The article,
New Media Art by Mark Tribe discusses what new media art is as well as the historical origins and cultural influences that has spawned modern day new media art.The article begins by discussing the definition of new media art, “projects that make use of emerging media technologies and are concerned with the cultural, political, and aesthetic possibilities of these tools.” Furthermore new media art can be broken down into 2 categories:
1. Art and Technology (electronic, robotics, etc.) and
2. Media Art (video, experimental film, etc.)
The author continues, diving into the past artistic styles that influenced and inspired the rise of new media art. Some styles included Dada, Pop Art, Conceptual Art, and Video Art. The most important note for the rise of new media art, probably goes without mentioning, is the rise of a globally-connected internet and simplified technologies that are readily accessible to the individual, allowing many more people to dabble in painting, writing, photography, collage, etc. if they only have access to a computer. With these changes in technology, new media artists have been found to be more likely to work in teams and collaborations than traditional artists.
The article also goes into the struggles of collecting and preserving new media art. It is very difficult to acquire and preserve new media art because much of the technology artists use to create a piece is completely updated or even irrelevant in the matter of 10-20 years or even less. Additionally storage for new media art can be difficult because much doesn’t need to be physically stored, but rather digitally so the same issue of needing to update the storage programs regularly to stay relevant is a constant concern.
So what is new media art and what is traditional art? What are the differences between these two art types? Although new media covers some obviously new styles of art such as internet art, video game art, etc. Mediums of art such as painting, photo editing, and drawing can actually be considered both old and new media. This is because some new media art builds upon traditional art, like in the instance of Photoshop taking over roles of darkroom, painting, collage, drawing, etc. These traditional tasks are just streamlined by modern technologies and internet, allowing a craft such as painting which traditionally has numerous tools, objects, etc, now can all be done on one laptop with a Photoshop program.
How is new media both inclusive and exclusive of the traditional media? Streamlining traditional processes is one way new medias can be inclusive of old methods, revamping traditional methods into a simplified, digitized version. On the other hand, new media can be exclusive of traditional media in this same manner. By making traditional media streamlined and accessible on merely a laptop are we killing the traditional methods, taking the artist’s hand out of the art process? Personally, I think that new media is merely a showing a change in art mediums, much like art changed dramatically when introduced to the camera. I doubt old media will entirely fade away, modern-day artists are merely changing with the time and using the most efficient technologies of the time.
