Technology in the art world

Response to Module 5- Technology in your discipline area

Integrating technology into the art classroom and into the art world often brings up a controversial and rather heated debate on the benefits and challenges it will produce. While studying art history and curatorship the future of museums in the digital age was a frequently discussed topic in our tutorial sessions. We found that when visiting museums and galleries more and more artists focused on representing the “digital culture we know live in” (Gere, 2004, para. 1). Our increasingly digital and “media-saturated world” was being reflected through the evolving art genre, being new media art (Gere, 2004, para. 2). Lorenzo Pereira (n.d.) defines new media art as “…encompassing artworks created with new media technologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animations, virtual art, internet art, interactive art, video games, computer robotics, 3D printing, and art as biotechnology” (n.d., para. 2).

Randy Rieland (2014) observes how technology is revolutionizing and “..redefining art in strange, new ways” (para. 1). With the advent of virtual galleries and virtual tours “art lovers [are] able to stroll through some of the world’s most famous galleries at the click of a mouse” (ABC News, 2011, para. 1). As Miller (2016) observes online museums have the ability to dramatically improve audience’s access to art, as they allow anyone with internet access to view their artworks.

I argue that gallery virtual reality tours are a valuable resource for teaching art in the classroom, as it allows students to take a virtual tour of some of the world’s most renowned art galleries. It allows students to engage with the ceilings of the Palace of Versailles in France or Botticelli’s Birth of Venus in Italy’s Uffizi Gallery without having to leave the classroom (Warman, 2011)! It also enables them to zoom in and look at the details of each artwork- which is normally not possible in a textbook or in the gallery itself (Warman, 2011).

References:

ABC News, (2011, February 2). Art lovers offered virtual Galleries, ABC News.

Gere, C. (2004). New Media Art and the Gallery in the Digital Age, Tate Papers, no. 2. Retrieved from http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/02/new-media-art-and-the-gallery-in-the-digital-age

Miller, R. (2016, January 11). Futuristic 3D love and the museum of virtual art, Creators. Retrieved from https://creators.vice.com/en_au/article/8qvenb/futuristic-3D-love-virtual-art-museum-digital-age

Pereira, L. (n.d.). Why is it so difficult to define new media art, Wide Walls. Retrieved from http://www.widewalls.ch/new-media-art-definition/

Rieland, R. (2014, August 27). Seven ways technology is changing how art is made, Smithsonia. Retrieved from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/7-ways-technology-is-changing-how-art-is-made-180952472/

Warman, M. (2011, February 1). World’s greatest art galleries now on Google Street View, The Telegraph.