Introduction: A Short History of Technology and Art
Computer Art > Multimedia Art > New Media
• art that uses digital technologies as a tool
• art that uses digital technologies as its own medium
Technical History of Digital Art
• limited to military, academic, and consumer culture
o As We May Think by army scientist Vannevar Bush imagined the
first computer
o Men, Machines and the World Apart by Norbert Wiener
• 1946 – ENICA the University of Pennsylvania created the first digital
computer
• 1961 – Theodor Nelson coined the terms Hypertext and and Hypermedia
to describe texts in which images and sounds could be linked
• 1964 – RAND Corporation (Cold War think tank) conceptualized the
internet as a communication network without central authority that could
be safe from a nuclear attack
• 1968 – Douglas Engelbart from the Stanford Research Institute created
came up with the idea of bitmapping, windows, and direct manipulation
through a mouse
o Bitmapping: each pixel of a computer screen is a assigned on/off
(0-1). The computer screen could then be divided into a grid of
pixels that create a 2D image
• 1970’s – Alan Kay of the Xerox Parc in Palo Alto, CA developed the GUI
(graphical user interface), and the “desktop” metaphor popularized bu
Apple in 1983
Evolution of Digital Art
• developed in connection to Dada and Fluxus: conceptual art has
challenged the traditional notions of the art work, audience, and artist
• 1984 – William Gibson coined the term “cyberspace” in his novel
Neruomancer
• 1990’s – Digital art began making it’s way into museums and galleries
• digital arts festivals
o ICC (Tokyo, Japan)
o ZKM (Karlsruhe, Germany)
o Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria)
o Transmediale (Berlin, Germany)
o SIGGRAPH (Los Angeles, USA)
HISTORY d.arts
