Postdigital
Encyclopedia
Postdigital is a term which has recently come into use in the discourse of digital art
istic practice. This term points significantly to our rapidly changed and changing relationships with digital technologies and art forms. It points to an attitude that is more concerned with being human, than with being digital. If one examines the textual paradigm of consensus, one is faced with a choice: either the "postdigital" society has intrinsic meaning, or it is contextualised into a paradigm of consensus that includes art as a totality. Either way, Roy Ascott
has clearly demonstrated that the distinction between the digital and the "postdigital" is part of the economy of reality.
Kim Cascone
uses the term in his article The Aesthetics of Failure: "Post-digital" Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music. http://mitpress.mit.edu/journals/COMJ/CMJ24_4Cascone.pdf He begins the article with a quotation from MIT Media Lab cyberpundit Nicholas Negroponte
: "The digital revolution
is over." Cascone goes on to describe what he sees as a 'post-digital' line of flight in the music also commonly known as glitch or microsound music, observing that 'with electronic commerce
now a natural part of the business fabric of the Western world and Hollywood cranking out digital fluff by the gigabyte, the medium of digital technology holds less fascination for composers in and of itself.'
In The Future of Art in a Postdigital Age Mel Alexenberg
defines "postdigital art" as artworks that address the humanization of digital technologies through interplay between digital, biological, cultural, and spiritual systems, between cyberspace and real space, between embodied media and mixed reality in social and physical communication, between high tech and high touch experiences, between visual, haptic, auditory, and kinesthetic media experiences, between virtual and augmented reality, between roots and globalization, between autoethnography and community narrative, and between web-enabled peer-produced wikiart and artworks created with alternative media through participation, interaction, and collaboration in which the role of the artist is redefined.
In Art after Technology Maurice Benayoun
lists possible tracks for "postdigital" art considering that the digital flooding has altered the entire social, economical, artistic landscape and the artist posture will move in ways that try to escape the technological realm without being able to completely discard it. From lowtech to biotech and critical fusion - critical intrusion of fiction inside reality - new forms of art emerge out of the digital era.
More recently, the notion of postdigital is emerging as a term that describes the creative exploration of our relationship to the computer age as we move into a time of global remixing, intertwined economies, population certainty and planetary limits.
Giorgio Agamben (2002) describes paradigms as things what we think with, rather than things we think about. Like the computer age, the postdigital is also a paradigm, but as with post-humanism for example, an understanding of postdigital does not aim to describe a life after digital, but rather attempts to describe the present-day opportunity to explore the consequences of the digital and of the computer age. While the computer age has enhanced human capacity with inviting and uncanny prosthetics, the postdigital may provide a paradigm with which it is possible to examine and understand this enhancement.
Digital art
Digital art is a general term for a range of artistic works and practices that use digital technology as an essential part of the creative and/or presentation process...
istic practice. This term points significantly to our rapidly changed and changing relationships with digital technologies and art forms. It points to an attitude that is more concerned with being human, than with being digital. If one examines the textual paradigm of consensus, one is faced with a choice: either the "postdigital" society has intrinsic meaning, or it is contextualised into a paradigm of consensus that includes art as a totality. Either way, Roy Ascott
Roy Ascott
Roy Ascott is a British artist and theorist, who works with cybernetics and telematics. He is President of the Planetary Collegium.- Biography :...
has clearly demonstrated that the distinction between the digital and the "postdigital" is part of the economy of reality.
Kim Cascone
Kim Cascone
Kim Cascone is an American composer of electronic music who is best known for his releases in the ambient, industrial and electro-acoustic genre on his own record company, Silent Records...
uses the term in his article The Aesthetics of Failure: "Post-digital" Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music. http://mitpress.mit.edu/journals/COMJ/CMJ24_4Cascone.pdf He begins the article with a quotation from MIT Media Lab cyberpundit Nicholas Negroponte
Nicholas Negroponte
Nicholas Negroponte is an American architect best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also known as the founder of the One Laptop per Child Association ....
: "The digital revolution
Digital Revolution
The Digital Revolution is the change from analog mechanical and electronic technology to digital technology that has taken place since c. 1980 and continues to the present day. Implicitly, the term also refers to the sweeping changes brought about by digital computing and communication technology...
is over." Cascone goes on to describe what he sees as a 'post-digital' line of flight in the music also commonly known as glitch or microsound music, observing that 'with electronic commerce
Electronic commerce
Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, eCommerce or e-comm, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. However, the term may refer to more than just buying and selling products online...
now a natural part of the business fabric of the Western world and Hollywood cranking out digital fluff by the gigabyte, the medium of digital technology holds less fascination for composers in and of itself.'
In The Future of Art in a Postdigital Age Mel Alexenberg
Mel Alexenberg
Mel Alexenberg is an artist and art educator best known for his explorations of the intersections between art, science, technology and culture through his artworks, teaching, writing and blogging....
defines "postdigital art" as artworks that address the humanization of digital technologies through interplay between digital, biological, cultural, and spiritual systems, between cyberspace and real space, between embodied media and mixed reality in social and physical communication, between high tech and high touch experiences, between visual, haptic, auditory, and kinesthetic media experiences, between virtual and augmented reality, between roots and globalization, between autoethnography and community narrative, and between web-enabled peer-produced wikiart and artworks created with alternative media through participation, interaction, and collaboration in which the role of the artist is redefined.
In Art after Technology Maurice Benayoun
Maurice Benayoun
Maurice Benayoun is a French pioneer new-media artist and theorist based in Paris. His work employs various media, including video, immersive virtual reality, the Web, wireless technology, performance, large-scale urban art installations and interactive exhibitions.-Biography:Born in Mascara,...
lists possible tracks for "postdigital" art considering that the digital flooding has altered the entire social, economical, artistic landscape and the artist posture will move in ways that try to escape the technological realm without being able to completely discard it. From lowtech to biotech and critical fusion - critical intrusion of fiction inside reality - new forms of art emerge out of the digital era.
More recently, the notion of postdigital is emerging as a term that describes the creative exploration of our relationship to the computer age as we move into a time of global remixing, intertwined economies, population certainty and planetary limits.
Giorgio Agamben (2002) describes paradigms as things what we think with, rather than things we think about. Like the computer age, the postdigital is also a paradigm, but as with post-humanism for example, an understanding of postdigital does not aim to describe a life after digital, but rather attempts to describe the present-day opportunity to explore the consequences of the digital and of the computer age. While the computer age has enhanced human capacity with inviting and uncanny prosthetics, the postdigital may provide a paradigm with which it is possible to examine and understand this enhancement.
Further reading
- Alexenberg, Mel, (2011), The Future of Art in a Postdigital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness. Bristol and Chicago: Intellect Books/University of Chicago Press; ISBN 978-1-84150-377-6.
- Alexenberg, Mel, ed. (2008), Educating Artists for the Future: Learning at the Intersections of Art, Science, Technology, and Culture. Bristol and Chicago: Intellect Books/University of Chicago Press, 344 pp. ISBN 978-1-84150-191-8. (postdigital chapters by Roy Ascott, Stephen Wilson, Eduardo Kac, and others)
- Ascott, R. (2003), Telematic Embrace. (E.Shaken, ed.) Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21803-5
- Barreto, R. and Perissinotto, P. (2002), The Culture of Immanence, in Internet Art. Ricardo Barreto e Paula Perissinotto (orgs.). São Paulo, IMESP. ISBN 85-7060-038-0.
- Benayoun, M. (2008), Art after Technology abstract of the text written by Maurice BenayounMaurice BenayounMaurice Benayoun is a French pioneer new-media artist and theorist based in Paris. His work employs various media, including video, immersive virtual reality, the Web, wireless technology, performance, large-scale urban art installations and interactive exhibitions.-Biography:Born in Mascara,...
in Technology Review - French edition, N°7 June–July 2008, MIT, ISSN 1957-1380 Full text in English - Bolognini, M.Maurizio BologniniMaurizio Bolognini is an Italian post-conceptual artist. His installations explore the potential and implications of new media technologies starting from the minimal and abstract activation of processes that are beyond artist's control, at the crossroads between generative art, public art and...
(2008), Postdigitale, Rome: Carocci. ISBN 9788843047390 - Pepperell, R. and Punt, M. (2000), The Postdigital Membrane: Imagination, Technology and Desire, Intellect Books, Bristol, UK, 182 pp.
- Wilson, S. (2003), Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology. ISBN 0-262-23209-X