Reflecting the dynamic creativity of its subject, this definitive guide spans the evolution, aesthetics, and practice of today's digital art, combining fresh, emerging perspectives with the nuanced insights of leading theorists.
Showcases the critical and theoretical approaches in this fast-moving discipline
Explores the history and evolution of digital art; its aesthetics and politics; as well as its often turbulent relationships with established institutions
Provides a platform for the most influential voices shaping the current discourse surrounding digital art, combining fresh, emerging perspectives with the nuanced insights of leading theorists
Tackles digital art's primary practical challenges - how to present, document, and preserve pieces that could be erased forever by rapidly accelerating technological obsolescence
Up-to-date, forward-looking, and critically reflective, this authoritative new collection is informed throughout by a deep appreciation of the technical intricacies of digital art
List of Figures viii
Notes on Contributors xi
Acknowledgments xix
Introduction: From Digital to Post-Digital-Evolutions of an Art Form 1
Christiane Paul
Part I Histories of Digital Art 21
1 The Complex and Multifarious Expressions of Digital Art and Its Impact on Archives and Humanities 23
Oliver Grau
2 International Networks of Early Digital Arts 46
Darko Fritz
3 Art in the Rear-View Mirror: The Media-Archaeological Tradition in Art 69
Erkki Huhtamo Copyrighted Material
4 Proto-Media Art: Revisiting Japanese Postwar Avant-garde Art 111
Machiko Kusahara
5 Generative Art Theory 146
Philip Galanter
6 Digital Art at the Interface of Technology and Feminism 181
Jennifer Way
7 The Hauntology of the Digital Image 203
Charlie Gere
8 Participatory Art: Histories and Experiences of Display 226
Rudolf Frieling
Part II Aesthetics of Digital Art 247
9 Small Abstract Aesthetics 249
Max Bense
10 Aesthetics of the Digital 265
Sean Cubitt
11 Computational Aesthetics 281
M. Beatrice Fazi and Matthew Fuller
12 Participatory Platforms and the Emergence of Art 297
Olga Goriunova
13 Interactive Art: Interventions in/to Process 310
Nathaniel Stern
14 The Cultural Work of Public Interactives 330
Anne Balsamo
Part III Network Cultures: The Politics of Digital Art 353
15 Shockwaves in the New World Order of Information and Communication 355
Armin Medosch
16 Critical Intelligence in Art and Digital Media 384
Konrad Becker
17 The Silver Age of Social Media: Nettime.org and the Avant-Garde of the '90s 400
McKenzie Wark
18 Art in the Corporatized Sphere: The Impact of Commercial Social Media on Online Artistic Practice 413
Kyle Chayka
19 Artistic Visualization 426
Lev Manovich
20 Critical Play: The Productive Paradox 445
Mary Flanagan
Part IV Digital Art and the Institution 461
21 Contemporary Art and New Media: Digital Divide or Hybrid Discourse? 463
Edward A. Shanken
22 One of Us!: On the Coupling of New Media Art and Art Institutions 482
Richard Rinehart
23 The Digital Arts In and Out of the Institution-Where to Now? 494
Sarah Cook with Aneta Krzemien' Barkley
24 The Nuts and Bolts of Handling Digital Art 516
Ben Fino-Radin
25 Trusting Amateurs with Our Future 537
Jon Ippolito
26 Enabling the Future, or How to Survive FOREVER 553
Annet Dekker
27 Exhibition Histories and Futures: The Importance of Participation and Audiences 575
Beryl Graham
Index 597
