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T5 Week 1 – INTRODUCTION TO NEW TECHNOLOGIES

  • Feb 9
  • 6 min read

Updated: Feb 28



Photo 1: © Bill Viola, Stations (1994), five-channel video (color, sound), five granite slabs, and five projection screens, overall, 20' × 50' × 50' (610 × 1525 × 1525 cm), The Museum of Modern Art.
Photo 1: © Bill Viola, Stations (1994), five-channel video (color, sound), five granite slabs, and five projection screens, overall, 20' × 50' × 50' (610 × 1525 × 1525 cm), The Museum of Modern Art.

Overview

New technologies in art refer to digital, electronic, computational and networked systems that extend artistic production beyond traditional media. These include video, animation, artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, coding, sensors, web-based platforms, mobile applications, sound design, light technologies and immersive environments.


As Delfanti and Arvidsson (2019) argue, digital media reshapes not only communication but the structures through which identity is produced and circulated. In this sense, new technologies are not aesthetic add-ons but infrastructure. They shape how images are seen, circulated, how authorship is distributed and how audiences interact with artworks.


Within contemporary art practice, new technologies operate across several modes:


  • Time-based media (video, animation) introduce duration and temporal manipulation.

  • Interactive systems (sensors, responsive installations) reposition the viewer as participant.

  • Networked platforms (web art, social media-based works) embed art within distributed publics.

  • Algorithmic production (AI, generative coding) complicates authorship and agency.

  • Light and projection technologies reconfigure spatial perception.


According to TATE:


Photo 2: Bill Viola, Nantes Triptych (1992), Tate, © Bill Viola Studio
Photo 2: Bill Viola, Nantes Triptych (1992), Tate, © Bill Viola Studio

  • Video art developed in the late 1960s as artists began using portable video equipment to produce moving-image works outside the conventions of mainstream cinema and television. Unlike commercial film, video art is typically non-narrative and conceptually driven, focusing on duration, repetition, performance, documentation or installation-based presentation rather than linear storytelling (TATE).


Photo 3: Gary Webb, Sound of the Blue Light (2002), The Approach, London
Photo 3: Gary Webb, Sound of the Blue Light (2002), The Approach, London


  • Sound art refers to artistic practices in which sound functions as the primary material. Rather than composing music in a traditional sense, sound artists use recorded, generated or environmental sound to shape spatial experience. Sound becomes sculptural, architectural and site-responsive, engaging the listener’s bodily perception within a physical environment (TATE).





  • Multi-media describes artworks that combine more than one artistic medium within a single work. This may include combinations of sculpture, video, sound, performance, digital projection or installation. Multi-media practices often dissolve distinctions between object, image and environment, producing hybrid forms that resist classification within a single discipline (TATE).



The Museum of the Moving Image situates moving-image practices within a broader media ecology, linking early film technologies to contemporary digital interfaces. This continuity emphasises that today’s digital experimentation sits within a longer trajectory of technological mediation rather than representing an isolated break.


Critically, the adoption of AI platforms such as Midjourney or Runway introduces new ethical considerations. Issues of data extraction, authorship, labour and platform capitalism must be acknowledged. As Delfanti and Arvidsson (2019) note, digital economies operate through hidden infrastructures that monetise participation and creative output. Artists engaging with AI therefore participate within, and potentially critique, these systems. When we use social media, AI image generators, or creative apps, we are not just making art — we are also feeding data into systems that make money. Our images, prompts, clicks and interactions help train algorithms, attract users and generate profit for the companies that run these platforms. Artists are part of the system, whether they intend to be or not.


New technologies in art thus function simultaneously as:

  1. Material

  2. Method

  3. Medium

  4. System

  5. Site of critique

They expand formal possibilities while introducing new conceptual responsibilities.



Historical Context

Artists have consistently incorporated emerging technologies as a means of rethinking perception and representation.


When photography was invented, painters had to rethink what painting could be. When film appeared, artists began experimenting with movement and time. When video cameras became affordable, artists used them to create works that were different from movies or television. Now, with digital tools and AI, artists are again exploring new ways of making and showing images.


So, this moment is not completely new or shocking. It is part of a repeating pattern. Every time a new technology appears, artists experiment with it. At first it feels disruptive. Then it becomes part of the artistic language. Later, another technology arrives and the cycle begins again.


In other words, artists responding to AI or digital media today is not unprecedented. It is part of a long history of artists adapting to — and questioning — the tools of their time.



Photo 4: Nam June Paik, TV Buddha (1974), video installation, closed-circuit, 18th-century Buddha statue, H60 x W200 x D80cm, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
Photo 4: Nam June Paik, TV Buddha (1974), video installation, closed-circuit, 18th-century Buddha statue, H60 x W200 x D80cm, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Nam June Paik reconfigured the television set as sculptural material, treating screens as physical objects rather than passive transmitters.






(Photo 5) Douglas Gordon, 24 Hour Psycho Back and Forth and To and Fro (2008), two translucent projection screens showing two 4:3 ratio film projections, viewable from all sides, 24 hours, loop. © Studio lost but found/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018. Psycho, 1960, USA, directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, distributed by Paramount Pictures © Universal City Studios. Photo: Rob McKeever
(Photo 5) Douglas Gordon, 24 Hour Psycho Back and Forth and To and Fro (2008), two translucent projection screens showing two 4:3 ratio film projections, viewable from all sides, 24 hours, loop. © Studio lost but found/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018. Psycho, 1960, USA, directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, distributed by Paramount Pictures © Universal City Studios. Photo: Rob McKeever

Douglas Gordon manipulated cinematic temporality in 24 Hour Psycho, stretching a commercial film into extreme duration.






Photo 6: Daniel Crooks, Static No.12 (seek stillness in movement) (still), 2009–2010, single-channel high-definition digital video, 05:23 min, 16:9, colour, stereo, © the artist, Anna Schwartz Gallery and Future Perfect
Photo 6: Daniel Crooks, Static No.12 (seek stillness in movement) (still), 2009–2010, single-channel high-definition digital video, 05:23 min, 16:9, colour, stereo, © the artist, Anna Schwartz Gallery and Future Perfect

Daniel Crooks slices and reassembles time through digital processes, creating spatialised temporal distortions.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJGh7VGh8p8
Daniel Crooks, Pan Np. 11 (cross-platform transfer) 2013, 5 channel digital video, colour, stereo sound, custom screen, 18 minutes 23 seconds. A Samstag Museum of Art and 2013 Adelaide Film Festival commission.



Photo 7: Cindy Sherman, AI Self-portrait (2023), © Cindy Sherman
Photo 7: Cindy Sherman, AI Self-portrait (2023), © Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman recently incorporated AI and digital manipulation to critique the aesthetics of social media self-representation. However, when Sherman shared her creations on Instagram she faced a furious backlash. Going so far as to leave a comment under one of her posts, “People, I’m just fooling around, sheesh, it’s not my ‘new’ work. Do you really think I’d post new work before exhibiting it?” (Growcoot 2023). Sherman began posting AI-generated selfies on Instagram in 2023, and tells her followers that she has been using the Lensa app. An app designed for making people look better, Cindy was curious about AI and what it could do with her self-portraits.





In an interview at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, David Hockney explains that he is not “an iPad artist” but an artist who uses the iPad as a medium, recognising its revolutionary potential while treating it as a tool. He describes painting as requiring the hand, the eye and the heart, and reflects on revisiting landscapes to observe seasonal shifts (Louisiana Channel 2011).


New technologies in art are not important just because they are new. They matter because they change how we see things, who controls the image, and how people connect with each other. From early video art to today’s AI images, artists have used new tools to question ideas, not just to make different-looking work.


Understanding this helps artists use technology thoughtfully, not just for style, but with clear ideas behind it.



References:


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© 2026 by Melanie Meggs

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