media art

New media art is an art genre that encompasses artworks created with new media technologies, including computer graphics, computer animation, the Internet, interactive technologies, robotics, and biotechnologies. The term differentiates itself by its resulting cultural objects, which can be seen in opposition to those deriving from old media arts (i.e. traditional painting, sculpture, etc.) This concern with medium is a key feature of much contemporary art and indeed many art schools now offer a major in "New Genres" or "New Media." New Media concerns are often derived from the telecommunications, mass media and digital modes of delivery the artworks involve, with practices ranging from conceptual to virtual art, performance to installation.

History

The origins of new media art can be traced to the moving photographic inventions of the late 19th Century such as the zoetrope (1834), the praxinoscope (1877) and Eadweard Muybridge's zoopraxiscope (1879).

During the 1960s the development of then new technologies of video produced the new media art experiments of Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostell, and multimedia performances of Fluxus.

More recently, the term "new media" has become closely associated with the term Digital Art, and has converged with the history and theory of computer-based practices. Ever since the early days of computing there have been a dedicated few who toiled to create pieces of art on the digital medium. It wasn’t until the advent of the commercial internet in the late 80’s and early 90’s that digital art attracted a broader range of artist. The communicative nature of the Internet and the excitement of the dot com bubble helped fuel early net art pieces like jodi.org and net art groups etoy.

Simultaneously advances in biotechnology have also allowed artists like Eduardo Kac to begin exploring the new yet ancient medium of DNA and genetics.

Contemporary New Media Art influences on new media art have been the theories developed around hypertext, databases, and networks. Important thinkers in this regard have been Vannevar Bush and Theodor Nelson with important contributions from the literary works of Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Julio Cortázar and Douglas Cooper. These elements have been especially revolutionary for the field of narrative and anti-narrative studies, leading explorations into areas such as non-linear and interactive narratives.

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