Reinserting Women into the History of Digital Art

2022 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Digital Art ◽  
History Of

Digital Art and Experimental Color Systems at Bell Laboratories, 1965–1984: Restoring Interdisciplinary Innovations to Media History

Leonardo ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn L. Kane
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Media History ◽  
Digital Art ◽  
Computing Technology ◽  
Media Arts ◽  
The Public ◽  
Experimental Art ◽  
Time Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media

AT&T's Bell Laboratories produced a prolific number of innovative digital art and experimental color systems between 1965 and 1984. However, due to repressive regulation, this work was hidden from the public. Almost two decades later, when Bell lifted its restrictions on creative work not related to telephone technologies, the atmosphere had changed so dramatically that despite a relaxation of regulation, cutting-edge projects were abandoned. This paper discusses the struggles encountered in interdisciplinary collaborations and the challenge to use new media computing technology to make experimental art at Bell Labs during this unique time period, now largely lost to the history of the media arts.

scholarly journals Digital Art History for the Masses? The Role of the Public Digital Art History Lab

2019 ◽  
pp. 196-213
Author(s):  
Ellen Prokop
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Digital Art ◽  
Computational Techniques ◽  
Massive Datasets ◽  
The Public ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
The Masses

Digital Art History (DAH), which embraces massive datasets, innovative methodologies based on computational techniques, and collaborative paradigms, promises to offer new perspectives on the history of art. For example, DAH has the potential to shift the discipline’s focus from the traditional topics of inquiry to less explored aspects of the field—in short, to reposition the discipline’s central preoccupations with the issues of patronage, which are the concerns of the elite, to broader structures at work in a society, including the experiences of the marginalized. This displacement from center to periphery is not restricted to DAH research questions, but often applies to other aspects of DAH as well: to its status within the Digital Humanities (DH); to the demographic it frequently attracts; and to the infrastructure(s) developed to support it. Yet despite this potential, in many respects DAH occupies the periphery. This essay problematizes these issues as crystallized by the establishment of a digital art history lab at a privately funded library that serves the public, and explores one instance of how DAH has forced the North American academy to reflect further on the issues of privilege, access, and the future of art history.

Early Digital Computer Art at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Incorporated

Leonardo ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Michael Noll
Keyword(s):  
Digital Computer ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Digital Art ◽  
Computer Art ◽  
Interactive System ◽  
Music Software ◽  
History Of ◽  
Visual Domain ◽  
Aesthetic Preferences

This article is a history of the digital computer art and animation developed and created at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Incorporated, 1962–1968. Still and animated images in two dimensions and in stereographic pairs were created and used in investigations of aesthetic preferences, in film titles, in choreography, and in experimental artistic movies. Interactive digital computer music software was extended to the visual domain, including a real-time interactive system. Some of the artworks generated were exhibited publicly in various art venues. This article emphasizes work in digital programming. This pioneering work at Bell Labs was a significant contribution to digital art.

scholarly journals EvoluSon: Walking through an Interactive History of Music

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronan Gaugne ◽  
Florian Nouviale ◽  
Octavia Rioual ◽  
Arnaud Chirat ◽  
Kevin Gohon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Computer Science ◽  
Research Laboratory ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Digital Art ◽  
Western Music ◽  
Computer Science Research ◽  
Original Musical ◽  
Sound Environment ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Spectator

The EvoluSon project proposes an immersive experience where the spectator explores an interactive visual and musical representation of the main periods of the history of Western music. The musical content is constituted of original musical compositions based on the theme of Bach’s Art of Fugue to illustrate the eight main musical eras from Antiquity to the contemporary epoch. The EvoluSon project contributes at the same time to the usage of VR for intangible culture representation and to interactive digital art that puts the user at the center of the experience. The EvoluSon project focuses on music through a presentation of the history of Western music, and uses virtual reality to valorize the different pieces through the ages. The user is immersed in a coherent visual and sound environment and can interact with both modalities. This project is the result of collaboration between a computer science research laboratory and a research laboratory on art and music. It was first presented to a public event on science and music organized by the computer science research laboratory.

scholarly journals Curating The American Algorists: Digital Art and National Identity

Arts ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 106
Author(s):  
Taylor
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Resource Sharing ◽  
American Art ◽  
Digital Art ◽  
College And University ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Aesthetic

This essay details the curating strategies and central premise behind the 2013 traveling exhibition The American Algorists: Linear Sublime. This group exhibition, which showcased the artwork of Jean-Pierre Hébert, Manfred Mohr, Roman Verostko, and Mark Wilson, marked the 20th anniversary of New York Digital Salon. In organizing this exhibit, I attempted to expand the discourse of digital art curation by linking the Algorists, a group formed at the Los Angeles SIGGRAPH conference in 1995, to the broader narrative of American art. Through the exhibition catalogue, I constructed a detailed history of the Algorists and connected the movement’s narrative to ideas of national identity and myth. To cultivate this nexus, I interpreted the Algorists’ unique approach to linear abstraction through the various theories of the sublime active within the history of American art. Ultimately, this case study reveals the incongruities of aligning this group of digital artists—who shared a decidedly internationalist outlook—with a national narrative. While the Algorists resisted parochial characterizations, the concept of the sublime provided a useful vehicle for theorizing the aesthetic response to computer-generated abstraction. The travelling exhibition also offered a potential model, based on effective partnerships and resource sharing, for small college and university galleries.

Past, Present, and Future Tense

Leonardo ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 499-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregor Muir
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Digital Art ◽  
Media Art ◽  
Future Tense ◽  
New Media Art ◽  
Digital Spectrum ◽  
Large Jump ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nam June Paik

Given the task at hand, “to select new media works that have changed or are impacting the course of new media art and music,” the author, along with his colleagues, set out to identify the fullness of the digital spectrum. The article explains his selections of artwork by consciously establishing a past, present, and future media collection. He begins with a 1965 piece from Nam June Paik and ends with JODI.org, acknowledging the large jump made from past to present media. Concluding the article with a look at the history of digital art, the author raises comparisons and dilemmas that allow readers to question and reflect on the status of new media art.

The New York Digital Salon: A Memoir

Leonardo ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Bruce Wands
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Digital Art ◽  
Museum Of Modern Art ◽  
International Forum ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Arts Festival ◽  
Twentieth Anniversary

Abstract This article traces the twenty-year history of the New York Digital Salon. Started in 1993 to provide an annual venue for digital art images in New York City, it quickly expanded into an international forum for exhibitions, panel discussions, lectures, screenings and a website. In addition to these events, we created a collection of videotaped panel discussions with well-known digital artists and curators from our 2002 Digital Art & Culture Symposium held at the Museum of Modern Art Theatre. From 1995-2002, the artwork was included, along with essays on digital art, in eight issues of Leonardo. A tenth exhibition was held during 2002 at the World Financial Center, along with over twenty events, panel discussions and lectures that were part of the Downtown Arts Festival. In 2013, we celebrated our twentieth anniversary with the “American Algorists: Linear Sublime,” exhibition and catalog featuring Jean Pierre Hebert, Manfred Mohr, Michael Noll, Roman Verostko and Mark Wilson.

Ten Key Texts on Digital Art: 1970-2000

Leonardo ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 567-575
Author(s):  
Lev Manovich
Keyword(s):  
Digital Art ◽  
Public Knowledge ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Friedrich Kittler ◽  
Standard Text ◽  
History Of

This article highlights ten major written works that reflect the brief history of digital art. The lack of public knowledge on digital art is largely due to a lack of standard text. While seen by most as a relatively new art form, several exhibitions are mentioned here dating from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, all of which have had a major impact on the development of the field. Authors and editors chosen for the list include Gene Youngblood, Jasia Reichardt, Cynthia Goodman, Friedrich Kittler, Michael Benedikt, Minna Tarkka, Peter Weibel, Espen Aarseth, and Ulf Poschardt.

scholarly journals Understanding Material vs. Immaterial in Conceptual and Digital Art

Tahiti ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rahma Khazam
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Art ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Digital Art ◽  
Art And Politics ◽  
Art Object ◽  
History Of ◽  
Technological Means ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Courtauld Institute

In the history of twentieth-century art, we can identify two key moments when the notion of the immaterial became a focus of attention. The first, spanning the period from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, was the dematerialization of the art object in the context of conceptual art, famously described in Lucy Lippard's Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972. The second was digital art, which likewise emerged in the 1960s, foregrounding the use of technological means to produce immaterial artworks. Yet in both cases, the claim of immateriality was unfounded. Building on accumulating evidence, the conference “Conceptualism and Materiality. Matters of Art and Politics” held at The Courtauld Institute of Art in London in 2019 drew attention to the importance of materials and materiality in conceptual art, countering its reputation as idea-centred. As for digital art, it has become increasingly obvious that the infrastructure and tools required to produce and maintain it are firmly grounded in the physical world, thereby challenging its alleged immateriality. The first part of this essay explores dematerialization and its aftermath in the context of conceptual art, while the second highlights the analogous developments taking place in digital art. My aim will be to shed light on these shifts from material to immaterial and back again in both conceptual and digital art, and map their similarities and differences. As I will show, both tried – and failed – to satisfy art's recurring but unrealizable yearning to rid itself of the material.

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