Renderings of Digital Art

Author(s): Christiane Paul

Source: Leonardo, Vol. 35, No. 5, Tenth Anniversary New York Digital Salon (2002), pp. 471-
474+476-484
Published by: The MIT Press
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 of
Renderings Digital Art
CHRISTIANE PAUL

which it complements, augments and/or challenges traditional

concepts of art. This requiresan introduction to the public.
During the past couple of years, there have been severalmajor
-M:TI:tr:ElI exhibitions dedicated to today's digital art. It seems an apt time
This essay identifies the currentqualifier of choice, for a survey show that offers multiple perspectivesand establishes
"new media," by explaining how this term is used a broader context for this art form. The title of the New York
to describe digital art in various forms. Establish- Digital Salon's Tenth Anniversary Exhibition alludes to vector
ing a historical context, the author highlights the graphics, mathematical algorithms that describe the shapes, shad-
pioneer exhibitions and artists who began working ings, colors, and location of objects (as opposed to bitmap graph-
with new technology and digital art as early as the ics, where the image is representedby pixels arrangedon a grid).
late 196os and early 197os. The article proceeds to The metaphor of the vector suggests an algorithmicallydriven flu-
articulate the shapes and forms of digital art,
idity of forms, appearances, and positions that seem to be an
recognizing its broad range of artistic practice:
appropriateapproachto digital art.
music, interactive installation, installation with net-
work components, software art, and purely
Internet-based art. The author examines the
Positions-Histories of Digital Art
themes and narratives specific to her selection of
artwork,specifically interactive digital installations During the past ten years, we have seen a technological develop-
and net art. By addressing these forms, the author ment of unprecedented speed for a medium that was conceptual-
illustrates the hybrid nature of this medium and the ized and envisioned decades ago. It was in 1945 when army
future of this art practice. scientist Vannevar Bush published his seminal article "As We
May Think" in the Atlantic Monthly. The article described a
device called the Memex, a desk with translucent screens that
would allow users to browse documents in various media (from
text to photography) and create their own trail to a body of docu-
|W ^ henever a new art form comes along, it is usually mentation. The Memex was never built but can be seen as a con-
accompanied by a classifier,such as "video art"or "dig- ceptual ancestor of computers and the Internet. In 1961, Theodor
ital art."Today's qualifierof choice, "new media," ren- Nelson coined the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia" for a
ders the newness of yesterday'snew art form obsolete and already space of writing and reading where texts, images, and sounds
implies its own datedness. The new media of the late 20th centu- could be electronically interconnected and linked by anybody
ry were video art and its hybrid forms and derivatives. Multime- contributing to this networked "docuverse."Today, the concepts
dia and hypermediawere terms applied to digital art forms, while of Bush and Nelson have found their physical and virtual mani-
intermedia was used to describe interrelationshipsbetween differ-
ent forms of media (such as video and digital technologies). In the Christiane Paul, Adjunct Curator of New Media Arts
early 21st century, the term "new media" is mostly used for digi- Whitney Museum of AmericanArt, New York City
tal arts in its various forms. It takes a while until the "new"(insert Faculty, MFA/BFA Computer Art Department
video or digital) art becomes Art (with a capital A), integrated School of Visual Arts, New York City
into thematic surveys and exhibitions that include all kinds of 79 Thompson Street, # 12, New York, NY 10012, U.S.A.
E-mail: Christiane_Paul@whitney.org
media. This doesn't mean that the qualifier forever vanishes, but
Web site: www.christianepaul.net
that the art form moves beyond the medium itself and the way in

? 2002 ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 35, No. 5, pp. 471471-484,

2002 471
festations in computer networks on vari- "A systems viewpoint is focused on the prototyping, a print, or a digital photo and
ous scales. creation of stable, ongoing relationships video. In some cases, these works display
Digital art did not develop in an art-his- between organic and non-organic systems" distinctive characteristicsof the digital. In
torical vacuum, and incorporates many [1]. In modified form, this approach stillothers, it is not easy to tell whether the
influences from previous art movements holds a noticeable position in today's criti-
work has been created by means of digital
(ranging from conceptual art to Fluxus cal discourseon digital art. or analog technologies. Digital technology
and mail art) and experimentswith art and It is debatablewhen exactly the history
also has had a profound influence on music
technology. The year 1966 saw the foun- composition and audio, which have reached
of digital art began. Artists started experi-
dation of E.A.T. (Experiments in Art and menting with computers in the 1970s, new levels of experimentationthrough the
Technology), which in the words of its engaging in what was then known as instant remixing,sampling,and reconfigura-
founder, Billy Kliiver, was formed out of a "computer art," and using now-archaic tion that currenttechnologyenables.
desire to "develop an effective collabora- technology such as punch cards. With dig- The employment of digital technologies
tion between engineer and artist. The rai- as a medium implies that the work is pro-
ital technology, color and texture could be
son d'etre of E.A.T. is the possibility of a createdand manipulatedinstandy.Painters, duced, stored, and presented in digital
work which is not the preconception of sculptors, architects, printmakers,photog- format and makes use of the inherent pos-
either the engineer or the artist, but is the raphers,and video and performanceartists sibilities of the medium. However, this art
result of the exploration of the human began to experimentwith computerimaging can manifest itself as everything ranging
interaction between them." The joint pro- techniquesthat allowedfor the manipulation from an interactive installation to an
jects developed over a decade between of scale, color, and texturein ways that were installation with network components to
Kliiver and artists such as Warhol, Robert not possiblewith physicalmediums. softwareor purely Internet-basedart.
Rauschenberg, Jean Tinguely, John Cage, Using new technology such as video and The digital medium exhibits distin-
in
and JasperJohns were first seen perfor- satellites, artists in the 1970s also began to guishing characteristics, which are often
mances in New York (Tinguely in the gar- experiment with live performances and used in varyingcombinations. It is interac-
den at the Museum of Modern Art, and networks that anticipated the interactions tive, allowing forms of navigating, assem-
Rauschenbergat the Armory). These were currently taking place on the Internet and bling, or contributing to artwork to go
later featured in an exhibition called through the use of streaming media. In beyond the mental event of experiencing
"Some More Beginnings" (at the Brooklyn 1979, a collaboration between artists in it. It often is dynamic, responding to a
Museum and MoMA) and lastly at the New York (Liza Bear and Willoughby changing data flow and real-time data
Pepsi-ColaTMPavilion at the 1970 World Sharp) and San Francisco (Sharon Grace transmission. The art is not always collab-
Expo in Osaka, Japan. E.A.T. was the first and CarlLoeffler)resultedin Send/Receive,a orative in the original sense of the word,
complex collaboration between artists, fifteen-hour, two-way, interactive trans- but often participatory, relying on multi-
engineers, programmers, researchers, and mission between the two cities through the user input. Another distinguishing feature
scientists that would become a characteris- use of a CTS satellite. The world's first of the digital medium is that it can be cus-
tic of digital art. interactive satellite dance performance-a tomizable and adaptable to a single user's
In 1968, the exhibition Cybernetic three-location, live-feed composite perfor- needs or intervention. While some of these
Serendipityat the ICA in London present- mance involving performers on the concepts have been explored in perfor-
ed works ranging from plotter graphics to Atlantic and Pacific Coasts of the United mance art, happenings, and video art, the
light and sound environments and sensing States-was organized by Kit Galloway and possibilities of remote and immediate
"robots." These now seem only like the Sherrie Rabinowitz, in conjunction with intervention are unique to the networked
humble origins of digital art (and could be NASA and the Educational Television digital medium.
criticized for clunkiness and overly techni- Center in Menlo Park, California. These The interactive, digital medium has
cal approaches).Yet at the same time they performative events were initial explo- challenged traditional notions of the art-
still show characteristicsand narrativesof rations of the connectivity that is charac- work, audience, and artist. Developments
the medium today. Now there are works teristic of networked digital art. in this object suggest a paradigm shift for
focused on the aesthetics of machines and art practice from the art object to the post-
transformation,such as painting machines Shapes and Forms of object conditions of possibility and a fluid
and pattern or poetry generators. Others Digital Art interaction between different manifesta-
are dynamic and process-oriented, explor- tions of information.
ing possibilities of interaction and the The term "digital art" has become an
"open"system-a "post-object."In his arti- umbrella for a broad range of artistic prac- Shadings-Themes and
cles "Systems Esthetics" and "Real Time tices and does not describe one specific Narratives in Digital Art
Systems" (published in Artforumin 1968 aesthetic. Artists have used digital tech-
and 1969, respectively), Jack Burnham nologies as a tool for creating an art object, My selection of works for the New York
alreadyexplored a systems approachto art: such as a sculpture created through rapid Digital Salon Exhibition strives to give at

472 Christiane Paul, Renderings of Digital Art

 least an impression of themes and forms
addressed by interactive digital installa-
tions and Net art (the two categories I
have focused on). Among these themes or
"narratives"are telepresence, artificial life
and intelligence, "biotelematics," and
archiving; and alternative browsers, map-
ping and data visualization, and Net
activism, as well as multi-user environ-
ments incorporating visuals and sounds.
The selections consist of more recent
works and are complemented by other
curators'choices, which go back further in
history and/or provide different angles on
prominent themes in this medium.
Issues of the transformationof informa-
tion in the context of evolution and artifi-
cial life form the basis of Christa
Sommerer's and Laurent Mignonneau's
project A-Volve. By transferring digital
creatures (painted by visitors) into a natu-
ral environment, a crossroads of the real
and virtual world is created. Aesthetics
becomes the crucial factor in the survival
of the fittest: The form designed by the
visitor determines the virtual creature's
movement and behavior in space. Allowing
visitors to interactwith the creaturesin the
pool, A-Volvereinstatesthe human manipu-
lation of evolution in the digitalrealm.
Eduardo Kac's Genesistakes a very dif-
ferent approachto similarissues by creating
a synthetic "artist'sgene." Here, a sentence
from the biblical book of Genesis is trans-
lated into Morse code, which is then con-
verted into DNA base pairs that are later
transformed into bacteria exhibited in a
petri dish. The project examines the rela-
tionships between information and
biotechnology, and belief systems and
ethics. It also establishes a telematic con-
nection between remote places by allowing
visitors to turn on the UV light above the
petri dish over the Internet, thus influenc-
ing the mutation of the organisms.
David Rokeby's Giverof Names address-
es issues of "machine intelligence" in a
poetic way that transcends the merely
technological fascination with AI and
becomes a reflection on semantics and the
structure of language. The computer's
attempts to arrive at conclusions about
objects chosen by visitors lead to increas-
ing levels of abstraction that open up new
forms of context and meaning. The scan-
ning and classification of objects also is at
the core of George LeGrady's PocketsFull
of Memories,an installationwith an accom-
panying Web site. However, this project
focuses on the visitors' own belongings and
the mundane objects they carry in their
pockets-signifiers of personal memories
and values. The mapping of these objects
points to the potentiality and absurdities
of classifying objects endowed with per-
sonal meaning. A different angle on the
creation of meaning is provided by Perry
Hoberman's Timetable,an installation that
explores the significance and connotations
of different types of interfaces. The scene
projected onto the table's center is con-
trolled by dials whose function continu-
ously mutates and leads to splits into
multiple perspectives. These splits under-
line the expectationsand associationsevoked
by differentinterfaces.
The category of Net art has become a
broad medium, encompassing very differ-
ent forms of approaches to the networked
medium. Carnivore,a project by Alex Gal-
loway and the artists' collaborative RSG
(Radical Software Group), captures one of
the central aspects of digital media: the
relationship and tension between the back
end of code and data and the front end,
and the traceable form this code takes (be
it in the form of visuals or more abstract
communication processes).While the Car-
nivoreServer, an application that performs
packet-sniffing on a specific local area net-
work, serves a raw data stream, the client
applications created by numerous artists
interpret various aspects of the data in
visual ways. At the core of the Carnivore
project are the unlimited possibilities of
visualizing the server'sdata stream in a col-
laborative,open-source way.
The simplest ways of "visualizing"infor-
mation on the Internet are Web browsers.
Our experience of the Internet is largely
determined by these browsers and their
conventions. Several art projects have
revised and extended the browser concept
(among them I/O/D's Web Stalker and
Mark Napier's RIOT). A notable contribu-
tion to this body of work is Maciej Wis-
niewski's netomat, a meta-browser that
treats the Net as one large databaseof files,
Christiane Paul, Renderings of Digital Art 473
retrieving information independent from
the original design of the data source and
displaying it as free-floating in space.
netomat exposes the subconscious of the
Internet in an associative data stream that
reveals interconnections between concepts
and themes.
Apartment,by Martin Wattenberg and
Marek Walczak, takes a very different
approach to the concept of mapping by
exploring relationships between language,
memory, and space. Words translated are
typed in by viewers into a two-dimensional
blueprint of an apartment (by analyzing
their underlying meaning) and the submit-
ted apartments are organized into cities
that can be searched according to themes.
The project presents the written word as a
spatial practice and creates new levels of
associationsand meaning.
The concepts of multi-user environ-
ments, gaming, and file-sharing are central
to John Klima's Glasbead,a musical instru-
ment and toy that allows playersto manip-
ulate and exchange sound sample files and
create rhythmic musical sequences. The
project, a contained but constantly chang-
ing world of its own, was inspired by Her-
mann Hesse's novel Das Glasperlenspiel (The
GlassbeadGame,publishedin English under
the title Magister Ludi). It applies "the
geometries of absolute music to the con-
structionof synestheticmicroworlds"[2].
Since the advent of the World Wide
Web, there have been various Net activism
or "hacktivism"projects that use the net-
work and its possibilities of instant distri-
bution and cloning of information as a
staging platform for interventions, be they
in support of specific groups or a method
of questioning corporate and commercial
interests.The projects by the artistsbehind
0100101110101101.org-which range
from the cloning and remixing of other
artists'and organizations'Web sites to the
creation of a virus-are representative of
this form of artistic practice and focus on
the political, cultural, and commercial
aspects of the network.
There are many other themes in Net art
and digital art (such as narrativeenviron-
ments or networked, live performances)
that aren't addressed in this selection.
Nevertheless, it hopefully illustrates the
hybrid nature of this medium, establishing
a historical context and pointing to the
future of this art practice.

REFERENCES

1. Jack Burnham, "SystemsEsthetics,"Artfbrum

Vol. 7, No. 1 (September1968), p. 31; "RealTime
Systems," ArtforumVol. 8, No. 1 (September
1969) p. 51.

2. RichardGess, "MagisterMacintosh,"TheDrama
Review(Winter1993) p. 38-45.

Christiane Paul is the Adjunct Curator of

New MediaArts at the Whitney Museum of
AmericanArt and the Directorof Intelligent
Agent, a serviceorganizationand information
resourcededicatedto digitalart (www.intelli-
gentagent.com).She has written extensively
on new mediaartsand has been workingwith
VictoriaVesnaand MargotLovejoyon a book
about context and meaningin digital art (to
be publishedby MIT Press),and on a book
called Digital Art (part of the World of Art
Seriespublishedby Thames& Hudson,Unit-
ed Kingdom). She teaches in the BFA and
MFA Computer Art Departments at the
School of Visual Arts in New York and has
lecturedinternationallyon artand technology.
Her firstshow at the Whitney,Data Dynam-
ics (March-June2001), dealt with the map-
ping of data and information flow on the
Internetand in the museum space. She also
curated the Net art selections for the exhibi-
tion evol (Gallery L, Moscow, October
2001); for Fotofest (Houston, Texas, March
2002); and the 2002 Whitney Biennial
(March2002). She is responsiblefor Artport,
the Whitney's online portal to Internetart
(http://artport.whitney.org).

474 Christiane Paul, Renderings of Digital Art

 Maciej Wisniewski, United States
netomatTM,1999-present
Projection, computer, and projectors
http://www.netomat.net

netomatrMis a meta-browser that, unlike traditional Web browsers, doesn't rely

on the model of the Web page for retrievingpreconfiguredcontent, but engages
an Internetthat is alive and unpredictable.Inresponse to words and phrases
typed in by the user, netomatrMdialogueswith the Internetto retrievetext,
images, and audio, which flow onto the screen in a continuousstream of data.
Usinga new, audio-visuallanguage designed specificallyto explorethe
unexplored Internet, netomatrM reveals how the ever-expanding network
interpretsand reinterpretsculturalconcepts and themes.

476 Christiane Paul, Selections

 .1

E1I'm I
X,
1, M I

__ l ... :. .
bI

/ ..
,I...

Martin Wattenberg and Marek Walczak, United States

Apartment, 2001
Net art
http://www.turbulence.org/Works/apartment

Bytyping in words of their choice, users create roomsand apartmentsas a two-

dimensionalplan, similarto a blueprint.The architectureis based on a semantic
analysis of the user's words, reorganizingthem in the roomsto reflectthe underlying
themes they express. Thisstructureis then translatedinto navigable,three-dimensional
dwellings composed of images froma previous Internetwordsearch.

The apartmentscreated on the ApartmentWebsite are clustered into cities according

to their semantic relationships.The cities can be arrangedaccordingto semantic
complexes such as "Art,""Body,""Work,"and "Truth"-the apartmentswith the
highest occurrenceof the respective theme will move to the center.Apartmentboth
alludes to and reverses the idea of the memorypalace, a mnemonictechnique
originatingfromthe 2nd centuryB.C.E.used for rhetoricpurposes. Thetechnique was
based on mentallyassigning parts of a speech to specific rooms or spaces, and then
deliveringthat speech by mentallywalkingfromspace to space. Establishingan equiva-
lence between language and space, Apartmentconnectsthe writtenwordwith different
formsof spatial configuration.

Christiane Paul, Selections 477

 John Klima, United States
Glasbead, 1999-2000
Software

Glasbeadis a multi-userpersistent collaborativemusicalinterface,instrument,and toy that allows

playersto importsound files and create a myriadof soundscapes. The interfaceconsists of a rotating,
circularstructurewith stems that resemble hammersand bells. Sound files can be importedinto the bells
and are triggeredby flingingthe hammersinto the bells. WhileG/asbeadcreates a contained musicaland
visual worldof its own, it also allows up to 20 playersto remotely"jam"with each other. Alludingto and
transcendingconcepts rangingfromgamingto musicalinstruments,G/asbeadis a unique renditionof a
multi-usermultimediaworldwhere sounds and visuals enhance each other.

478 Christiane Paul, Selections

Ol.org
oioo01111OlOllOl.Org, 2000
Web site
http://www.0100101110101101.org
no copyright

The projects by the "activists" behind oiooio1o1oioloi.org focus on data

access and document and archiving models, exploring the political and
cultural context of networked communication. The projects include the
cloning and remixing of other artists' and organizations' Web sites, as well as
mapping and surveillance through access logs and tracking. With the project
life_sharing, oiooloillololloi.org turned its site into public property: The
site consists of the organization's hard disk, published in its entirety in html
format, visible and reproducible by anybody. Issues of restricted and open
access to data are a core element of this site and point to the complex politics
behind any form of data management.

Christiane Paul, Selections 479

 41

. .

Alex Galloway and RSG, United States

Carnivore, 2001-present
Mixed media
http://www.rhizome.org/carnivore
Photo by Paul Johnson

Carnivoreis a networkedart projectthat takes its name fromthe software DCSiooo,which is used by the
FBIto performelectronicwiretaps and was knownby its nickname"Carnivore." The projectconsists of
two parts:the CarnivoreServer,a Windowsapplicationthat performspacket-sniffingon a specific local
area networkand serves the resultingdata streamvia the Net; and an unlimitednumberof client applica-
tions created by artists, whichtap into the data stream and interpretit in creativeways. Whileissues of
surveillanceare at the core of Carnivore,the projectdefies a simple classificationof surveillanceas
either "good"or "bad."As opposed to the originalFBIsoftware, it is an open system, allowingeveryone
access to the code and creationof a client that "aestheticizes"the data stream. The collaborativeand
open-source natureof the projectembodies a centralissue in Internetart.

480 Christiane Paul, Selections

Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau
A-Volve, 1994-1995
Interactive computer installation

The interactive,real-timeenvironmentA-Volveallows visitors to create virtual

creaturesand interactwith them in a water-filledglass pool. Bydrawinga shape with
their fingeron a touch screen, visitors producevirtualthree-dimensionalcreatures
that automaticallybecome "alive"and swim in the real water of the pool. The
movementand behaviorof the virtualcreatureis dependent on its form,which
ultimatelydetermines its fitness for survivaland abilityto mate and reproducein the
pool. The creaturesalso reactto the visitors' hand movementsin the water.A-Volve
literallytranslates evolutionaryrules into the virtualrealmand at the same time
blends the virtualwith the real world.Humancreationand decision play a decisive
role in this virtualecosystem. A-Volveis a reminderof the complexityof any life form
(organicor inorganic),and of our role in shapingartificiallife.

Christiane Paul, Selections 481

 Eduardo Kac, United States
Genesis, 1999
Transgenic net installation

Genesis creates a synthetic "artist'sgene" by translatinga

sentence fromthe biblicalbook of Genesis into Morsecode,
and convertingthe Morsecode into DNAbase pairs.The syn-
thetic gene is cloned into plasmids,which are then
transformedinto bacteria.Inthe galleryinstallation,visitors
encountera pedestal with a petridish containingthe
bacteriawith a UVlight over it, which disruptsthe DNA
sequence in the plasmidand accelerates the mutationrate.
Visitorsto the Genesis Website are able to remotelyturnthe
UVlight on, thus interferingwith and influencingthe
process. Genesis examines the relationshipbetween
informationtechnology and biotechnology,belief systems,
ethics, and the Internet-andliterallybecomes a life-shaping
force. The interplaybetween these variousrealmsis created
by the translationof differentformsof information.This
results in the creationof a life formthat was originallybased
on languageand "code."

482 Christiane Paul, Selections

Perry Hoberman, United States
Timetable, 1999
Interactive installation
Photo by Peter Meretzky

Timetableconsists of twelve dials that are positioned aroundthe

perimeterof a large circulartable, with an image projectedfrom
above onto its center. The dials' functionschange and mutate-they
can become clocks, gauges, speedometers, switches, steering
wheels, etc.-depending on what is projectedonto them at any
given moment.The real-time3D scene at the center of the table is
controlledand influencedby the movements of the dials. The space
of Timetableundergoes constant transformationsand becomes
more complexand multidimensionalas it is used: Perspectivessplit
off fromeach other and create an awareness of the "timeframes"
suggested by differentinterfaces.

Christiane Paul, Selections 483

 George Legrady, United States
Pockets Full of Memories, 2001
Digitized image data

Pockets Full of Memories consists of an installation and accompanying Web site. The installation invites visitors to digitally
scan an object in their possession and answer a set of questions regardingthis object. Analgorithmclassifies the scanned
objects in a two-dimensionalmap based on similaritiesin their descriptions.Users can revieweach object's data and add
their own personalcomments and stories. The result of the projectis a growingmap of possible relations between items that
rangefromthe merelyfunctionalto a signifierof personalvalue. Atthe core of Pockets Fullof Memoriesis the notion of the
archiveand "database," yet the projectoperates on the threshold between logical classificationand the meaningsthat
aren't quantifiable.

David Rokeby, Canada

Giver of Names, 1991-present
Installation (computer, video camera, projection, objects)
Photo by Robert Keziere

The Giver of Names is a computer system that quite literally gives objects names by trying to describe them. The installation
consists of an empty pedestal, a video camera,a computersystem, and a small video projection.Visitorscan choose an
object or set of objects fromthose in the space, or fromthe ones they mightcarrywith them, and place them on the pedestal,
which is observed by a camera.Whenan object is placed on the pedestal, the computergrabs an image and then performs
manylevels of image processing (outlineanalysis, division into separate objects or parts, color analysis, texture analysis,
etc.). These processes are visible on the life-size video projectionabove the pedestal where the objects makethe transition
fromrealto imaged to increasinglyabstractedas the system tries to understandthem. Ratherthan functioningas a kindof
TuringTest, Giverof Names is an explorationof the various levels of perceptionthat allow us to arriveat interpretations,and
creates an anatomyof meaningas defined by associative processes.

484 Christiane Paul, Selections