The Prelude to the Millennium: The Backstory of Digital Aesthetics

Abstract

The artist and scientist have been depicted as polar opposites since Michel angelo claimed that Leonardo da Vinci was wasting time with foolish inven tions (see figure 1) while his art suffered. However, the artist taking on the role of the researcher has precedent. In the 1960s, Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), led by Bell Labs' engineer Billy Kluver, aided artists such as Robert Rauschenberg in pushing the avant-garde to utilize technol ogy. Sullivan asserts that the time has come to examine art as data and artis tic practice as research.1 The digital revolution produced a new artist model for today's avant-garde and has been described as a type of Merlin?a trick ster magician. Perhaps a more plausible model is the artist-scientist who is creating a paradigmatic aesthetic shift. Digital art, new media, net-art, or computer art are new art forms that have arrived on the art scene. In order to make sense of digital-based artworks, it is necessary to understand both their predecessors and the technology that makes them possible.