The first computer-aided art experiments were modestly performed in the mid-1960s, with little idea on anyone's part where they would eventually lead. The practice of using the computer in artistic modes grew exponentially in the '70s, making an impact on all... [more]

The first computer-aided art experiments were modestly performed in the mid-1960s, with little idea on anyone's part where they would eventually lead. The practice of using the computer in artistic modes grew exponentially in the '70s, making an impact on all the art forms and movements to follow, and coming to dominate numerous areas of production in today's digital and virtual society. Not a movement or a style, Digital art encompasses various techniques and mediums; it includes art made with computers, lasers, holograms, photocopiers, facsimile machines, and satellite transmissions. Similarly, the ends for which Digital art is the means are divergent. Sometimes this art explores themes related to technology, sometimes it uses technology to help convey meaning. What all Digital art has in common, though, is the fact that its success is measured against its tools of construction. In general, Digital art is considered effective if it transcends its hardware. Many questions and debates surround Digital art, concerning the impact of technology on the artist, the creative process, and the nature of art. The issues of originality and authorship, extent of creative and personal input, and final value all color Digital art and its apparent dependency upon the machine. But while perspective and reproducibility may be concepts related to representation of the real, digital media enters another dimension entirely -- challenging the whole notion of exactly what is real. An image transferred to digital language is rendered malleable and plastic, subject to manipulation limited only by the creativity of the artist. Says Peter Weibel, director of Frankfurt's Institute for New Media, "For the first time in history, the image is a dynamic system." In the end, is Digital art nothing more than the result of mass production and a symptom, therefore, of society's inherent need to consume? Its critics might answer in the affirmative, noting that the use of Digital art in fields such as advertising, journalism, and graphic design is surely business-oriented and money-driven. Ironically, Digital art was rooted in military defense systems, with government-supported research centers experimenting with available computer technology, including its potential for music and art. American A. Michael Noll, a young researcher at Bell Laboratories who is considered one of the first Digital artists, produced abstract, computer-generated images in the early '60s suggestive of Picasso's Cubism and Mondrian's geometric motif. But we've come a long way from computer doodling, with contemporary artists creating figurative compositions that render the body in both nightmarish fragments and voluptuous wholeness. Digital vanguard Keith Cottingham's portraits invent individuals out of whole cloth, while collaborative team Aziz+Cucher's disturbing subjects have no eyes, noses, or mouths. Sonia Sheridan achieves a personal and unique touch within her work, using a photocopier to create prints with a sensuousness that we would not have expected from a Xerox machine. Some Digital artists dispense with the actual and give free reign to the fantastic: Micha Klein invents worlds of pastel-clad, ridiculously beautiful nymphets and Andreas Gursky's painterly photographic viewscapes embody gorgeous, potent environments that never really existed. The excitement generates from the dreamlike quality of their work, where "reality" becomes pliant, even controllable, and the real becomes illusory. Other artists, such as Milton Komisar, refer to the technology behind the illusion; his computer-driven drawing and painting machines are artifacts that acknowledge both the machine and the hand, celebrating the technological aspects and the personal aspects of artistic creation. [show less]