After
the industrial revolution, no technological shift
has altered our society as much as the development
of the digital age. Arising from this age we find
two new art movements growing in influence; electronica
and web design. But the relationship between electronic
music and web design runs deeper than a mere association
with technology. The very nature of the digital
world, of the translation of ones and zeros into
the rich gamut of multimedia we can access today
is perhaps the defining element in these relatively
new arenas of sound and sight. Both the synthesizer
and the pc have sparked whole new genres within
the art and design community respectively, that
continue to differentiate and develop today.
Watching both
the realms of electronica and web design develop
in the last decade has been interesting to say the
least. As they forage ahead into new possibilities
for communication, explore the extremities of personal
expression, and navigate through our capitalist
system, digital media are not only transforming
communication, commerce and art, but also our society's
way of perceiving. For within the digital realm
we can find elements that point outside of our current
postmodern malaise and lack of originality that
has by and large confined most contemporary arts
into self reflexive circles and denial of any absolutes.
But will digital
media become just another postmodern dead end, or
are we poised to enter a new social paradigm?
The
word I like to associate with 'digital' and 'internet'
is 'freedom'. Having said that, I don't presume
the internet to be unrelated to the principles of
commerce and its impact on art (if anything, technological
development is mostly driven by the dynamics of
capitalism). However, while mainstream society can
shape the internet in its image, the internet and
digital world will ultimately remain without loyalty
to any ideology; it is just as easy for me to find
websites, forums and newsgroups on sex toys, fundamentalist
religions, White supremacists and raising carnivorous
plants as it is to find information for Britney
Spears' new album, my bank's closing hours, the
daily news and online shopping.
If I find a
lack in information, I can create my own webpage,
start my own blogger, post to forums and newsgroups
to attempt to fill this hypothetical void. And although
the distribution of internet access is very asymmetrical,
the presence of subcultures is not necessarily more
diminished than the mainstream (take for example,
the very present anime or BDSM internet community).
The internet does not come with a fixed prescribed
purpose; a multitude of various purposes are created
and adapted by its users with a flexibility unknown
to any other medium. It is not the ultimate creative
medium in terms of freedom, but it's the best that's
come along so far.
There is a
newness derived from this flexibility and freedom
that is exciting, that points to an originality
on an individual level, and a sharing that can be
experienced by the collective. Digital tools are
relatively cheap to obtain, production time is generally
shorter, and the products never degrade, making
the ground fertile for taking risks, sharing with
like-minded individuals, working in the margins,
crossing geographical borders.
While I watch
both the visual arts world and pop culture lose
itself in irony, kitsch, parody, and even nostalgia,
there are many artists working in a digital medium
who consistently push the limits of their technology
by creating sounds, visuals and techniques, who
are changing the way we perceive digital media:
musicians like Bjork, Kraftwerk and artists working
with Warp records, Flash designers like Yugo Nakamura,
Joshua Davis, and some of the web goddesses you
can check out here at Flashgoddess.com. While other
media remain entrenched in the cleverness of postmodernism,
playing elitist or mainstream versions of a 'name
that reference' game, the digital arts draw from
the past and look forward, discovering possibilities
which refresh themselves with each new programming
language, software version, or file type, each new
development in hardware or bandwidth delivery. Almost
a decade has passed after web design and electronica
emerged into mainstream consciousness, and both
movements have shown dedication towards exploring
and experimenting, keeping both the past and future,
the mainstream and the marginalized in its peripheral
vision.
So
my question here is; where is the revolution? Despite
all the artistic experimentation, all the technological
innovation, we are still smack in the middle of
our postmodern problems; we find ourselves with
the appropriation of the rave subculture, the homogenization
of web design, the commercialization of the internet,
the merging of transnational media giants. Can there
be a social shift to be found in this?
It's hard to
tell. Although the internet is largely driven by
the engine of economics, although it is bound within
socioeconomic and political constraints, its tie
to the digital realm, a realm of infinite reproducibility
of global reach, has created a system that cannot
be defined in a black and white opposition. Its
social role is as ambiguous as the polarizing and
homogenizing dynamics of globalization, if not more.
But one thing is possible; that within the digital,
we can begin to perceive beyond the old oppositions
based on power and control: male/female, straight/gay,
bourgeoisie/proletariat, colonizer/colonized, developed/developing,
mainstream/marginalized. We can try to move beyond
defining ourselves with the dynamics of power, and
instead, try to define ourselves with the dynamics
of freedom.
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Erica Sum is currently
taking cinema studies at U of T, and can also
be found studying art fundies, film and animation
at Ryerson, Sheridan and Studio M as a part
time student. Her interest in Flash stems
from her previous work in computer graphics.
http://esum.tigblog.org |
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