The research of this dissertation involves new media art which appears in various aspects in the age of digital culture: It is particularly interested in changes in the role of media. It has the following goals: First, it is to examine the changes in ...
The research of this dissertation involves new media art which appears in various aspects in the age of digital culture: It is particularly interested in changes in the role of media. It has the following goals: First, it is to examine the changes in the role of media, by approaching media art in the historical context. Second, the changes in the role of media are to be clarified in terms of how the components of media have changed by ages. Third, the characteristics of new media are to be understood through the altered components.
To this end, the dissertation investigates the variation in the components, ranging from the origin of media art in the beginning of the 20th century to the new media art in the beginning of the 21st century. From the historical perspective, the media art is examined in accordance with the development of contemporary technology.
It is basically presupposed that the media art is approached in the development of media because the media itself is part of technology. The traditional aesthetics is challenged in terms of the aesthetic nature whenever there are developments in media and changes in the role. The media art, discussed along with the changes in the aesthetic concept, has gone through alteration in the components according to the environmental conditions of the times. As the media art has recently shown varied facets, so are new notions or components, which did not exist in the past, applied and realized in the new media art.
In order to grasp the features of changes in the new media art, the components of media art are examined. The division of the periods for the changes in components is congruent with the beginning of changes in art in accordance with the development of media. The development of media is a trigger for changes in art; thus in tandem with changes in media, art takes on a new aspect.
In the first place, the study establishes an analytic framework for media art, by extracting the components via the existing research on media art and new media art. Second, the changes in the media art components by times are analyzed with the method of content analysis. Third, the temporal changes in the role of media, according to the changes in components, are apprehended through case analyses. Fourth, by dint of the case analyses of new media art, the properties of the new media art components are comprehended.
The results showed the following: First, the components of media art are visual, auditory, tactile, participatory, and network elements. Each element consists of format, media (work material), image, color, size, light, space, time, motion, sound, touch, act, and network. These 13 classifications are divided into 21 categories: the work format, visual media format, visual media format type, media type, screen type, number of screens, human body, text, mixture of colors, overall size, effect of lights, effect of shadows, space, time manipulation, actual movement of works, movement of the images in a work, sound, touch and contact, participatory act, interaction with a work, and real-time network connection.
With the above analytic framework, 244 works of media art, including 6 cooperative products, on the basis of content analysis. The changes in the components by periods were analyzed with the chi-square test, and there were 5 periods altogether due to the time that art begins to change in accord with the changes in media. As a result, there was significant difference by periods in the 11 categories, i.e., the work format, visual media format, visual media format type, media type, mixture of colors, overall size, effect of lights, space, movement of the images in a work, participatory act, and interaction with a work.
Third, changes in the role of media by periods due to the components of media art are as follows: Period 1 (1919-1949) when Dadaists made collage using photos and attempted at experimental abstract movies using visual media, i.e., films, which is beyond just a flat surface. Period 2 (1950-1962) tried computer graphic, owing to development of the computer, and introduced mechanical motion into a work. Period 3 (1963-1981) gave birth to the video art, based on development of television and video camera. Period 4 (1982-1993) began a new arena of art including computer art and communication art, on account of commercialization of personal computers and development of communications network. Period 5 showed a variety of new media art, which is ascribed to development of Internet and development of computer-related technology, such as Internet art, interactive art, digital art, computer art, and net art.
Fourth, the more novel the new media has recently become, the more diverse the modes of representation, viz., components, have changed. In addition to visual elements, the changes in the media format elicited auditory, tactile, and participatory elements. In connection with this, there appeared such properties as interactivity, network structure, tactility, synesthetic expression, spatial expansion including cyber-space, and combination of hypermedia. Among others, the endeavor at cyber-space created the concepts and works which contain new interfaces like virtual reality, augmented reality, and telepresence.
Due to these features, the role of audience switched from viewers who appreciated paintings in the past to users who intervene directly in the interfaces of works in order to realize the interaction. The formal structure representing the contents of new media art became nonlinear, multi-linear, and multi-layered, in link with the characteristics of hypermedia. The new media art as such has started as a concept relative to the previous media art. This research is to be a cornerstone that looks ahead into the future connected with the past, defining the refreshed new media art at the present point of looking back on the previous media art.