Parsing the Pixelated: The Histories of Digital Art
Session at the Association of Art Historians 2014 Annual Conference
Although digital art precedes the creation of the world wide web in the early 1990s, it is only more recently, facilitated by affordable and widely distributed connected technology, that digital art has become firmly established as an artistic category. Yet the term remains nebulous, including many disparate forms and types of art: from manipulated photographs to interactive installations to works existing on or made by a computer. Furthermore, the History of Art has yet to substantively account for digital art, frequently deferring to the tools and methods of visual culture studies in recognition of a broader cultural phenomenon. Repositories of digital art have also recently been founded: on the one hand, the Museum of Modern Art, New York has started to acquire video games for its collection, on the other, the Google Art Project gathers together a virtual nmega-collection of artworks drawn from the world’s leading museums (including 7-gigapixel images of their masterpieces).
This session will explore the definitions of and approaches toward digital art. It will be primarily concerned with the digital as an artistic medium and its relationship to and within art history. Papers may include but are not limited to: digital artworks (both on- or offline), historical precursors, digital theories and methodologies, the internet and the democratisation of art, interactive and experience-based art, ‘curated’ content, objecthood vs. virtuality, conservation and obsolescence, and scopic regimes. The session aims to locate and investigate discussions about art that is (or was) state of the art.
Send your abstract directly to Cliff Lauson, Hayward Gallery, digitalarthistories@gmail.com by 11 November 2013.
This session is a part of: Association of Art Historians 2014 Annual Conference & Bookfair Royal College of Art, London, UK, 10-12 April 2014
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