COMPUTER BASED ART: Notes on the Context.
By Carl Eugene Loeffler


"The use of computers in art leads to a compatibility of the
instrumentarium-- to a closer link between the different art
forms which, owing to the different classical methods and
instruments, have been separated and taught in different
institutions. It is one of the decisive aspects of the new
situation brought about by the introduction of the computer
that there is no longer a reason for dividing art into
different forms, be they classical or modern."

-Herbert W. Franke, The Expanding Medium: The Future of
Computer Art, Leonardo, Vol 20, No.4, 1987.

"Nobody knows whether this will turn out to be the best or the
worst thing the human race has done to itself, because the
outcome will depend in large part on how we react to it and
what we choose to do with it. The human mind is not going to
be replaced by a machine, at least not in the foreseeable
future, but there is little doubt that the worldwide
availability of fantasy amplifiers, intellectual tool kits,
and interactive electronic communities will change the way
people think, learn, and communicate."

-Howard Rheingold, New Tools for Thought: Mind-Extending
Technologies and Virtual Communities, The Computer
Revolution and The Arts, 1989.
3:3
*INTRODUCTION

The vision of a cosmos of digital creativity is compelling.
One's mind can wander with this notion, taking delight in the
fantasy of possibilities. On the reporting side, a communication
revolution with an undefined future is in process. Factually,
in the creative arts, there is an increase in important new
works produced for computer based applications. The computer has
changed the way "people think, learn, and communicate,"
including artistic expression.

In this essay, the context for a computer based art will be
explored-- the computer as a tool, and attitudes towards tools,
past and present toward it. What of the industry? What
achievements are signals for the advancement of the creative
arts. What are antiquated technologies in light of the digital
era. How are artists responding to this situation?

*INSTRUMENTATION: (Y) OR (N)?

The computer has become a platform for a new creative era, but
not without question. The technology based instrumentation in
computer art, raises many of the same issues previously raised
in response to creative applications of the video medium. These
issues still remain unresolved in the general sense.

"Art works produced with video are not about the future of
television or the future of anything else. Video still exists
clearly apart from the television industry, despite the
television industry's repeated efforts to use video as a kind
of programming. Art work in video and television seems to
have mutually exclusive descriptions in the first place in
much the same way that print dealing relates to the magazine
publishing industry."

-David Ross, The New Television, 1977.

Video art, citing Ross, is a technological orphan, not yet at
home in the arts or respective industries. The same can be said
for computer based art. What is briefly suggested here is the
crisis on hand, the inability for our society and culture to
imagine applications for the tools it builds. Rheingold
explains," the further limits of this technology are not in the
hardware, but in our minds. The nature of the world we create in
the crucial closing years of the twentieth century will be
determined to a significant degree by our attitudes toward this
new category of tool." The very definition of application, is
how things can be used, interrelations, and fixing one's mind
attentively.

The pursuit of imaginative applications is not specific to our
time. The Renaissance, is an example of science being applied to
art, and the results became the known master works of the era.
The birth of the opera, was derived from the merging of
disciplines (i.e. dance, literature, music, painting, sculpture,
and theatre) into one combined form. None of this happened 3r3
overnight. The present situation is still more complex due to
even newer tools and their prodigal rate of invention. The
adage, "withstand the test of time," is an anomaly in a culture
that seemingly renews its tools overnight.


*INTERMEDIA

The computer is a perfect tool for post-modern expression. The
propensity for the erosion of distinct categories, is
symptomatic of both the tool and the attitudes underlying its
applications. The desire to challenge the authority of
categories, can be found in earlier cultural references.
Reminiscent of Claude Monet's infamous passion "I wish I were
born blind, only to regain my sight and not know what things
are!" The merging of perception and categories have previously
been discussed in modern art, and one distinctive summation of
this discourse is termed "intermedia."

"Much of the best work being produced today seems to fall
between media. This is no accident. The concept of the
separation between media arose in the Renaissance...

Is it possible to speak of the use of intermedia as a huge
and inclusive movement of which dada, futurism, and
surrealism as early phases preceding the huge ground-swell
that is taking place now"

-Dick Higgins, Intermedia, Foew&ombwhnw, 1969

Champion of his own time, Higgins points, among others, to John
Cage, who explores the relation between music and philosophy. He
also assaults the idea of high art, suggesting that intermedia
is populist. The ruling class determines categories. Further,
that this is a populist era where "Castro works in the cane
fields," and the Mayor of New York walks to the office. The
suggestion here is that art is categorized by the very world to
which it relates. Our world is changing, so too is art.

The application of intermedia, then and now, is evident in the
working in-between and combining of distinct media. The call for
a "closer link between the different art forms," and for the
merging of categorizing institutions shows a wonderful sense of
intermedia. The primary basis of computer art is intermedia.
What of populism? Many creative artists today are labeled
"cross-over artists," because of the merging of their art with
popular media, such as computers, motion pictures, music, and
television. In music Laurie Anderson is a prime example. John
Sanborn states,"I don't make video art, I make television." The
innovative art of this era is truly populist, not because of
an antithetical relationship with high art, but rather its
relation to the forms of popular media.

There can be little doubt that art will become increasingly
populist, merging with other media industries, with tools and
applications known and yet to be discovered. 3*3

"Cross-over artists," are less concerned with the support system
of high art and the art market, then they are with forging new
approaches for the production of their work, and popular
distribution markets.

Popular marketing implies popular marketing formats, such as
compact discs, computer software, and television for example.
High art attitudes that seek out the "aura" inherent to original
works of art, are at odds with forms exploring digital
reproduction, where the original and copies are one and same.


*MULTI-MEDIA AND CYBERMEDIA

The computer industry is a natural home for intermedia, and
interesting current applications are referred to as multi-media,
and Cybermedia, the most far reaching.

Regarding multi-media, there are many current examples of
combining image, sound, and text components within a computer
based environment. In fact it is the rage for the moment,
loosely referred to as interactive technology, and Hypermedia in
some cases. Here, components can be accessed by the user, but in
advanced applications the organizational structure can be
manipulated, often in real-time. The act of manipulating the
structure, leads to interactive terminology often being applied
to the work. Human interface design is pivotal, and can be voice
recognition, touch screen, mouse, or keyboard. The less
obtrusive, and the more rewarding the interface design proves to
be, the more successful the application. Current projects are
educational and industrial. Creative applications are emerging.

Cybermedia and the idea of "fantasy amplifiers," are becoming
less fantasy then actual fact. The term "cyberspace" is first
found in William Gibson's novel, Neuromancer, in reference to a
global computer network supporting "consensual hallucinations."
As conceived by the Cyberia lab, at Autodesk, cyberspace is a
multi-dimensional space, where information and objects can
freely be manipulated by those who enter. Cyberspace is
illusionary, in that a user can experience a sense of their
environmental participation and interaction. The VPL Research
data glove, allows the user to directly sense that environment.
Now make way for the data body suit. "The cyberspace business is
the magic business-- the business of making illusions," explains
Randy Walser, a Cyberia project member. Their vision includes
"Cyberian Hubs," which promises to be the ultimate experience.
Cyberspace can be a group experience as foretold by Gibson.
Cyberspace applications range from the sciences to entertainment
to the arts.

Both multi-media and cybermedia are populist, in that the user
can conceivably grant the experience shape and meaning, this
becomes another aspect of defining populism.

3b3
*ONLINE COMMUNITIES

The personal computer, becomes a powerful communication tool
when conjoined with a modem. Telecomputing permits users to send
electronic mail, participate in synchronous data exchanges, and
access large, multi-user computers. Users who partake in
telecomputing often gravitate toward "virtual communities,"
identifiable groups of users accessing electronic bulletin
boards and databases. Many online projects are specific to the
creative arts: the Art Com Electronic Network, and Art Link for
examples.

Telecomputing is the epitome of populism, as users can be in and
out of time synchronization, originate from varied geographic
locations, and be from all walks of life. Finally, with regard
to electronic bulletin boards, the data amassed is of shared
authorship and interpretation.


*DIGITAL VIDEO

Will television always be a fuzzy picture? The Future of
Television, an essay by Tom Steinert-Threlkeld published in the
catalog for the recent Dallas Video Festival, cites George
Gilder, author of Microcosm, asking "the kind of question about
television that Time magazine asked shockingly two decades ago
about God.

Is television dead?
Yes, he answers unequivocally."

That television, save for a few test systems scattered here and
there, is analog, a very dirty signal. There is little to no
hope in sight for this situation to change. Even the advent of
High Definition Television on (HDTV) is already substandard when
compared to the advances of digital video.

Meanwhile, John Scully an announces at a recent Macworld Expo a
chip that processes graphics and digitizes video images, in
real-time, the emergence of new directions at Apple Computer.
And International Business Machines (IBM) have there own shot at
Digital Video Interactive (DVI).

Digital video is beginning to reach the level of home consumers
digitizing their home videos from tape, and edit them on their
personal computer. Want to send someone home video? Soon
cassettes will be out, and discs in.

What of video art? Are video artists to continue the struggle to
gain acceptance for an analogous medium, pronounced technically
dead, but giving new meaning to the expression "dirty
pictures?" Video art in museums, including video sculpture, is
less about the advance of the medium, then about the art of the
museum.

Once upon a time, the revolution in communication was grounded 83
in video and cable television. Now computers are the
revelation. With the advent of digital video, computers and
video have become one, enter the new revolution.


*CONTEXT

When we speak of merging the creative arts with computers, the
preceding is a generalized survey of the context. There is a
history for the merging of media.

Cited here are examples ranging from the Renaissance to
modernism - Franke and Rheingold are post-modernists - as well
as the applications of multi and cybermedia, the latter being of
such fantasy that the tools scarcely exist to create it, let
alone language to describe it. The creative "ground-swell,"
predicted by Higgins, is underway.