A Torrent of New Media Art

“The painting of a reindeer on the wall of a cave in France, or the portrait of a dead ancestor in Egypt, or a cross on the wall, or the replica of a saint in the stained glass of a chapel, each opens a portal to an imagined world, beckoning us to cross the gap between the image here and what is, or was, or might be there,” (Gitlin, 2001, p. 27).

The suggestion behind Todd Gitlin’s book, Media Unlimited, is that humans have always sought an alternate reality (when all basic needs are met) which has ultimately led us to the media torrent that overwhelms our society today. This hunger for knowledge of the “there” combined with the emergence and urgency of the money economy which flourishes in democratic societies has created the modern torrent of inescapable noise and images. The torrent has tributaries of technological inventions such as the books and magazines, the walkman, and the television which has made it stronger and swifter and which has caught the American imagination and held it captive.

What I failed to see behind Gitlin’s book was the “give” of our world with its constant images and sounds. Number one in Neil Postman’s “Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change” is that technology both gives and takes (Postman, 1998). From Gitlin, we can fully understand the take … confusion over which reality is real, lack of internal thought, and a time waster. I would like to explore a give … the give of art exposure and the give of a new medium to art.

Images and sounds are created by someone. And if these images and sounds are the “conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects” (Mirriam-Webster, 2005), couldn’t they by definition, given by the Mirriam-Webster dictionary, be called art? According to the New Media Caucus, New Media art includes art that is “expanding with developments in digital technology and artists working in newly emerging media such as robotics, virtual reality, interactive and installation environments as well as artists working in established digital areas of video, sound and graphics,” (New Media Caucus, 2008). And just as the interpretation and definition of art is controversial and subjective, so it goes with new media art. But, by lumping all images and sounds into the same category of consideration, Gitlin misses his chance to educate on media discernment and offends those who take pleasure in creating image and sounds.

The Torrent
Is the torrent of images and sounds testament to American gluttony and its capitalistic society? Or is it because artists now have many mediums in which they can express themselves? “As costs fell, technologies that had at first had been the province of the rich drifted into the middle class and then, within surprisingly few years, crossed over to the majority,” (Gitlin 2001, p. 52). With this accessibility of technologies, wasn’t it also easier for people to create photographs, posters, films, and recorded music? The daguerreotype replaced portrait painting, film replaced the daguerreotype, and digital photography replaced film. With the accessibility of each new medium, came new ideas and forms of art – and each fought to be recognized as such. “Many critics decried the rise of the multiple or editioned artwork in the 1960s as a sign that the purity of art was lost,” (Jordan, 2007). Such is the prolific nature of new media art that museum curators, collectors, and academics are scrambling to make accommodations for it in their galleries, their classrooms, and in their ideas of art. While not everything found on YouTube or MySpace can be considered art, the art world is acknowledges that more people now have outlets in which they can express themselves. “Artists, and many people who would not define themselves as such, are collectively pushing back against the commodification and corporate consolidation of information, sometimes using parody and subversion, sometimes exploring entirely new forms of expression for their own sake,” (Ray, 2006).

In Aldous Huxley’s (1932) Brave New World, the citizens of London go to movie theaters called feelies that advertise, “All-Super-Singing, Synthetic-Talking, Coloured, Stereoscopic Feely With Synchronized Scent-Organ Accompaniment” (p. 154). In other words, movies where you can see, hear, smell, and feel the same experiences as on screen. When it is pointed out that these feelies offer no meaning to the audience, the writer agrees, “Because it is idiotic. Writing when there’s nothing to say ...” (Huxley, 1932, p. 199). However, the writers and producers in Huxleys’s world live in a controlled and manufactured society, whereas we still live in a state of democracy where the freedom of expression still exists … something I believe Mr. Gitlin well understands.

Gitlin, T., (2001). Media Unlimited: How the torrent of images and sounds overwhelms our lives. New York Henry Holt and Company.

Huxley, A., (1932). Brave New World. New York. Harper.

Jordan, C., (October 10, 2007). Art for the Masses. Smithsonian.com, October 2007. Retrieved April 27, 2008 from http://articulations.smithsonianmag.com/archives/229

Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, (2005). Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved April 27, 2008 from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/art

New Media Caucus, (2008). NMC New Media Caucus. Retrieved April 27, 2008 from http://www.newmediacaucus.org

Postman, N. (1998). Five things we need to know about technological change. Denver, CO.

Ray, R., (November 6, 2006). A century of art crammed into a decade: Panelists cite thrills, threats to new media. MIT News Office. Retrieved April 27, 2008 from http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/new-media.html