New media art is a form of art, which refers to the works created or that incorporates the use of new technologies. New media art refers to artworks created with new media technologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art, video games, computer robotics, 3D printing, cyborg art and art as biotechnology. The term differentiates itself by its resulting cultural objects and social events, which can be seen in opposition to those deriving from old visual arts (i.e. traditional painting, sculpture, etc.). This concern with medium is a key feature of much contemporary art and indeed many art schools and major universities now offer majors in “New Genres” or “New Media” and a growing number of graduate programs have emerged internationally. New media art often involves interaction between artist and observer or between observers and the artwork, which responds to them.
New Media concerns are often derived from the telecommunications, mass media and digital electronic modes of delivering the artworks involve, with practices ranging from conceptual to virtual art, performance to installation.
New media are forms of media that are native to computers, computational and relying on computers for distribution. Some examples of new media are websites, mobile apps, virtual worlds, multimedia, computer games, human-computer interface, computer animation and interactive computer installations.
New media are often contrasted to “old media”, such as television, radio, and print media, although scholars in communication and media studies have criticised rigid distinctions based on oldness and novelty. New media does not include television programs (only analog broadcast), feature films, magazines, books, unless they contain technologies that enable digital generative or interactive processes.
Nowadays there is a debate on the need to continue using the term “new”, since the media are already widely integrated and assimilated. Often they are used interchangeably as synonyms of the art of the new media previous categorizations like digital art, electronic art, multimedia art and interactive art. With “new media art” we refer to works that make use of emerging media technologies and explore their cultural, political and aesthetic possibilities. It covers a wide range of artistic manifestations: video art, broadcast art, multimedia installations, interactive art, net.art, digital photomontage, virtual reality, media performances, expanded cinema, experimental, artificial intelligence and telepresence, among others, that is, those who use electronic or digital audiovisual support in the production or exhibition process. Internet is a key resource for artists of this current, as well as video and computer games, security cameras, wireless telephony, portable minicomputers and GPS navigation systems. The authors, when using these technologies with a critical or experimental intention, redefine them as artistic means. The works of media art require an aesthetic theory according to the new practices and characteristic formats, such as their models based on processes, contexts, interactions or simulations. In this sense, the theory of digital aesthetics has been developed.
Although the art of new media is a new artistic concept, it has its conceptual and aesthetic roots in some of the artistic movements of the 20th century.
Different characteristics of Dadaism are reflected in some manifestations of the art of new media (photomontages, (collage, decollage, ready-mades, political actions and performances) .The use of irony and absurdity are present resources.
Estridentismo was an interdisciplinary artistic movement that began in 1921 in Mexico influenced by the Mexican Revolution and by the technological revolution that occurred with the arrival in the country of the camera, the typewriter, and the radio among other devices. The Estridentista movement was also influenced by other vanguards such as Futurism, Cubism and Dadaism.
In the same way as in pop art painting and sculpture, many new media works refer to commercial culture, when they are not directly immersed in it. Through the reproduction of images of advertisements, comics and magazines with artistic techniques (oil on canvas, for example), Pop Art sought in the last instance to distance itself from the popular culture in which it was inspired. On the contrary, the artists of the new technologies tend to work with the same means of those that are served instead of reconditioning them in formats more in agreement with the conventions of the artistic world.
Conceptual art and the art of new media also focuses more on ideas than on objects.
Characteristics:
Interactivity has become a term for a number of new media use options evolving from the rapid dissemination of Internet access points, the digitalization of media, and media convergence. Interpersonal media as “one to one”, Mass media as “one to many”, and finally New Media as Individuation Media or “many to many”.
When we think of interactivity and its meaning, we assume that it is only prominent in the conversational dynamics of individuals who are face-to-face. This restriction of opinion does not allow us to see its existence in mediated communication forums. Interactivity is present in some programming work, such as video games. It’s also viable in the operation of traditional media. Interactive new media has become a true benefit to every one because people can express their artwork in more than one way with the technology that we have today and there is no longer a limit to what we can do with our creativity.
Interactivity can be considered a central concept in understanding new media, but different media forms possess, or enable different degrees of interactivity, and some forms of digitized and converged media are not in fact interactive at all.
New media artists usually work cooperatively. First, this is because many new media projects need a wide range of technological and artistic skills to be carried out. Second, the reason for the collaboration is more ideological than practical. In this way, multimedia artists challenge the topic of the artist as a solitary genius. Regarding participation, on occasion, the manifestations of the art of new media need the public to interact with the work or participate in its production.
The New media art movement, appropriation is very common. Internet and file sharing networks allow artists to easily access images, sounds, texts and other resources. Artists break with the idea that creating something from nothing is better than borrowing something and modifying it. Some of the artists opt for open source, that is, they tend to make their own foreign material, collaborate with other artists and their work is available to others. Often, new media artists are fascinated by the past and reinterpret obsolete digital technologies.
Manifestations
New Media changes continuously because it is constantly modified and redefined by the interaction between users, emerging technologies, cultural changes, etc. Contemporary new media art themes including computer art, collaboration, identity, appropriation, open sourcing, telepresence, surveillance, corporate parody, as well as intervention and hacktivism. Non-linearity can be seen as an important topic to new media art by artists developing interactive, generative, collaborative, immersive artworks explored the term as an approach to looking at varying forms of digital projects where the content relays on the user’s experience.
The new media industry shares an open association with many market segments in areas such as software/video game design, television, radio, mobile and particularly movies, advertising and marketing, through which industry seeks to gain from the advantages of two-way dialogue with consumers primarily through the Internet. As a device to source the ideas, concepts, and intellectual properties of the general public, the television industry has used new media and the Internet to expand their resources for new programming and content. The advertising industry has also capitalized on the proliferation of new media with large agencies running multimillion-dollar interactive advertising subsidiaries.
Key concept of media art is people acquired the notion that they were conditioned to view everything in a linear and clear-cut fashion. Now, art is stepping out of that form and allowing for people to build their own experiences with the piece. Non-linearity describes a project that escape from the conventional linear narrative coming from novels, theater plays and movies. Non-linear art usually requires audience participation or at least, the fact that the “visitor” is taken into consideration by the representation, altering the displayed content. The participatory aspect of new media art, which for some artists has become integral, became with Internet, a significant component of contemporary art.
The inter-connectivity and interactivity of the internet, as well as the fight between corporate interests, governmental interests, and public interests that gave birth to the web today, fascinate and inspire a lot of current new media art.
With the rise of the Internet, many new career paths were created. Before the rise, many technical jobs were seen as nerdy. The Internet led to creative work that was seen as laid-back and diverse amongst sex, race, and sexual orientation. Web design, gaming design, webcasting, blogging, and animation are all creative career paths that came with this rise.
The emergence of 3D printing has introduced a new bridge to new media art, joining the virtual and the physical worlds. The rise of this technology has allowed artists to blend the computational base of new media art with the traditional physical form of sculpture. A pioneer in this field was artist Jonty Hurwitz who created the first known anamorphosis sculpture using this technique.
Many new media art projects also work with themes like politics and social consciousness, allowing for social activism through the interactive nature of the media. New media art includes “explorations of code and user interface; interrogations of archives, databases, and networks; production via automated scraping, filtering, cloning, and recombinatory techniques; applications of user-generated content (UGC) layers; crowdsourcing ideas on social- media platforms; narrowcasting digital selves on “free” websites that claim copyright; and provocative performances that implicate audiences as participants”.
One of the key themes in new media art is to create visual views of databases. Database aesthetics holds at least two attractions to new media artists: formally, as a new variation on non-linear narratives; and politically as a means to subvert what is fast becoming a form of control and authority.
Collection and preservation
Despite the anti-commercial attitude of many new media artists and the technological obstacles they face to exhibit their work in galleries, some dealers have managed to accommodate important new media art programs. These include the Bitforms gallery in New York and Seoul, the Postmasters gallery, the Sandra Gering Gallery, and the GIMA in Berlin. Among the strategies for the conservation of works created with new technologies is documentation, emulation programs and recreation.
As the technologies used to deliver works of new media art such as film, tapes, web browsers, software and operating systems become obsolete, New Media art faces serious issues around the challenge to preserve artwork beyond the time of its contemporary production. Currently, research projects into New media art preservation are underway to improve the preservation and documentation of the fragile media arts heritage.
One of the problems with preserving digital art is that the formats continuously change over time. Former examples of transitions include that from 8-inch floppy disks to 5.25-inch floppies, 3-inch diskettes to CD-ROMs, and DVDs to flash drives. On the horizon is the obsolescence of flash drives and portable hard drives, to be replaced with what is currently known as iCloud.
Museums and galleries thrive off of being able to accommodate the presentation and preservation of physical artwork. New media art challenges the original methods of the art world when it comes to documentation, its approach to collection and preservation. Technology continues to advance, and the nature and structure of art organizations and institutions will remain in jeopardy. The traditional roles of curators and artist are continually changing, and a shift to new collaborative models of production and presentation is needed.
Education
In New Media programs, students are able to get acquainted with the newest forms of creation and communication. New Media students learn to identify what is or isn’t “new” about certain technologies. Science and the market will always present new tools and platforms for artists and designers. Students learn how to sort through new emerging technological platforms and place them in a larger context of sensation, communication, production, and consumption.
When obtaining a bachelor’s degree in New Media, students will primarily work through practice of building experiences that utilize new and old technologies and narrative. Through the construction of projects in various media, they acquire technical skills, practice vocabularies of critique and analysis, and gain familiarity with historical and contemporary precedents.
In the United States, many Bachelor’s and Master’s level programs exist with concentrations on Media Art, New Media, Media Design, Digital Media and Interactive Arts.