Digital technology has revolutionized the way we produce and experience art. Not only have printing, painting, photography and sculpture been transformed by digital techniques, but entirely new forms such as net art, software art, digital installations and virtual reality have emerged as recognized artistic practices, collected by major museums, institutions and private collectors the world over.

Christiane Paul surveys digital art from its appearance in the 1980s to the present day, and looks ahead to what the future may hold. She dicusses the key artists and works, drawing a distinction between work that uses digital technology as a tool to produce traditional forms and work that uses it as a medium to create new types of art.

The book explores themes raised by digital art, such as viewer interaction, artificial life and artificial intelligence, social activism, networks and telepresence, as well as curatorial issues such as the collection, presentation and preservation of digital art.  Adrianne’s Camouflagetown robotics project (2001, The Whitney Museum) is referenced in Paul’s writing, along with a photograph of the robot, Kiru.

Christiane Paul is the Adjunct Curator of New Media Arts at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the director of Intelligent Agent – a service organization and information resource dedicated to digital art – and a lecturer in the Computer Arts department at the School of Visual Arts, New York.