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February 24, 2006
College Art Assocation
College Art Association
Boston, MA
Panel Discussion: Defining the Digital Canon
Saturday 25 Feb, 9:30-noon, Hynes Convention Center, Third Level, Room 302
Kate Schaffer, Edward Shanken, Bret van Hoesen, Randall Packer, David Bate
Digital Art: A Loaded Canon
In this paper, I outline seminal currents and paradigms in 20th century art that inform our contemporary understanding of what constitutes, or might come to constitute, the “digital canon.” These paradigms include: the interdisciplinary, the participatory, the indeterminate, the recombinatory, and the behavioral - ideas which grew from the practice and writing of the 20th century avant-garde. This overview contributes to a theory of digital art and its conceptual foundation based on historical trends that brought about the erosion of modernist technique and aesthetics. Contrary to popular thought, that a digital canon is now emerging from the inherent characteristics of information technology, it is my conjecture that the digital needs to be situated in a larger art-historical continuum that is closely aligned with post-modern currents that embrace the dissolution of the object, the ephemeral, and the changing role of the spectator.
Posted by Randall at February 24, 2006 06:07 PM