E-Book Overview
In a world increasingly dominated by the digital, the critical response to digital art generally ranges from hype to counterhype. Popular writing about specific artworks seldom goes beyond promoting a given piece and explaining how it operates, while scholars and critics remain unsure about how to interpret and evaluate them. This is where Roberto Simanowski intervenes, demonstrating how such critical work can be done.
Digital Art and Meaning offers close readings of varied examples from genres of digital art such as kinetic concrete poetry, computer-generated text, interactive installation, mapping art, and information sculpture. For instance, Simanowski deciphers the complex meaning of words that not only form an image on a screen but also react to the viewer’s behavior; images that are progressively destroyed by the human gaze; text machines generating nonsense sentences out of a Kafka story; and a light show above Mexico City’s historic square, created by Internet users all over the world. Simanowski combines these illuminating explanations with a theoretical discussion that employs art philosophy and history to achieve a deeper understanding of each particular example of digital art and, ultimately, of the genre as a whole.
E-Book Content
digital art and meaning
electronic mediations Katherine Hayles, Mark Poster, and Samuel Weber, Series Editors
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digital art and meaning: reading kinetic poetry, text machines, mapping art, and interactive installations Roberto Simanowski
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vilém flusser: an introduction Anke Finger, Rainer Guldin, and Gustavo Bernardo
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does writing have a future? Vilém Flusser
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into the universe of technical images Vilém Flusser
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hypertext and the female imaginary Jaishree K. Odin
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screens: viewing media installation art Kate Mondloch
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games of empire: global capitalism and video games Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter
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tactical media Rita Raley
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reticulations: jean-luc nancy and the networks of the political Philip Armstrong
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digital baroque: new media art and cinematic folds Timothy Murray
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ex-foliations: reading machines and the upgrade path Terry Harpold
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digitize this book! the politics of new media, or why we need open access now Gary Hall
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digitizing race: visual cultures of the internet Lisa Nakamura
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small tech: the culture of digital tools Byron Hawk, David M. Rieder, and Ollie Oviedo, Editors
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the exploit: a theory of networks Alexander R. Galloway and Eugene Thacker
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database aesthetics: art in the age of information overflow Victoria Vesna, Editor
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cyberspaces of everyday life Mark Nunes
(continued on page 292)
DIGITAL ART AND MEANING Reading Kinetic Poetry, Text Machines, Mapping Art, and Interactive Installations
ro b e r t o si m an o w sk i
Electronic Mediations 35
University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London
Chapter 1 was previously published as “Holopoetry, Biopoetry, and Digital Literatures: Close Reading and Terminological Debates,” in The Aesthetics of Net Literature: Writing, Reading, and Playing in Programmable Media, edited by Peter Gendolla and Jörgen Schäfer, 43–66 (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2007). “A Fine View” is reprinted by permission of the poet, David Knoebel. “Talk, You” from Dead, Dinner, or Naked (Chicago: TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press, 1993) is reprinted by permission of the poet, Evan Zimroth. Copyright 2011 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced