Digital Media Foundations - MD4004
Digital Media in Art
why ART?
Josiah McElheny,
The Uniform Body (after
Popova and
Rodchenko), 2012
Josiah McElheny,
The Constructivist Body (after Delaunay), 2012
Anish Kapoor,
Svayambh at the Royal Academy of Arts, 2007
Michael Craig-Martin,
An Oak Tree (1973).
Rirkrit Tiravanija, Untitled (Free), 1992
The Context of Art
Is the history of art, a history of works?
Or a history of the circumstances shaping it?
‘Context is the web of complex circumstances in which artists
work in relation to their physical environment, historical trends
and traditions, social movements, cultural values, intellectual
perspectives, personal commitments, and more.
Likewise, art is received within a context of corresponding
dynamics that shape meaning and interpretation. As such,
context is an inescapable dimension of art in both its production
and its reception and interpretation.'
(Vander Lugt, 2011)
Venus of Willendorf,
circa 24,000–22,000 BC
Cave painting of a horse
from the Lascaux caves,
c.16,000 BC
Leonardo Da Vinci,
anatomical sketch of
a human skull, c. 1472
- 1519
Painting by Song
Dynasty artist Ma
Lin, c. 1250
Contemporary Art
 Western-centric logic (works illustrating/challenging sociocultural values and trends related to the west)
 Art in art’s Spaces (or challenging Art Institutions)
 Art by artists and for art audiences
 Art as distinct from crafts or technology
 Definitions of art by art’s theorists
 Art in reference to art-history, legacies, genres, styles
Pre-modern Era:
- Images/signs tied to social hierarchies
- Renaissance: Transition of power from the Church to the Medici,
return to Classical sources.
- Artists as craftsmen supported by guilds, the church, the state,
the rich and powerful
The first art history book: Giorgio Vasari (1550) The Lives of the Most
Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. The first public art
gallery: Palazzo degli Uffizi in 1591
Leonardo da Vinci,
Vitruvian Man, 1492
Rococo: Pair of lovers, c. 1760, by Franz
Anton Bustelli
Baroque: Bernini's
Ecstasy of St. Teresa,1652
Neo-classicism Jacques-Louis
David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784
Modernism
Impressionism
Monet,
Impression,
Sunrise, 1872
Impressionism
Expressionism
Fauvism
Gauguin, Riders
on the Beach,
1902
Cubism
Dadaism
Surrealism
Max Ernst, The
Elephant Celebes,
1921
Duchamp, Nude
Descending a
Staircase,1912
Modernism
-Mass production, reproduction (no longer imitation of nature)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnfB-pUm3eI
Modernism and new definitions of Art
Clement Greenberg
"The essence of Modernism lies, as I see it, in the
use of characteristic methods of a discipline to
criticize the discipline itself” (Greenberg, 1961, p.
1)
Separation between ‘high culture’ (ruling classes,
beyond the surface) and ‘low culture’ (Kitsch,
mechanically produced, operating by formulas,
commercial)
Mark Rothko, No. 61 (Rust and Blue),
1953
High art is the only hope for
a better type of art
Technology being a threat for
high culture!!
Pollock, Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950
The decline of the Elite and rise of
capitalism
 “The masses have always remained more or less indifferent
to culture in the process of development. But today such
culture is being abandoned by those to whom it actually
belongs—our ruling class. For it is to the latter that the avantgarde belongs. […] And now this elite is rapidly shrinking.
Since the avant-garde forms the only living culture we now
have, the survival in the near future of culture in general is
thus threatened.” (Greenberg, 1939, p. 38)
 “Another mass product of Western Industrialism, it has gone
on a triumphal tour of the world, crowding out and
defacing native cultures in one colonial county after
another, so that it is now by way of becoming a universal
culture, the first universal culture ever beheld” (Ibid., p. 39)
Contemporary Art
 Western-centric context (illustrating/challenging socio-cultural values and
trends related to the west)
 Art in art’s Spaces (or challenging Art Institutions)
 Art by artists and for art audiences
 Art as distinct from crafts or technology
 Definitions of art by art’s theorists
 Art in reference to art-history, legacies, genres, styles
The classification of "contemporary art" as a
special type of art, rather than a general
adjectival phrase, goes back to the
beginnings of Modernism
Lyle Ashton Harris (2000)
The Miss America Triptych.
Robert Mapplethorpe (1980)
Self-portrait.
Laura Aguilar (1989)
In Sandy’s Room.
Adrian Piper (1974)
I/You (Her).
Digital Art
Digital Art engages with digital technologies that
confront us daily in the world – photography, film,
video, text, book, electronic and digital technologies,
installation, performance, screenings, sound works…
- Digital versions of old Media (video, painting, sculpture, photography, sound
art)
- New Expressions (net.art, digital installations, virtual reality, fractal art)
- Combinations that blur the boundaries and relationships between different
media (multidisciplinarity, multimedia art, computer art).
- Mass production and distribution
net.art refers to a group of artists who worked in
the medium of Internet art from 1994.
E.g. Alexei Shulgin ‘Desktop Is’ (1997/1998)
Fractal art (since the 80s) is a form of algorithmic art created
by calculating fractal objects and representing the
calculation results as still images, animations, and media.
Fractal image generated by Electric Sheep
(http://www.electricsheep.org/ )
 Is the medium the message in art?
 ‘“Media art” is [...] such a problematic term […] a
distinction from contemporary art is impossible to draw,
since all art uses some sort of medium, and many
modern and contemporary artworks have used media
technologies without qualifying as “media art” in a
narrower sense. It seems that, more than anything
else, “media art” is a way of looking at works’.
Andreas Broeckmann (2005)
http://www.crumbweb.org/discItemDetail.php?&useArch=1&archID=2179&op=2&sublink=1&fromSearch=
1&
‘At first I thought I could simply draw a line
under the word medium, bury it like so much
critical toxic waste, and walk away from it
into a world of lexical freedom. “Medium”
seemed too contaminated, too ideologically,
too dogmatically, too discursively loaded.’
Rosalind Krauss (1999) A Voyage on the North Sea
‘when Arts Electronica program asks “In which direction is
artists’ work with the new instruments like algorithms and
dynamic systems transforming the process of artistic
creativity?” […], the very assumptions behind such a
question put it outside of the paradigm of contemporary
art».
‘And why the use of this term [new
technologies] is often welcomed this way:
“Every time you describe these artists by
material, you are hurting, and not helping
them”’
Brody Condon (2008)
Lev Manovich (2003) ‘AF 2003’
Domenico Quaranta (2010) Media, New Media, Postmedia
Art World
Content
galleries, art
fairs, private,
public and
corporate
collections
objects
≠
Media Art World
Medium
festivals, symposia
and meetings
experiences
http://medianewmediapostmedia.wordpress.com/english-abstract/
Christiane Paul on curating digital media (2008)
‘It is an art form that still hasn’t found an established
place in the arts at large. Many people are still scared of
computers, technology, and interfaces and do not
understand the inherent possibilities of the medium. I
could easily curate a show consisting of projects that I
find very interesting, and it would turn out to be a
complete “geekfest,” entirely inaccessible to a larger art
audience.'
 http://umintermediai501.blogspot.co.uk/2008/05/intervie
w-with-christiane-paul-sheila.html
Camille Henrot, Grosse Fatigue, 2013
Chisenhale Gallery (London): 28 February – 13 April 2014
Preview: Thursday 27 February 2014, 6.30-8.30pm
Venice Biennale Silver Lion 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYycsJz8vtc
Elizabeth Price, Choir, 2012
Turner Prize 2012
http://www.bielefelder-kunstverein.de/en/exhibitions/subjectiveprojections/elizabeth-price.html
Ed Atkins, Warm, Warm, Warm Spring Mouths, 2013
Jerwood Film and Video Umbrella Award 2013
http://vimeo.com/58420827 from 4:40 until the end
Gerard Richter, Symphony of Light at Cologne Cathedral, 2007
Mariko Mori, Wave UFO, (2003)
First digital media auction 2013 at Phillips
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1
0001424052702304713704579091192929
676208
Claire Bishop in Artforum 2012
 ‘the hybridized solutions that visual art is currently
pursuing – analogue in appearance, digital in structure –
seem always biased toward the former, so favored by
the market. If the digital means anything for visual art, it is
the need to take stock of this orientation and to question
art’s most treasured assumptions. At its most utopian, the
digital revolution opens up a new dematerialized,
deauthored, and unmarketable reality of collective
culture; at its worst, it signals the impending
obsolescence of visual art itself. (Bishop, 2012, p. 4)
 Or just the integration of digital media in Art?
Bibliography

Berger, J. (1972) ‘Chapter 1’, Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin, London, pp. 7-34.

Broeckmann, Andreas (2005) Discussing 'Media Art' by
http://www.crumbweb.org/discItemDetail.php?&useArch=1&archID=2179&op=2&sublink=1&fromSearch=1
&16

Colson, R. The fundamentals of digital art “Chapter 1: The History and Development of Digital Art”.

Clement Greenberg (1939) ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch.’ [Online]. Available
from:http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDMQFjAB&url=http%
3A%2F%2Fxroads.virginia.edu%2F~DRBR2%2Fgreenburg.pdf&ei=jVWoUsr0FYKGhQfLvoGACQ&usg=AFQjCNG
LU2p9KsbWHWzQAMwUtQ3CdTO6gw&sig2=49ymdr4v1JAXJIWZtqFWwA [Last accessed: 11/12/2013]

Greenberg, Clement (1961)’Modernist Painting’. [Online]. Available at:
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2
F%2Fcas.uchicago.edu%2Fworkshops%2Fwittgenstein%2Ffiles%2F2007%2F10%2FGreenbergmodpaint.pdf&ei
=KECoUs2xAsKUhQe0YDABA&usg=AFQjCNEGMg2GsUBC7sm_Do1deexIo2xlOA&sig2=XZ1ZQiNfCN0l5MUDK6RH1Q&bvm=bv.5779
9294,d.ZG4 [Last accessed: 11/12/2013]

Bishop, C. (2012) ‘Digital Divide: Contemporary Art and New Media’. Artforum. [Online]. Available at:
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F
%2Fleepatrickjohnson.files.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F09%2Fdigital-divide-contemporary-art-and-newmedia-artforum-com-by-claire-bishop-sept-2012.pdf&ei=EHoUvCTAcSu7AaV5ICYBQ&usg=AFQjCNEN4UKudfx1SNhljmoFa0ziV4yOWA&sig2=oRyiaPou8fjb26DWddi6Pw&
bvm=bv.57799294,d.ZGU [Last accessed: 11/12/2013]

Vander Lugt, W. (2011) 'The Context of Art’, Transpositions. [Online]. Available at:
http://www.transpositions.co.uk/2011/04/the-context-of-art/ . [Last accessed 10/12/2013]

Quaranta, Domenico (2010) Media, New Media, Postmedia
http://medianewmediapostmedia.wordpress.com/english-abstract/
Happy
Christmas
Break!!!