readings

- It is about the "Digital Revolution" and how artist have always been the first to look further into the new cultural and technological inventions. There is a lot of evidence about the the ongoing change of the meaning of "digital art". Terms such as "computer art" to "multimedia art" to "new media art".

-The formation of Digital Art began though an "academic and research environment", from the military to the science lab.

- The 1960 was particularly the decade in which Digital Art flourished and laid its ground for the future generation of today. The end of this decade is when the 'interface' was created and so there was a way of communicating information through this computer hardware/software. Douglass Engelbart showed the world how to make direct manipulation with a mouse.

-Alan Kay was the leader of the introduction of the Graphics User Interface (GUI) and and idea of a 'desktop' and 'windows', which later on was actually curated by Macintosh.

-Duchamp's work and its influent i also being mentioned multiple times, specifically his discovery of the shift from "object to concept embodied" as a predecessor of what we know today as a "virtual object"

-John Whitney is presented as the "father of computer graphics", as he used old analogue military appliances "to create his short film Catalog (1961)"

-In the 1970 “new technology” came along such as video and satellites and artist started to create “live performances”. Their main idea was the “exploring of the real time virtual space”

-Another historical importance, which is introduced to the reader, is the fact that at that time and age there weren’t actually any spaced designed specifically for Digital Art and instead the shows took place in media centers and museums.

-Rachel Greene starts with the accidental foundation of “net art” mentioning how “Vuk Cosic opened an anonymous e-mail only to find it had been” damaged and so he called that “net.art”

-NET ART- communications and graphics, texts, images and e-mails.

-Net art was talked a lot about from the mid-late 90’s and it was some artists ultimate goal to build this cyber community.

-The Internet was still a new medium in the late 90s and so barely any artists had any actual access to it, due to which fact I have come to believe that the Net artists are quite a rebellious group. Despite the low access of the internet they still managed to publish attacks and publicly declare policies before elections.

The idea of the “WHITE CUBE” is mentioned in the text, which is essentially a stereotype representing simplicity.

By the 1996, Internet was becoming big for money making but not for the net artists unfortunately. This bad situation came to a meeting in May in Italy for net artists looking at ways to sustain themselves.

In 1997 net art “exploded”. It started with some playful works but there was also artist such as Olia Lialina who made – My Boyfriend Came Back From the War. At the same time female net artists started to emerge. It started with a collective of Australian women who published their “Cyber feminist Manifesto”.

One of the most interesting net arts which caught my eye n Rachel Greene’s Introduction was the one called “Heritage Gold” and you can find some more information if you click on the link below.