New Media Art - Generative

A new concept of art has developed from new technologies – new media art. The Australian Council for Art defines this new art form as new technologies to create works of art that explore new modes of artist expression. These new ways of portraying artist expression include interactive digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, internet art and computer robotics. These new art forms are gaining in popularity and on a local front; The University of New South Wales COFA Campus offers a Bachelor of Digital Media and can major in 3D Animation or Digital Imaging or Interactive Motion. Someone can also do a Bachelor of Design majoring in Graphics Media.


This is a recent development and for me personally, is an interesting medium I wanted to know about. Here are some examples of what it means to be classified as a new media art:


You Were in My Dreams (2010) takes a live video feed of your face and combines it into a stop motion dream world.

Watch the art in action here!


Ping Body by Stelarc is a new media art through a series of muscle stimulating electrodes place on Stelarc’s body that responded to remote users login on to the performance’s web interface and therefore stimulating various body parts. Users could then see the results of their effects on a live webcast.

Jackpot by Maciej Wisniewski is an Internet 'slotmachine' that downloads three randomly selected web sites and displays them in the browser's window along with their top level domain names.

5000 Calls is a large-scale multi-channel sound installation installed throughout the Urban Forest, an extensive 4.5 hectare loose grid of eucalyptus trees surrounding the Stadium Australia in Sydney. The point of the new media artwork is for participants to move through this urban forest people hear voices captured while performing numerous tasks including aboriginal children chanting, footballers and weightlifters. A customised computer program allows these calls to interact with each other.

Play Dirty by Australian Theatre Company Arena is more than just a standard narrative through featuring live motor cross action, rapid image feedback and a live band mixed with electronic music. This art work is interactive and further incorporates new media though enabling audiences to view the script at its one year development stage with the participants encouraged to offer their feedback and suggestions.

My Yard Our Message is a user-created yard sign project that was launched in conjunction with the United States Presidential Election. The project invited designers to submit political yard signs that explore ideas about what it means to actively participate in democracy. Votes were cast on favourite and the Walker Art Centre printed the yard signs and places them in neighbourhoods throughout the local area.  


These Australian based and other worldwide examples of new media show the importance of new technologies in art and how it has created new genres. What an important element of these new media artworks is not only the new technologies that are incorporated but also interactivity by participants.

The future of the media...

There is a common theme within the ARTS3091 course, and previous blog posts on this site – the changing media landscape and the implications of this change.  It is clear that the media industry has had to adapt to the ‘internet of things’.  Some have adapted well, others haven’t.

Some significant changes that have become apparent; there is no longer a strict focus on traditional (print) media.  There has been a significant rise in the blogosphere with sites such as Huffington Post and Mashable (both American) being sites that have become well-know in breaking news and stories before traditional media.  Within this blogosphere, bloggers such as mummy bloggers, fashion bloggers and beauty bloggers are becoming increasingly popular and increasingly credible as the word of mouth function displayed in these blogs is seen as more trustworthy. 

Through these changes other media based industries have had to adapt as well and implement strategies to this transmedia landscape.  An industry that I have interest in is Public Relations.  PR companies obviously have seen the shifts that have occurred since the introduction of the internet and therefore have had to adjust strategies in campaigns in order to be a viable business and receive success for their clients.  One such strategy is recognising that hybrid media channels such as blogs and social media can propel stories in traditional media.  Still to this day, traditional media, more often than not, is still the desired outlet for companies to receive media coverage in over the internet.  However, strategies have shifted to initially gaining media coverage through social media and hybrid media channels, which then gains the attention of traditional media forms and therefore then receives media coverage.  This shift has occurred due to the 24/7, 365 structure of the internet and social media with a lot of buzz occurring on these sites.  If PR companies can get cut through on hybrid media channels and trend on twitter or have numerous everyday people mentioning the campaign, this in turn jumps out to traditional media forms.

The future of media and communications and the future of media relation companies therefore lies in their ability to pick up on a shift in the media landscape and adjust and strategise.  The media industry will still be the media industry in the future; however, the usual terms such as ‘traditional media’ are changing.  Hybrid media forms such as blogs and social media are slowly being seen as traditional media, with the definition shifting from simply being print media.

Open Science

It is well known that with the development of new media and ubiquity of the internet, media companies and journalists have had to adapt to these changes.  Some of these changes have been outlined in previous posts, including the idea of a multi platform journalist who can publish stories not just in print form, but internet as well.  The media industry, which often receives the most focus on this issue, is not the only industry that has had to adapt.  Science is slowly recognising that publishing articles solely in print journals is outdated and expensive with scientists calling ‘open’ sites to conduct and publish research and develop an online community.

The internet has transformed the science industry with a gap created in science publishing.  This gap is slowly being filled with the development of online archives and journals such as Public Library of Science, which has promoted many to publish journals in a more streamlined process.  This gap has also created an online community to help scientists collaborate and publish.  This online community is a mix between other popular social networking sites facebook, twitter and LinkedIn and is just as popular amongst the science community with over 1.5 million members.

This community is called ResearchGate and it was developed by two researchers who realised the gap in the industry and how difficult it was to collaborate with colleagues on the other side of the world.  On the ResearchGate website it states that “the rapid evolution of technology has opened the door to change; by providing you with the right tools, we strive to facilitate scientific collaboration on a global scale”.  ResearchGate as an online community has numerous functions including; a place to store research, contacts and resume of expertise, to link people together to solve problems, a database of publications and a job site.

It is clear that new media has significantly shifted and changed many industries.  In previous posts, and my focus personally, has only ever looked at how this affected the media industry, without thinking how new media has impacted other industries.  The music industry is another example with issues around sharing and downloading music online.  The Science industry is seemingly adapting hoping to step away from the solely print publishing journals and creating spaces for scientists to share work online.