer technologies at any
point in their life cycles, although other definitions are more restrictive (Collins
2009: 2) (also see Chapter 5). According to Dominic Lopes, the two defining charac
teristics of computer art — interactivity and computing — distinguish it from other
interactive performances and some forms of digital art (Lopes 2010: 52). As Lopes
(2010: 52) further argues, ‘the realms of computer art and digital art overlap. Not
all digital art is computer art — most of its not interactive — but typical computer art
is either made digitally or made for digital display. For other critics, interactivity is
not a necessary component of computer art. Within the umbrella term is included
a range of subgenres, such as software, database and game art, that evolved when
artists began to involve computers in their practices in the mid-twentieth century
(Wands 2006: 164).
Briefly, software art can be defined as ‘creative work that finds its origins in
programmes written by the artist’ (Wands 2006: 164). For some critics, implicit
within this definition is the notion of authorship; the artist-programmer tends to
write the software code, although this is not always the case, as Chapter 3 explains.
In slight contrast, database art often ‘relies on pre-existing, created or real-time
collections of information’ while game art uses ‘commercial gaming software or
incorporates elements of play and role-playing’ (Wands 2006: 164). Rather than
creating code as part of an artwork, database art tends to reinterpret data collections
or engage participants or viewers in the creation of datasets. Hybridity between
aesthetics and technology is characteristic of most computer artworks. In particular,
computer artists are competent with the use and development of software, including
gaming platforms, database programs and computer languages such as C++, Java
and Visual Basic. A prominent example of a computer artwork is Lynn Hershman
Leesons Synthia (2000-2), a sculpture using three-dimensional animation to
represent streaming stock market data. The character Synthia responds according to
market trends, for example, dancing when the stocks are up or chain-smoking when
they drop (Wands 2006: 167).
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