My understanding of New Media Art is the use of technology to produce art rather than using the traditional art tools. Although this article was published in 2007, the author’s definition of New Media Art still coincides with my own. With the arise of newer technological devices, the Conception of New Media Art is no longer constrained simply by the use of computers. Rather we have 3d printers, smartphones, and iPads that also allows us to express art through technology. Back in 2007, many of these technologies are not widely used yet so their understanding of what could be used as the tool for New Media Art is limited.
Artist John F. Simon Jr. created a New Media Art called Every Icon where the program runs on its own and attempts to create every picture that could possibly fit in a 32 x 32 grid. The program just colors the squares on the grid as it they were pixels and a combination of white and black grids creates an image. To see the final image will take trillions of years as there are some many possibilities on the grid to create diverse images. Born in 1963 in Louisiana, John F. Simon Jr utilized LCD screens and computer programming to create visual imagery. Simon’s style of art fits with the definition of conceptual art mentioned in the article. His art is a form of New Media Art because he utilized his skills in software development to create visual images. His works are more conceptual because they focus more on his own ideas rather than trying to convey some political or social meaning.
Moreover, Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead are two artists who live and work in London. They make artworks for galleries, online, and outdoors. Most of their works focuses on live networks and how they are changing the way people understand the world. One of their work pieces called Telephony (2010) consists of a wall based grid of 42 Siemens mobile telephones and the audience can dial these phones and they will begin to call each other to create music. Every phone is individually programmed with a different ringtone. This piece of work is another form of Conceptual New Media Art as it introduces a new idea and way of creating music. It is very similar to musical tools that musicians would use nowadays to create their pieces with where they simply press a button to produce a specific sound and then a combination of multiple sounds becomes music. Telephony is like the earlier adaptation of such an idea which overtime has changed form from pressing physical buttons to pressing screens.
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