25 Years of Curating Digital Art: 1993–2018

As digital art merges with contemporary art, there have been many fundamental changes in the creative process. New forms of art continue to emerge and a revolutionary change in the art experience is occurring in museums, galleries and on the Internet. As a digital art curator, I have been fortunate to be a part of this revolution and will share my experiences and thoughts about past, present and future developments in curating traditional, contemporary and digital art. After a few landmark exhibitions in the late 1960s, digital art found an early home in international organisations, such as Ars Electronica, ISEA, New York Digital Salon, and ZKM. The development of the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s gave digital art the additional exposure it needed. Artists could now sidestep the traditional art establishment and reach a global audience through their websites. The Internet also expanded the art experience beyond galleries and museums into homes, schools and portable devices. 2001 joined 1968 as a landmark year for major museum exposure of digital art with BitStreams and Data Dynamics at the Whitney Museum of American Art and 010101 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. What transpired over these decades has reshaped contemporary art and presented new challenges to museum professionals faced with this new art form. When looking towards the future, we will see a continued merging of digital art with contemporary art. New ways of exhibiting and creative self-expression using VR and Augmented Reality, along with other new, yet to be invented, technologies will be developed as they continue to infuse our daily lives and art experiences. This paper will examine the evolution of curating digital art over the past twenty-five years.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Bruce Wands

Conference

Publication date: July 2018

Publication date (Print): July 2018

Pages: 43-47

Affiliations

[0001]Artist, Writer, Musician & Curator

Chair Emeritus, MFA Computer Arts

School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, USA

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/EVA2018.9

SO-VID: 5db1961c-eb1b-4937-bd58-b9427af99171

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts

Conference acronym: EVA

Conference number:

Conference location: London, UK

Conference date: 9 - 13 July 2018

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts

History

Product

1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/EVA2018.9

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

Archive of Digital Art http://www.digitalartarchive.at/database/database-info/archive.html (retrieved 29 March 2018)
Ars Electronica http://www.aec.at/news (retrieved 29 March 2018)
Art of the Digital Age http://artofthedigitalage.com/ (retrieved 29 March 2018)
J. BlaisJ. Ippolito 2006 At the Edge of Art Thames & Hudson, New York
Digital Art Museum http://dam.org/home (retrieved 29 March 2018)
Frick Collection http://www.frick.org/ (retrieved 29 March 2018)
B. GrahamS. Cook 2010 Rethinking Curating MIT Press Cambridge, MA
O. Grau 2007 Media Art Histories MIT Press Cambridge, MA
ISEA International http://www.isea-web.org (retrieved 29 March 2018)
Leonardo Online Archive 1968-2017 http://muse.jhu.edu/journal/116 (retrieved 29 March 2018)
Louvre Museum http://www.youvisit.com/tour/louvremuseum (retrieved 29 March 2018)
Lumen Prize http://lumenprize.com/ (retrieved 29 March 2018)
J. Malloy (ed.) 2003 Women, Art, and Technology MIT Press Cambridge, MA
B. Mongeon 2016 3D Technology in Fine Art and Craft: Exploring 3D Printing, Scanning, Sculpting and Milling Focal Press Burlington, MA
New Museum Digital Archive http://archive.newmuseum.org (retrieved 29 March 2018)
New York Digital Salon http://www.nydigitalsalon.org (retrieved 29 March 2018)
R. PackerJ. Jordan (eds.) 2001 Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality W. W. Norton & Company New York
C. Paul 2015 Digital Art, Thames & Hudson London, UK
C. Paul 2008 New Media in the White Cube and Beyond: Curatorial Models for Digital Art. University of California Press
Rhizome ArtBase http://rhizome.org/art/artbase (retrieved 29 March 2018)
E. Shanken 2009 Art and Electronic Media Phaidon Press London, UK
SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community http://siggrapharts.ning.com (retrieved 29 March 2018)
V2_, Lab for the Unstable Media http://v2.nl/organization (retrieved 29 March 2018)
Victoria & Albert Museum (Computer Art Page). http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/journals/research-journal/issue-02/computer-art-at-the-v-and-a (retrieved 29 March 2018)
P. WeibelT. Druckrey (eds.) 2001 net_condition: Art and Global Media MIT Press Cambridge, MA
B. Wands 2006 Art of the Digital Age Thames & Hudson London, UK
S. Wilson 2002 Information Arts MIT Press Cambridge, MA
S. Wilson 2013 Art + Science Now Thames & Hudson New York
ZKM http://on1.zkm.de/zkm (retrieved 29 March 2018)

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Comment on this article

[1] Archive of Digital Art http://www.digitalartarchive.at/database/database-info/archive.html (retrieved 29 March 2018)

[2] Ars Electronica http://www.aec.at/news (retrieved 29 March 2018)

[3] Art of the Digital Age http://artofthedigitalage.com/ (retrieved 29 March 2018)

[4] J. BlaisJ. Ippolito 2006 At the Edge of Art Thames & Hudson, New York

[5] Digital Art Museum http://dam.org/home (retrieved 29 March 2018)

[6] Frick Collection http://www.frick.org/ (retrieved 29 March 2018)

[7] B. GrahamS. Cook 2010 Rethinking Curating MIT Press Cambridge, MA

[8] O. Grau 2007 Media Art Histories MIT Press Cambridge, MA

[9] ISEA International http://www.isea-web.org (retrieved 29 March 2018)

[10] Leonardo Online Archive 1968-2017 http://muse.jhu.edu/journal/116 (retrieved 29 March 2018)

[11] Louvre Museum http://www.youvisit.com/tour/louvremuseum (retrieved 29 March 2018)

[12] Lumen Prize http://lumenprize.com/ (retrieved 29 March 2018)

[13] J. Malloy (ed.) 2003 Women, Art, and Technology MIT Press Cambridge, MA

[14] B. Mongeon 2016 3D Technology in Fine Art and Craft: Exploring 3D Printing, Scanning, Sculpting and Milling Focal Press Burlington, MA

[15] New Museum Digital Archive http://archive.newmuseum.org (retrieved 29 March 2018)

[16] New York Digital Salon http://www.nydigitalsalon.org (retrieved 29 March 2018)

[17] R. PackerJ. Jordan (eds.) 2001 Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality W. W. Norton & Company New York

[18] C. Paul 2015 Digital Art, Thames & Hudson London, UK

[19] C. Paul 2008 New Media in the White Cube and Beyond: Curatorial Models for Digital Art. University of California Press

[20] Rhizome ArtBase http://rhizome.org/art/artbase (retrieved 29 March 2018)

[21] E. Shanken 2009 Art and Electronic Media Phaidon Press London, UK

[22] SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community http://siggrapharts.ning.com (retrieved 29 March 2018)

[23] V2_, Lab for the Unstable Media http://v2.nl/organization (retrieved 29 March 2018)

[24] Victoria & Albert Museum (Computer Art Page). http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/journals/research-journal/issue-02/computer-art-at-the-v-and-a (retrieved 29 March 2018)

[25] P. WeibelT. Druckrey (eds.) 2001 net_condition: Art and Global Media MIT Press Cambridge, MA

[26] B. Wands 2006 Art of the Digital Age Thames & Hudson London, UK

[27] S. Wilson 2002 Information Arts MIT Press Cambridge, MA

[28] S. Wilson 2013 Art + Science Now Thames & Hudson New York

[29] ZKM http://on1.zkm.de/zkm (retrieved 29 March 2018)

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