Doreen Maloney, Art
What is New Media?
One of the intriguing issues with the field of New Media is that no one has been able to define the parameters of this phrase. This field encompasses work such as sound art, performance art, video and sculptural installation, 2D and 3D animation, net art, locative media and experimental video podcasts as well as digital photography and at some institutions, graphic and web design.
I find the issue interesting because each of the above fields subscribes to a range of discourses that position the field in various degrees of disagreement on the role of modernist, formal aesthetics, vs. conceptual, low-fi anti-aesthetics, post-modern political dialectics vs. consumer market design portfolio criteria. We as instructors have to know the entire range, which for those easily bored, happily the end of learning is nowhere in sight. My talk will address the complexity of the field and discuss the approach we are taking in calling ourselves Intermedia practitioners.