New Media Art

This work describes art in the age of digital communication. Artists have always been early adopters of emerging media technologies, from Albrecht Durer and his use of the printing press in the 16th century to Nam June Paik's experiments with video in the 1960s. In 1994, the advent of the Internet as a popular medium catalyzed a global art movement that began to explore the cultural, social, and aesthetic possibilities of such new communication technologies as the Web, video surveillance cameras, wireless phones, hand-held computers, and GPS devices. This book addresses New Media art as a specific art historical movement, focusing not only on technologies and forms but also on thematic content and conceptual strategies. New Media art often involves appropriation, collaboration, and the free sharing of ideas and expressions, and frequently addresses the political ramifications of technology around issues of identity, commercialization, privacy, and the public domain. Many New Media artists are profoundly aware of their art historical antecedents, making reference to Dada, Pop Art, Conceptual art, Performance art, and Fluxus. Artists featured: Cory Arcangel, Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Katherine Moriwaki, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Vuk Cosic, Mary Flanagan, Ken Goldberg, Paul Kaiser and Shelly Eshkar, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Mouchette, MTAA, Keith and Mendi Obadike, Radical Software Group, Raqs Media Collective, RTMark, and John F. Simon Jr.Taschen's "Basic Art Movement and Genre" series: each book includes a detailed introduction with approximately 30 photographs, plus a timeline of the most important events (political, cultural, scientific, sporting, etc.) that took place during the time period. The body of the book contains a selection of the most important works of the epoch; each is presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and, on the facing page, a description/interpretation of the work, a reference work, portrait of the artist, quotes, and biographical information.