Eduardo Kac - Genesis - Ars Electronica 99

New media art includes artworks designed and produced by means of

electronic media Electronic media are media that use electronics or electromechanical means for the audience to access the content. This is in contrast to static media (mainly print media), which today are most often created digitally, but do not require el ...

technologies Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

, comprising

virtual art Virtual art is a term for the virtualization of art, made with the technical media developed at the end of the 1980s (or a bit before, in some cases). These include human-machine interfaces such as visualization casks, stereoscopic spectacles and s ...

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...

computer animation Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating animations. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both static scenes (still images) and dynamic images (moving images), while computer animation refe ...

digital art Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960s, various names ...

interactive art Interactive art is a form of art that involves the spectator in a way that allows the art to achieve its purpose. Some interactive art installations achieve this by letting the observer walk through, over or around them; others ask the artist ...

sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art ...

Internet art upright=1.3, "Simple Net Art Diagram", a 1997 work by Michael Sarff and Tim Whidden Internet art (also known as net art) is a form of new media art distributed via the Internet. This form of art circumvents the traditional dominance of the phys ...

video games Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...

3D printing 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the Manufacturing, construction of a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design, CAD model or a digital 3D modeling, 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is ...

, and

cyborg art Cyborg art, also known as cyborgism, is an art movement that began in the mid-2000s in United Kingdom, Britain. It is based on the creation and addition of new senses to the body via cybernetic implants and the creation of art works through new se ...

. The term defines itself by the thereby created artwork, which differentiates itself from that deriving from conventional visual arts (i.e. architecture,

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...

, sculpture, etc.). New Media art has origins in the worlds of science, art, and performance. Some common themes found in new media art include databases, political and social activism, Afrofuturism, feminism, and identity, a ubiquitous theme found throughout is the incorporation of new technology into the work. The emphasis on medium is a defining feature of much

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

and many art schools and major universities now offer majors in "New Genres" or "New Media" and a growing number of graduate programs have emerged internationally. New media art may involve degrees of interaction between artwork and observer or between the artist and the public, as is the case in

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

. Yet, as several theorists and curators have noted, such forms of interaction, social exchange, participation, and transformation do not distinguish new media art but rather serve as a common ground that has parallels in other strands of contemporary art practice. Such insights emphasize the forms of cultural practice that arise concurrently with emerging technological platforms, and question the focus on technological media per se. New Media art involves complex curation and preservation practices that make collecting, installing, and exhibiting the works harder than most other mediums. Many cultural centers and museums have been established to cater to the advanced needs of new media art.

History

The origins of new media art can be traced to the moving image inventions of the 19th century such as the

phenakistiscope The phenakistiscope (also known by the spellings phénakisticope or phenakistoscope) was the first widespread animation device that created a fluent illusion of motion. Dubbed and ('stroboscopic discs') by its inventors, it has been known und ...

(1833), the

praxinoscope The praxinoscope was an animation device, the successor to the zoetrope. It was invented in France in 1877 by Charles-Émile Reynaud. Like the zoetrope, it used a strip of pictures placed around the inner surface of a spinning cylinder. The ...

(1877) and Eadweard Muybridge's

zoopraxiscope The zoopraxiscope (initially named ''zoographiscope'' and ''zoogyroscope'') is an early device for displaying moving images and is considered an important predecessor of the movie projector. It was conceived by photographic pioneer Eadweard Muy ...

(1879). From the 1900s through the 1960s, various forms of kinetic and light art, from

Thomas Wilfred Thomas Wilfred (June 18, 1889 in Naestved, Denmark - August 15, 1968 in Nyack, New York), born Richard Edgar Løvstrøm, was a musician and inventor. He is best known for his light art, which he named '' lumia'', and his designs for color organs ...

's 'Lumia' (1919) and 'Clavilux' light organs to

Jean Tinguely Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) was a Swiss sculptor best known for his kinetic art sculptural machines (known officially as Métamatics) that extended the Dada tradition into the later part of the 20th century. Tinguely's art s ...

's self-destructing sculpture ''Homage to New York'' (1960) can be seen as progenitors of new media art. Steve Dixon in his book ''Digital Performance: New Technologies in Theatre, Dance and Performance Art'' argues that the early twentieth century

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

art movement

Futurism Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such ...

was the birthplace of the merging of technology and performance art. Some early examples of performance artists who experimented with then state-of-the-art lighting, film, and projection include dancers

Loïe Fuller Loie Fuller (born Marie Louise Fuller; January 15, 1862 – January 1, 1928), also known as Louie Fuller and Loïe Fuller, was an American actress and dancer who was a pioneer of both modern dance and theatrical lighting techniques. Career Bor ...

and

Valentine de Saint-Point Valentine de Saint-Point (''née'' Anna Jeanne Valentine Marianne Glans de Cessiat-Vercell; 16 February 1875, Lyon – 28 March 1953, Cairo) was a French writer, poet, painter, playwright, art critic, choreographer, lecturer and journalist. She ...

. Cartoonist

Winsor McCay Zenas Winsor McCay ( – July 26, 1934) was an American cartoonist and animator. He is best known for the comic strip ''Little Nemo'' (1905–14; 1924–26) and the animated film ''Gertie the Dinosaur'' (1914). For contractual reasons, he worke ...

performed in sync with an animated

Gertie the Dinosaur ''Gertie the Dinosaur'' is a 1914 animated short film by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. It is the earliest animated film to feature a dinosaur. McCay first used the film before live audiences as an interactive part of his vaude ...

on tour in 1914. By the 1920s many Cabaret acts began incorporating film projection into performances.Dixon, S. (2007). ''Digital performance: A history of new media in theater, dance, performance art, and installation''. MIT Press

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

's piece ''Broadcast'' (1959), composed of three interactive re-tunable radios and a painting, is considered one of the first examples of interactive art. German artist

Wolf Vostell Wolf Vostell (14 October 1932 – 3 April 1998) was a German painter and sculptor, considered one of the early adopters of video art and installation art and pioneer of Happenings and Fluxus. Techniques such as blurring and Dé-coll/age are ch ...

experimented with television sets in his (1958) installation TV De-collages. Vostell's work influenced

Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super hi ...

, who created sculptural installations featuring hundreds of television sets that displayed distorted and abstract footage. Beginning in Chicago during the 1970s, there was a surge of artists experimenting with video art and combining recent computer technology with their traditional mediums, including sculpture, photography, and graphic design. Many of the artists involved were grad students at

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and ...

, including

Kate Horsfield Kate Horsfield (born 1944), is an American artist who focused her work on video art and video documentation. She is also an author and teacher. She is best known for co-founding the Video Data Bank in 1976, an international video art distributio ...

and

Lyn Blumenthal Lyn Blumenthal (1949-1988) was an American video artist and writer. She and Kate Horsfield founded the Video Data Bank in 1976. Biography Blumenthal was born in 1949 in Chicago, Illinois. Her parents were Sunoll and Frima Horwitch Blumenthal. I ...

, who co-founded the

Video Data Bank Video Data Bank (VDB) is an international video art distribution organization and resource in the United States for videos by and about contemporary artists. Located in Chicago, Illinois, VDB was founded at the School of the Art Institute of Chic ...

in 1976.Sandor, E. (2018). Ellen Sandor. In D.J. Cox, E. Sandor & J. Fron (Eds.), ''New media futures: The rise of women in the digital arts'' (pp.50-70). University of Illinois Press. Another artists involved was

Donna Cox Donna J. Cox is an American artist and scientist, Michael Aiken Endowed Chair; Professor of Art + Design; Director, Advanced Visualization Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC); Director, Visualization and Experimental Tech ...

, she collaborated with mathematician George Francis and computer scientist Ray Idaszak on the project ''Venus in Time'' which depicted mathematical data as 3D digital sculptures named for their similarities to paleolithic Venus statues. In 1982 artist Ellen Sandor and her team called (art)n Laboratory created the medium called PHSCologram, which stands for photography, holography, sculpture, and computer graphics. Her visualization of the AIDS virus was depicted on the cover of

IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications The publications of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) constitute around 30% of the world literature in the electrical and electronics engineering and computer science fields, publishing well over 100 peer-reviewed journals ...

in November 1988. At the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

in 1989, members of the

Electronic Visualization Laboratory The Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) is an interdisciplinary research lab and graduate studies program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, bringing together faculty, students and staff primarily from the Art and Computer Science depar ...

Carolina Cruz-Neira Carolina Cruz-Neira is a Spanish-Venezuelan-American computer engineer, researcher, designer, educator, and a pioneer of virtual reality (VR). She is known for inventing the cave automatic virtual environment (CAVE). She previously worked at Iowa ...

, Thomas DeFanti, and

Daniel J. Sandin Daniel J. Sandin (born 1942) is an American video and computer graphics artist, designer and researcher. He is a Professor Emeritus of the School of Art & Design at University of Illinois at Chicago, and co-director of the Electronic Visualiza ...

collaborated to create what is known as

CAVE A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

or Cave Automatic Virtual Environment an early virtual reality immersion using rear projection. In 1983,

Roy Ascott Roy Ascott FRSA (born 26 October 1934) is a British artist, who works with cybernetics and telematics on an art he calls technoetic by focusing on the impact of digital and telecommunications networks on consciousness. Since the 1960s, Ascott ...

introduced the concept of "distributed authorship" in his worldwide telematic project La Plissure du Texte for

Frank Popper Frank Popper (17 April 1918 – 12 July 2020) was a Czech-born French-British historian of art and technology and Professor Emeritus of Aesthetics and the Science of Art at the University of Paris VIII. He was decorated with the medal of the Lé ...

's "Electra" at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. The development of computer graphics at the end of the 1980s and real time technologies in the 1990s combined with the spreading of the Web and the Internet favored the emergence of new and various forms of interactive art by

Ken Feingold Kenneth Feingold (born 1952 in USA) is a contemporary American artist based in New York City. He has been exhibiting his work in video, drawing, film, sculpture, photography, and installations since 1974. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship ...

Lynn Hershman Leeson Lynn Hershman Leeson (née Lynn Lester Hershman; born 1941) is a multimedia American artist and filmmaker. Her work combines art with social commentary, particularly on the relationship between people and technology. Leeson is a pioneer in new med ...

David Rokeby David Rokeby (born in 1960 in Tillsonburg, Ontario) is an artist who has been making works of electronic, video and installation art since 1982. He lives with his wife, acclaimed pianist Eve Egoyan, and daughter, Viva Egoyan-Rokeby, in Toronto, C ...

Ken Rinaldo Kenneth E. Rinaldo (born 1958) is an American neo-conceptual artist and arts educator, known for his interactive robotics, 3D animation, and BioArt installations. His works include Autopoiesis (2000), and Augmented Fish Reality (2004), a fish-dr ...

Perry Hoberman Perry Hoberman (born 1954), is an installation artist who has worked extensively with machines and media. His career has included stints with Laurie Anderson and the USC Interactive Media Division. He has taught at the Cooper Union School of A ...

Tamas Waliczky Tamas may refer to: * ''Tamas'' (philosophy), a concept of darkness and death in Hindu philosophy * Tamás (name), a given name in Hungarian (Thomas) * ''Tamas'' (film), a 1987 TV series/movie directed by Govind Nihalani * ''Tamas'' (novel), a 1 ...

;

telematic art Telematic art is a descriptive of art projects using computer-mediated telecommunications networks as their medium. Telematic art challenges the traditional relationship between active viewing subjects and passive art objects by creating interactive ...

, Paul Sermon,

Michael Bielický Michael Bielicky (born 12 January 1954 in Prague) is a Czech-German artist working in new media, video art, and installations. He is a professor in the department of digital media and post-digital narratives at the Karlsruhe University of Arts ...

; Internet art by

Vuk Ćosić Vuk Ćosić ( sr-cyr, Вук Ћосић; born 31 July 1966) is a Slovenian contemporary artist associated with the net.art movement. Active in politics, literature and art, Ćosić has exhibited, published, and been active since 1994. He is well k ...

Jodi Jodi is a feminine given name which may refer to: People * Jodi Albert (born 1983), English actress * Jodi Anasta (born 1985), Australian actress and model * Jodi Anderson (born 1957), American heptathlete * Jodi Appelbaum-Steinbauer (born 1956), ...

; virtual and immersive art by Jeffrey Shaw,

Maurice Benayoun Maurice Benayoun (aka MoBen or 莫奔) (born 29 March 1957) is a French new-media artist, curator, and theorist based in Paris and Hong Kong. His work employs various media, including video, computer graphics, immersive virtual reality, the In ...

Monika Fleischmann Monika Fleischmann (born 1950 in Karlsruhe, (Germany)) is a pioneering German research artist, digital media scientist, and curator of new media art. She is one of the most relevant European women artist working in art, science, and technology. Sh ...

, and large scale urban installation by

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (born 1967 in Mexico City) is a Mexican-Canadian electronic artist who works with ideas from architecture, technological theater and performance. Lozano-Hemmer lives and works in Montreal and Madrid. Biography Rafael Lozan ...

. In Geneva, the

Centre pour l'Image Contemporaine The Centre pour l'Image Contemporaine or CIC was a contemporary art exhibition centre in Geneva, Switzerland. CIC was established in 1985 to organize events and exhibitions of images using new technologies such as video, multimedia, and the Interne ...

or CIC coproduced with

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

from Paris and the

Museum Ludwig Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from Pop Art, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It holds many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lich ...

in Cologne the first internet video archive of new media art. Programmed Machines installation by Maurizio Bolognini

Simultaneously advances in biotechnology have also allowed artists like

Eduardo Kac Eduardo Kac �dwardoʊ kæts; ĕd·wâr′·dō kăts(1962) is a contemporary artist of dual nationality (American and Brazilian) whose artworks span a wide range of practices, including performance art, poetry, holography, interactive art, digital ...

to begin exploring DNA and genetics as a new art medium. Influences on new media art have been the theories developed around interaction,

hypertext Hypertext is E-text, text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typi ...

, databases, and

networks Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

. Important thinkers in this regard have been

Vannevar Bush Vannevar Bush ( ; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all wartime ...

and

Theodor Nelson Theodor Holm Nelson (born June 17, 1937) is an American pioneer of information technology, philosopher, and sociologist. He coined the terms ''hypertext'' and ''hypermedia'' in 1963 and published them in 1965. Nelson coined the terms ''transcl ...

, whereas comparable ideas can be found in the literary works of

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known bo ...

Italo Calvino Italo Calvino (, also , ;. RAI (circa 1970), retrieved 25 October 2012. 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian writer and journalist. His best known works include the ''Our Ancestors'' trilogy (1952–1959), the '' Cosmicomi ...

, and

Julio Cortázar Julio Florencio Cortázar (26 August 1914 – 12 February 1984; ) was an Argentine, nationalized French novelist, short story writer, essayist, and translator. Known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, Cortázar influenced an ent ...

Themes

In the book ''New Media Art'',

Mark Tribe Mark Tribe (born 1966) is an American artist. He is the founder of Rhizome, a not-for-profit arts organization based in New York City. In 2013, he was appointed chair of the MFA program of the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Formerly, h ...

and Reena Jana named several themes that contemporary new media art addresses, including

computer art Computer art is any art in which computers play a role in production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, video game, website, algorithm, performance or gallery installation. Many traditi ...

collaboration Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. Most ...

identity Identity may refer to: * Identity document * Identity (philosophy) * Identity (social science) * Identity (mathematics) Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film * ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...

, appropriation,

open sourcing Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Open ...

telepresence Telepresence refers to a set of technologies which allow a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance or effect of being present via telerobotics, at a place other than their true location. Telepresence requires that the user ...

, surveillance, corporate parody, as well as intervention and

hacktivism In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of ''hack'' and ''activism''), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in hack ...

. In the book ''Postdigitale'',

Maurizio Bolognini Maurizio Bolognini (born July 27, 1952) is a post-conceptual media artist. His installations are mainly concerned with the aesthetics of machines, and are based on the minimal and abstract activation of technological processes that are beyond th ...

suggested that new media artists have one common denominator, which is a self-referential relationship with the new technologies, the result of finding oneself inside an epoch-making transformation determined by technological development. New media art does not appear as a set of homogeneous practices, but as a complex field converging around three main elements: 1) the art system, 2) scientific and industrial research, and 3) political-cultural media activism. There are significant differences between scientist-artists, activist-artists and technological artists closer to the art system, who not only have different training and technocultures, but have different artistic production. This should be taken into account in examining the several themes addressed by new media art. Non-linearity can be seen as an important topic to new media art by artists developing interactive, generative, collaborative, immersive artworks like Jeffrey Shaw or

who explored the term as an approach to looking at varying forms of digital projects where the content relays on the user's experience. This is a key concept since people acquired the notion that they were conditioned to view everything in a linear and clear-cut fashion. Now, art is stepping out of that form and allowing for people to build their own experiences with the piece. Non-linearity describes a project that escape from the conventional linear narrative coming from novels, theater plays and movies. Non-linear art usually requires audience participation or at least, the fact that the "visitor" is taken into consideration by the representation, altering the displayed content. The participatory aspect of new media art, which for some artists has become integral, emerged from

Allan Kaprow Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the "Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as ...

's ''Happenings'' and became with Internet, a significant component of contemporary art. The inter-connectivity and interactivity of the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

, as well as the fight between corporate interests, governmental interests, and public interests that gave birth to the web today, inspire a lot of current new media art.

Databases

One of the key themes in new media art is to create visual views of databases. Pioneers in this area include

Lisa Strausfeld Lisa Strausfeld (born 1964 or 1965) is an American design professional and information architect. Education Strausfeld studied art history and computer science and earned a Bachelor of Arts at Brown University. She went on to study at Harvard U ...

, Martin Wattenberg and Alberto Frigo. From 2004-2014

George Legrady George Legrady (''Légrády György, Tamás, Antal, Tivadar'', born January 8, 1950) is a multidisciplinary digital media artist and university professor in photography and computational media arts. Early life and education Legrady was born in Bu ...

's piece "Making Visible the Invisible" displayed the normally unseen library metadata of items recently checked out at the

Seattle Public Library The Seattle Public Library (SPL) is the public library system serving the city of Seattle, Washington. Efforts to start a Seattle library had commenced as early as 1868, with the system eventually being established by the city in 1890. The syste ...

on six LCD monitors behind the circulation desk. Database aesthetics holds at least two attractions to new media artists: formally, as a new variation on non-linear narratives; and politically as a means to subvert what is fast becoming a form of control and authority.

Political and social activism

Many new media art projects also work with themes like politics and social consciousness, allowing for

social activism Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...

through the interactive nature of the media. New media art includes "explorations of code and user interface; interrogations of archives, databases, and networks; production via automated scraping, filtering, cloning, and recombinatory techniques; applications of user-generated content (UGC) layers; crowdsourcing ideas on social- media platforms; narrowcasting digital selves on "free" websites that claim copyright; and provocative performances that implicate audiences as participants".

Afrofuturism

Afrofuturism Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, and philosophy of science and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technocu ...

is an interdisciplinary genre that explores the

African diaspora The African diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from native Africans or people from Africa, predominantly in the Americas. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the West and Central Africans who were e ...

experience, predominantly in the United States, by deconstructing the past and imagining the future through the themes of technology, science fiction, and fantasy. Musician

Sun Ra Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific out ...

, believed to be one of the founders of Afrofuturism, thought a blend of technology and music could help humanity overcome the ills of society. His band, The Sun Ra Arkestra, combined traditional Jazz with sound and performance art and were among the first musicians to perform with a synthesizer. The twenty-first century has seen a resurgence of Afrofuturism aesthetics and themes with artists and cooperation's like Jessi Jumanji and

Black Quantum Futurism Black Quantum Futurism (BQF) is a literary and artistic collective composed of Moor Mother (Camae Ayewa) and Rasheedah Phillips, two queer Black women from and based in Philadelphia. It is also a name for the set of Afrofuturist theoretical framewo ...

and art educational centers like Black Space in Durham, North Carolina.

Feminism and the female experience

Japanese artist Mariko Mori's multimedia installation piece ''Wave UFO'' (1999-2003) sought to examine the science and perceptions behind the study of consciousness and neuroscience. Exploring the ways that these fields undertake research in a materially reductionist manner. Mori's work emphasized the need for these fields to become more holistic and incorporate incites and understanding of the world from philosophy and the humanities.Mondloch, K. (2018). ''A capsule aesthetic: Feminist materialisms in new media art''. University of Minnesota Press. Swiss artist

Pipilotti Rist Pipilotti Elisabeth Rist (born 21 June 1962) is a Swiss visual artist best known for creating experimental video art and installation art. Her work is often described as surreal, intimate, abstract art, having a preoccupation with the female bo ...

's (2008) immersive video installation ''Pour Your Body Out'' explores the dichotomy of beauty and the grotesque in the natural world and their relation to the female experience. The large-scale 360-degree installation featured breast-shaped projectors and circular pink pillows that invited viewers to relax and immerse themselves in the vibrant colors, psychedelic music, and partake in meditation and yoga. American filmmaker and artist Lynn Hersman Leeson explores in her films the themes of identity, technology and the erasure of women's roles and contributions to technology. Her (1999) film

Conceiving Ada ''Conceiving Ada'' is a 1997 film produced, written, and directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson. Henry S. Rosenthal was co-producer of the film. The cinematography was by Hiro Narita and Bill Zarchy. Synopsis Emmy Coer is a computer scientist obsessed ...

depicts a computer scientist and new media artist named Emmy as she attempts and succeeds at creating a way to communicate through cyberspace with

Ada Lovelace Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (''née'' Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852) was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the A ...

, an Englishwoman who created the first computer program in the 1840s via a form of artificial intelligence.

Identity

With its roots in outsider art, New Media has been an ideal medium for an artist to explore the topics of identity and representation. In Canada, Indigenous multidisciplinary artists like

Cheryl L'Hirondelle Cheryl L'Hirondelle (also Waynohtêw, Cheryl Koprek; born September 20, 1958) is a Canadian multidisciplinary media artist, performer, and award-winning musician. She is of Métis/Cree (non-status/treaty), French, German, and Polish descent. Her ...

and

Kent Monkman Kent Monkman (born 13 November 1965) is a Canadian First Nations artist of Cree ancestry. He is a member of the Fisher River band situated in Manitoba's Interlake Region. He is both a visual as well as performance artist, working in a variety ...

have incorporated themes about gender, identity, activism, and colonization in their work. Monkman, a Cree artist, performs and appears as their alter ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, in film, photography, painting, installation, and performance art. Monkman describes Miss Chief as a representation of a

two-spirit Two-spirit (also two spirit, 2S or, occasionally, twospirited) is a modern, , umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people in their communities who fulfill a traditional third-gender (or other gender-variant) ...

or non-binary persona that does not fall under the traditional description of drag.

Future of new media art

The emergence of

has introduced a new bridge to new media art, joining the virtual and the physical worlds. The rise of this technology has allowed artists to blend the computational base of new media art with the traditional physical form of sculpture. A pioneer in this field was artist

Jonty Hurwitz Jonty Hurwitz (born 2 September 1969 in Johannesburg) is a British South African artist, engineer and entrepreneur. Hurwitz creates scientifically inspired artworks and anamorphic sculptures. He is recognised for the smallest human form ever ...

who created the first known anamorphosis sculpture using this technique.

Longevity

As the technologies used to deliver works of new media art such as

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

tapes Tape or Tapes may refer to: Material A long, narrow, thin strip of material (see also Ribbon (disambiguation): Adhesive tapes * Adhesive tape, any of many varieties of backing materials coated with an adhesive * Athletic tape, pressure-sensiti ...

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

and

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

s become obsolete, New Media art faces serious issues around the challenge to preserve artwork beyond the time of its contemporary production. Currently, research projects into

New media art preservation The conservation and restoration of new media art is the study and practice of techniques for sustaining new media art created using from materials such as digital, biological, performative, and other variable media. New media art runs a unique ris ...

are underway to improve the preservation and documentation of the fragile media arts heritage (see DOCAM - Documentation and Conservation of the Media Arts Heritage). Methods of preservation exist, including the translation of a work from an obsolete medium into a related new medium, the digital archiving of media (see the Rhizome ArtBase, which holds over 2000 works, and the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

), and the use of

emulators In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use peri ...

to preserve work dependent on obsolete software or operating system environments. Around the mid-90s, the issue of storing works in digital form became a concern. Digital art such as moving images, multimedia, interactive programs, and computer-generated art has different properties than physical artwork such as oil paintings and sculptures. Unlike analog technologies, a digital file can be recopied onto a new medium without any deterioration of content. One of the problems with preserving digital art is that the formats continuously change over time. Former examples of transitions include that from 8-inch floppy disks to 5.25-inch floppies, 3-inch diskettes to CD-ROMs, and DVDs to flash drives. On the horizon is the obsolescence of flash drives and portable hard drives, as data is increasingly held in online

cloud storage Cloud storage is a model of computer data storage in which the digital data is stored in logical pools, said to be on "the cloud". The physical storage spans multiple servers (sometimes in multiple locations), and the physical environment is t ...

. Museums and galleries thrive off of being able to accommodate the presentation and preservation of physical artwork. New media art challenges the original methods of the art world when it comes to documentation, its approach to collection and preservation. Technology continues to advance, and the nature and structure of art organizations and institutions will remain in jeopardy. The traditional roles of curators and artist are continually changing, and a shift to new collaborative models of production and presentation is needed.

Preservation

''see also

Conservation and restoration of new media art The conservation and restoration of new media art is the study and practice of techniques for sustaining new media art created using from materials such as digital, biological, performative, and other variable media. New media art runs a unique ris ...

'' New media art encompasses various mediums all which require their own preservation approaches.Paul, C. (2012). The myth of immateriality – presenting new media art. ''Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, 10''(2/3) 167-172 https://doi.org/10.1386/tear.10.2-3.167_7 Due to the vast technical aspects involved no established digital preservation guidelines fully encompass the spectrum of new media art. New media art falls under the category of "complex digital object" in the Digital Curation Centre's digital curation lifecycle model which involves specialized or totally unique preservation techniques. Complex digital objects preservation has an emphasis on the inherent connection of the components of the piece.

Education

In New Media programs, students are able to get acquainted with the newest forms of creation and communication. New Media students learn to identify what is or isn't "new" about certain technologies. Science and the market will always present new tools and platforms for artists and designers. Students learn how to sort through new emerging technological platforms and place them in a larger context of sensation, communication, production, and consumption. When obtaining a bachelor's degree in New Media, students will primarily work through practice of building experiences that utilize new and old technologies and narrative. Through the construction of projects in various media, they acquire technical skills, practice vocabularies of critique and analysis, and gain familiarity with historical and contemporary precedents. In the United States, many Bachelor's and Master's level programs exist with concentrations on Media Art, New Media, Media Design, Digital Media and Interactive Arts.

Leading art theorists and historians

Leading art theorists and historians in this field include

Lev Manovich Lev Manovich ( ) is an author of books on digital culture and new media, and professor of Computer Science at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Manovich's current research and teaching focuses on digital humanities, social computin ...

Christine Buci-Glucksmann Christine Buci-Glucksmann is a French philosopher and Professor Emeritus from University of Paris VIII specializing in the aesthetics of the Baroque and Japan, and computer art. Her best-known work in English is ''Baroque Reason: The Aesthetics of ...

Jack Burnham Jack Wesley Burnham Jr. (born New York City, November 13, 1931 - February 25, 2019) was an American writer and theorist of art and technology, who taught art history at Northwestern University and the University of Maryland. He is one of the mai ...

, Mario Costa,

Edmond Couchot Edmond Couchot (16 August 1932 – 26 December 2020) was a French digital artist and art theoretician who taught at the University Paris VIII. Life and work Couchot was a Doctor of aesthetics in the visual arts. From 1982-2000 he headed the depar ...

Fred Forest Fred Forest (born July 6, 1933 in Mascara, French Algeria) is a French new media artist making use of video, photography, the printed press, mail, radio, television, telephone, telematics, and the internet in a wide range of installations, perform ...

Oliver Grau Oliver Grau (born 24 October 1965) is a German art historian and media theoretician with a focus on image science, modernity and media art as well as culture of the 19th century and Italian art of the Renaissance. Main Areas of Research are: Dig ...

Margot Lovejoy Margot Lovejoy (21 October 1930 – 1 August 2019) ...

Robert C. Morgan Robert C. Morgan (born 1943) is an American art critic, art historian, curator, poet, and artist. Biography Robert C. Morgan received his M.F.A. in sculpture from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1975 and his Ph.D. in art education f ...

Dominique Moulon Dominique Moulon (born 1962) is a historian of art and technology, art critic and curator, specializing in French digital art. He is the author of the books ''Art contemporain nouveaux médias'' and ''Art Beyond Digital''. Background Dominiqu ...

Christiane Paul Christiane Paul (; born 8 March 1974 in Berlin-Pankow) is a German film, television and stage actress. Paul first worked as a model for magazines such as ''Bravo''. She was 17 when she obtained her first leading role in the film '. Prior to he ...

, Catherine Perret,

, and

Edward A. Shanken Edward A. Shanken (born 1964) is an American art historian, whose work focuses on the entwinement of art, science and technology, with a focus on experimental new media art and visual culture. Shanken is Professor, Arts Division, at UC Santa Cru ...

Types

The term New Media Art is generally applied to disciplines such as: *

Artistic computer game modification Video game art is a specialized form of computer art employing video games as the artistic medium. Video game art often involves the use of patched or modified video games or the repurposing of existing games or game structures, however it rel ...

ASCII art ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable (from a total of 128) characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant chara ...

Bio Art BioArt is an art practice where artists work with biology, live tissues, bacteria, living organisms, and life processes. Using scientific processes and practices such as biology and life science practices, microscopy, and biotechnology (including ...

Cyberformance Cyberformance refers to live theatrical performances in which remote participants are enabled to work together in real time through the medium of the internet, employing technologies such as chat applications or purpose-built, multiuser, real-time ...

Computer art Computer art is any art in which computers play a role in production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, video game, website, algorithm, performance or gallery installation. Many traditi ...

Critical making Critical making refers to the hands-on productive activities that link digital technologies to society. It was invented to bridge the gap between creative, physical, and conceptual exploration. The purpose of critical making resides in the learnin ...

Digital art Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960s, various names ...

Demoscene The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off programming, visual ...

Digital poetry Digital poetry is a form of electronic literature, displaying a wide range of approaches to poetry, with a prominent and crucial use of computers. Digital poetry can be available in form of CD-ROM, DVD, as installations in art galleries, in cert ...

Electronic art Electronic art is a form of art that makes use of electronic media. More broadly, it refers to technology and/or electronic media. It is related to information art, new media art, video art, digital art, interactive art, internet art, and electr ...

* Experimental musical instrument building *

Evolutionary art Evolutionary art is a branch of generative art, in which the artist does not do the work of constructing the artwork, but rather lets a system do the construction. In evolutionary art, initially generated art is put through an iterated process o ...

Fax art Fax art is art specifically designed to be sent or transmitted by a facsimile machine, where the "fax art" is the received "fax". It is also called telecommunications art or telematic art. According to art historians Annmarie Chandler and Norie ...

Generative art Generative art refers to art that in whole or in part has been created with the use of an autonomous system. An autonomous system in this context is generally one that is non-human and can independently determine features of an artwork that wo ...

Glitch art Glitch art is the practice of using digital or analog errors for aesthetic purposes by either corrupting digital data or physically manipulating electronic devices. Glitches appear in visual art such as the film ''A Colour Box'' (1935) by Len Lye, ...

Hypertext Hypertext is E-text, text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typi ...

Information art Information art, which is also known as informatism or data art, is an emerging art form that is inspired by and principally incorporates data, computer science, information technology, artificial intelligence, and related data-driven fields. The i ...

Interactive art Interactive art is a form of art that involves the spectator in a way that allows the art to achieve its purpose. Some interactive art installations achieve this by letting the observer walk through, over or around them; others ask the artist ...

* Kinetic art *

Light art Light art or The Art of Light is generally referring to a visual art form in which (physical) light is the main, if not sole medium of creation. Uses of the term differ drastically in incongruence; definitions, if existing, vary in several aspec ...

Motion graphics Motion graphics (sometimes mograph) are pieces of animation or digital footage which create the illusion of motion or rotation, and are usually combined with audio for use in multimedia projects. Motion graphics are usually displayed via electr ...

Net art upright=1.3, "Simple Net Art Diagram", a 1997 work by Michael Sarff and Tim Whidden Internet art (also known as net art) is a form of new media art distributed via the Internet. This form of art circumvents the traditional dominance of the phys ...

Performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

Radio art Radio art is an aural art form made with sound. Artists use radio technology (i.e. radio transmission, airwaves) to communicate artistic compositions for interpretation – exposing their audience to alternate means to experiencing their art thro ...

Robotic art Robotic art is any artwork that employs some form of robotic or automated technology. There are many branches of robotic art, one of which is robotic installation art, a type of installation art that is programmed to respond to viewer interactions ...

Software art Software art is a work of art where the creation of software, or concepts from software, play an important role; for example software applications which were created by artists and which were intended as artworks. As an artistic discipline software ...

Sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art ...

Systems art Systems art is art influenced by cybernetics, and systems theory, that reflects on natural systems, social systems and social signs of the art world itself. Systems art emerged as part of the first wave of the conceptual art movement extended i ...

Telematic art Telematic art is a descriptive of art projects using computer-mediated telecommunications networks as their medium. Telematic art challenges the traditional relationship between active viewing subjects and passive art objects by creating interactive ...

Video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...

Video games Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

Virtual art Virtual art is a term for the virtualization of art, made with the technical media developed at the end of the 1980s (or a bit before, in some cases). These include human-machine interfaces such as visualization casks, stereoscopic spectacles and s ...

Artists

Cultural centres

Australian Network for Art and Technology The Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT), was founded by the Australian Experimental Art Foundation (then the Experimental Art Foundation) in 1988. ANAT is a nonprofit organization that provides tools to assist Australian artists, part ...

Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe The ZKM , Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (until March 2016: ZKM Center for Art and Media Technology), a cultural institution, was founded in 1989. and since 1997 is located in a listed industrial building in Karlsruhe, Germany, a former muni ...

Eyebeam Art and Technology Center Eyebeam is a not-for-profit art and technology center in New York City, founded by John Seward Johnson III with co-founders David S. Johnson and Roderic R. Richardson. Originally conceived as a digital effects and coding atelier and center for ...

Foundation for Art and Creative Technology FACT Liverpool is a new media arts centre in Liverpool, England. The building houses galleries, a cinema operated by Picturehouse, a bar and a café. History FACT was established as an organisation focussed on video and new media art, exhibit ...

Gray Area Foundation for the Arts Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization supporting art and technology for social good in San Francisco, California. Gray Area hosts exhibitions and music events, software and electronics classes, a media lab, ...

Harvestworks Harvestworks is a not-for-profit arts organization located in New York City. It was founded in 1977 by artists supporting the creation and presentation of art works achieved through the use of new technologies. The Harvestworks TEAM Lab (Technology ...

InterAccess InterAccess is a Canadian artist-run centre and electronic media production facility in Toronto. Founded in 1982 as Toronto Community Videotex, InterAccess is Ontario's only exhibition space devoted exclusively to technological media arts. The Cent ...

Los Angeles Center for Digital Art The Los Angeles Center for Digital Art (LACDA), established in April 2004, acts a gallery for the display digital artworks in Los Angeles, California, United States. The founder and director of the gallery is Rex Bruce. The first LACDA venue was on ...

(LACDA) *

Netherlands Media Art Institute The Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk) (''Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst'' in Dutch) was an international institution based in Amsterdam focusing on the presentation, research and collection of Media Art. Previously known as MonteVideo ...

NTT InterCommunication Center NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC) is a media art gallery in Tokyo Opera City Tower in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in ...

Rhizome (organization) Rhizome is an American not-for-profit arts organization that supports and provides a platform for new media art. History Artist and curator Mark Tribe founded Rhizome as an email list in 1996 while living in Berlin.RIXC The Centre for new media culture in Riga (RIXC) is the joint effort of a number of independent local Latvian cultural groups working in the fields of new media, art, film, music, youth culture and the social projects. The founders of RIXC are ...

School for Poetic Computation The School for Poetic Computation (SFPC) is a hybrid of a school, residency and research group that was founded in 2013 in New York. A small group of students and faculty work closely to explore the intersections of code, art, hardware and the ...

(SFPC) *

School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and ...

* Squeaky Wheel: Film and Media Arts Center *

V2 Institute for the Unstable Media V2_, Lab for the Unstable Media, founded in 1981, is an interdisciplinary center for art and media technology in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.Stephen Wilson, ''Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology'', MIT Press, 2002, p. 8 ...

WORM Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes (though not always). Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine polychaete wor ...

History

Themes

Databases

Political and social activism

Afrofuturism

Feminism and the female experience

Identity

Future of new media art

Longevity

Preservation

Education

Leading art theorists and historians

Types

Artists

Cultural centres

See also

References

Further reading