Art&D: Research and Development in the New Art Practice

Art&D considers changes in art practice due to media, to that new branch of art making known primarily as electronic art. Use of radio and video came first, about 25 years ago, but over the last ten years digital media and network technology have reigned. This new discipline embraces a heterogeneous collection of artistic, technological, and scientific disciplines and is also characterized by inter- and trans-disciplinary collaborations. Electronic art proved a troublesome fit for existing art institutions, necessitating the founding of specialized organizations for the funding and creation of relatively expensive, process-based projects. And they were: digital art laboratories were established around the world with the financial support of governments, arts foundations, industry, scientific programs, and so on. Art&D is a critical consideration of the many artistic, technical and theoretical aspects of making electronic art in such interdisciplinary collaborations. It sets out to describe, in layman's terms, the cultural, social, and political-economic transformations that are the result of the widespread propagation of digital techniques.