Art Electronic Media: Digital Art
History
Anne Morrison
The Woodlands High School
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Major Source:
Digital Art
by Christiane Paul
Christiane is Adjunct Curator of
New Media Arts at the Whitney
Museum of American Art in New
York
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Contents
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Timeline of Technology
Digital Art History
Digital Technologies as a Tool
Digital Technologies as a Medium
Credits
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Timeline of Technology
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The Past: Technology and Art
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Evolving Terminology
1960: The Digital Revolution
1970: Computer Art
1980: Multimedia Art
1990: Digital Art
2000: New Media Art
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1945
• Army scientist Vannevar Bush wrote an article for
Atlantic Monthly entitled ‘As We May Think’.
• He envisioned the Memex, a device that would
read microfilm books, periodicals, and images.
• The user could enter data directly into the Memex.
• It was to be essentially an analogue device.
• It was never built, but the concept foresees the
potential of electronically linked databases.
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1946
• The University of
Pennsylvania unveiled
ENIAC (Electronic
Numerical Integrator
and Computer), the
worlds first digital
computer.
• It took up the space of
a whole room.
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1951
• UNIVAC (Universal
Automatic Computer)
was the first digital
computer that was
commercially
available.
• It could process
numbers and text.
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1961
• Theodore Nelson created the words
“Hypertext” and “Hypermedia” to describe
electronically linked text.
• Text, image, and sounds were electronically
connected.
• The Hyperlinked ‘docuverse’ was branching
and nonlinear.
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1964
• RAND Corporation (the Cold War Think
Tank) recommended creation of the Internet
as a network without a central location in
case of a nuclear attack.
• The Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects
Agency (ARPA) began work on the
Internet.
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1969
• ARPANET was formed from the four
‘supercomputers’ at the University of
California at Los Angeles, the University of
California at Santa Barbara, Stanford
Research Institute, and the University of
Utah.
• Douglas Engelbart invented bitmapping,
windows, and the mouse.
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1970’s and1983
• During the 70’s Xerox developed the
Graphic User Interface (GUI) which
combined the desktop, mouse navigation,
and windows.
• In 1983 Apple made the GUI interface
popular with the first Macintosh computer.
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Digital Art History
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Marcel Duchamp,
Rotary Glass Plates
1920
Digital Art History
• Roots of digital art are
found in Dada, Fluxus,
and conceptual art.
• The emphasis is on
formal instructions
with the focus on
concept, event, and
audience participation,
not a material object.
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Instructions and Virtual Space
• Instructions for users to
activate or interact with the
art work in 1920-1930
predicts the use of software
as a set of digital
instructions.
• Moholy-Nagy’s kinetic
light sculptures suggest the
beginning of virtual space.
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Kinetic Sculpture 1933
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Tribute to Victims: Twin Towers
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Fluxus: 1960’s
Nam June Paik, Random Access
• The Fluxus group of
artists, musicians, and
performers based their
events on audience
participation and precise
instructions.
• Influenced by Duchamp,
John Cage and Nam June
Paik used “found”
elements and
randomness.
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1960’s Early Computer Artists:
A. Michael Noll
• At Bell Labs, Michael
Noll used the computer to
create art. Gaussian
Quadratic 1963, contains
ninety-nine lines that
connect 100 points whose
horizontal coordinates are
Gaussian. Vertical
coordinates increase
according to a quadratic
equation.
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1960’s Early Computer Artists:
John Whitney
• John Whitney used a
mechanical analogue
computer to produce his
Catalog (1961). A short
film consisting of
computer-produced
abstract images, Catalog
was created using
outdated military
computing equipment.
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1966
1960’s Early Computer Artists:
Charles Csuri
• Charles Csuri
programmed the
computer to “morph”
plots into a humming
bird image.
• The lower image
shows a frame of the
10 minute computer
animation of the
humming bird.
1967
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1960’s Early Computer Artists:
Stan Vanderbeek and Lillian Schultz
• Vanderbeek's 1964
Poem Fields is a rapidfire film of digitally
generated abstract
images.
• Schwartz's 1970 film
Pixillation, is
composed of
programmed abstract
images.
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1960’s Early Computer Artists:
EAT Experiments in Art and Technology
• "The artist is a visionary
about life. Only he can
create disorder and still
get away with it. Only he
can use technology to its
fullest capacity. The artists
have to use technology
because technology is
becoming inseparable
from lives." – Billy Klüver
Robert Rauschenberg, Oracle
an interactive sculpture
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1960’s Early Computer Artists:
EAT Experiments in Art and Technology
Jean Tinguely, Homage to NY
Andy Warhol, Floating Pillows
Kinetic Sculpture Self Destruct
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Digital Technologies as a Tool
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Digital Technologies as a Tool:
Photography and Print
Scott Griesbach
Dark Horse of Abstraction
• The four horsemen of
the Apocalypse are
represented as
Jackson Pollock
being chased by
Edward Hopper
representing the
formalist revolution.
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Digital Technologies as a Tool:
Photography and Print
Joseph Nechvatal
flawless ignudiO
• Joseph Nechvatal calls his art
viractual painting. He uses
drawing, digital-photography,
painting, written language, and
computer code (including viral
attacks) - all of which is mixed
and sent over the Internet to a
computer robotic painting
machine that executes the
painting using acrylics.
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Digital Technologies as a Tool:
Photography and Print
Jochem Hendricks
EYE 2001
• Jochem Hendricks uses
digital recording goggles to
trace the path of the artist’s
eye as he reads a book or
newspaper. The resulting
path is printed as a record
of visual perception and
the process of seeing.
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Digital Technologies as a Tool:
Sculpture
Michael Rees
Large, Small, and Moving
2003
• Michael Rees uses
digital 3-D software
to create sculptures
and animate his
clones that are made
up of body parts. The
sculptural bodies
come to life.
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Digital Technologies as a Medium
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Digital Technologies as a Medium:
Installation
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
Frequency and Volume 2003
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FREQUENCY and VOLUME is an
interactive installation that allows the
participants to tune radio frequencies
using their own shadows. Shadow size
controls the volume of the signal.
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Up to 16 channels (shadows) can be
heard simultaneously. The sounds in
the installation hall are a composition
directed by the movements of the
viewers. This piece investigates the
radioelectric space and turns the
body into an antenna.
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Digital Technologies as a Medium:
Film, Video, Animation
Toni Dove - Interactive Video
Artificial Changelings 1998
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Arathusa, a kleptomaniac and an ecstatic
dreamer, who suffers the constraints of
Victorian society at the moment of the birth of
the department store. She dreams of Zilith, a
woman of the future, who is both real and
imagined. Zilith is an encryption hacker
searching for invisible enemies in a landscape of
data determined by commerce. Artificial
Changelings is a unique statement on how
consumer economy, from the Industrial
Revloution to the present, shapes identity.
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As an audience member you step into a pool of
light in front of the screen and enter the
interactive zones. When close to the screen you
are inside a character's head; back off and the
character addresses you directly; back off again
and you are in a trance or dream state; and
back off once more and you enter a time tunnel
that emerges in the other century.
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Digital Technologies as a Medium:
Mark Napier - RIOT
Internet Art
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http://www.potatoland.org/riot
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Mark Napier’s Riot is an alternative Web
browser. Riot disrupts the accepted rules of
property and exposes the fragility of
territorial boundaries. Inspired by the
clashing classes and ideologies of New York's
Lower East Side, Napier created a software
"melting pot," a blender that mixes Web
pages from separate domains into one
browser window. After entering RIOT, you
surf the Web by entering a URL into the
location bar, or by selecting from
bookmarks. Unlike conventional browsers,
however, Riot builds its pages by combining
text, images, and links from the pages any
user has recently viewed.
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Digital Technologies as a Medium:
Nomatic Networks
James Buckhouse TAP
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http://www.diacenter.org/buckhouse/
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Once loaded onto a PDA running the Palm
operating system, the artwork begins. A male or
female figure stands fidgeting, ready to start. The
user can work with the dancer to practice steps, to
improvise new dances, or to choreograph new
dances from a palette of sixteen steps. The
character will stumble, throwing its arms up in the
air in frustration, bow askance sheepishly, and
continue, despite repeated mistakes. With practice,
the character gradually gets the steps right,
sometimes lapsing, but eventually mastering each
step. Whether improvised by the character or
choreographed by the user, dances can be saved,
re-worked and exchanged. They can then be
beamed directly from user to user or posted and
retrieved from the permanent dance archive on
Tap's website.
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Digital Technologies as a Medium:
Virtual Reality
Charlotte Davies - Osmose
• In Osmose, the virtual
reality artwork by
Charlotte Davies, the
viewer wearing the
headset and motion
tracking vest is completely
immersed into the
alternate world. The
scenes are from nature,
but are painterly, having a
dream-like quality.
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Digital Technologies as a Medium:
Sound and Music
Toshio Iwai, Piano 1995
• This interactive audiovisual installation is
played by viewers who
can position dots on a
moving grid projected
in front of the piano.
Sound and visuals are
played according to the
pattern of the dots.
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Themes in Digital Art
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Themes in Digital Art:
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Artificial Life
Artificial Intellegence
Telerobotics
Body and Identity
Databases
Narrative Environments
Gaming
Activism
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Credits
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http://www.beigerecords.com/cory/
http://www.artcom.de/
http://www.ljudmila.org/~vuk/ascii/aae.html
http://www.asymptote.net/
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/wax/
http://on1.zkm.de/zkm/werke/LiquidViews
http://www.desktoptheater.org/
http://www.desktoptheater.org/
http://www.diacenter.org/buckhouse/
http://www.irational.org/cgi-bin/front/front.pl
http://www.bureauit.org/
http://www.nancyburson.com/
http://www.prop.org/
http://www.impermanenceagent.com/agent/
http://www.walkerart.org/gallery9/three/
http://www.ljudmila.org/~vuk/ascii/aae.html
http://www.din.umontreal.ca/courchesne/
http://www.asymptote.net/
http://www.critical-art.net/
http://www.csurivision.com/
http://www.temple.edu/newtechlab/
http://www.immersence.com/
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Credits
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http://www.joshuadavis.com/pound.html
http://www.speakerscorner.org.uk/
http://www.thing.net/~relay/scrutiny/
http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/
http://www.tonidove.com/
http://www.ecafe.com/
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/ecd.html
http://www.entropy8zuper.org/
http://www.etoy.com/
http://www.fakeshop.com/capsule_hotel/index2.html
http://www.kenfeingold.com/
http://www.imk.fraunhofer.de/sixcms/detail.php?template=&id=1187
http://www.walkerart.org/gallery9/three/
http://acg.media.mit.edu/people/fry/valence/
http://www.rhizome.org/carnivore/
http://www.ecafe.com/
http://www.thing.net/~relay/scrutiny/
http://turbulence.org/adrift/
http://www.ieor.berkeley.edu/~goldberg/art/
http://www.scottgriesbach.com/
http://www.petworks.co.jp/~hachiya/works/
http://www.cat.nyu.edu/parkbench/alice/
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Credits
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http://www.mongrelx.org/
http://sod.jodi.org/
http://www.jochem-hendricks.de/index_no_popup.htm
http://www.lynnhershman.com/
http://www.perryhoberman.com/
http://www.dieter-huber.com/
http://www.onetrees.org/
http://www.jevbratt.com/
http://www.jevbratt.com/
http://www.ekac.org/
http://www.andruid.com/
http://ecologylab.cs.tamu.edu/combinFormation/
http://www.cityarts.com/
http://www.krcf.org/krcfhome/
http://www.flong.com/
http://myboyfriendcamebackfromth.ewar.ru/
http://www.speakerscorner.org.uk/
http://www.maedastudio.com/
http://www.wearcam.org/
http://www.mccoyspace.com/
http://www.slab.org//
http://www.equivalence.com/
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Credits
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http://www.thefileroom.org/
http://proxy.arts.uci.edu/
http://obn.org/
http://www.theyrule.net/
http://www.textarc.org/
http://nancy.thecentre.centennialcollege.ca/
http://www.isd.atr.co.jp/~ray/tierra
http://www.michaelrees.com/
http://accad.osu.edu/~rinaldo/
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~sack/CM/publications.html
http://www.lillian.com/
http://www.jeffrey-shaw.net/
http://www.numeral.com/
http://www.genarts.com/galapagos/index.html
http://www.davidsmall.com/
http://www.snibbe.com/
http://www.iamas.ac.jp/~christa/index.html
http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/
http://www.stenslie.net/stahl/
http://www.eastgate.com/
http://www.notbored.org/the-scp.html
http://mission.base.com/tamiko/
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Credits
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http://www.tsunamii.net/
http://www.camilleutterback.com/
http://notime.arts.ucla.edu/notime3/
http://www.adeward.com/go/Home
http://www.mw2mw.com/
http://www.grahameweinbren.com/
http://www.netomat.net/
http://www.tv/en-def-e086c010aab3/cgi-bin/glob.cgi?domain=www.camouflagetoen.tv
http://www.nabi.or.kr/
http://artport.whitney.org/
http://www.asci.org/
http://www.banffcentre.ca/
http://www.bitforms.com/
http://gallery.bostoncyberarts.org/
http://www.c3.hu/
http://www.centrepompidou.fr/netart/
http://crossfade.walkerart.org/
http://www.diacenter.org/rooftop/webproj/index.html
http://www.da2.org.uk/da2.htm
http://www.digitalcraft.org/
http://www.oldenburg.de/edith-russ-haus/
http://www.encart.net/
http://www.eyebeam.org/
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