Abstract

After video emerged as a trend in the 1960s, it gradually acquired the status of artistic medium over close to 30 years. If it took as long for digital technology to achieve recognition as a contemporary artistic medium after having become democratized in the 1980s, then the time for acknowledgment has come. Thanks in part to the widespread use of the Internet and its mass appeal, digital culture, in all its forms, has become part and parcel of everyday life. Digital and networking technologies have made their way into all private and public spheres of contemporary society; they have also had an impact on how we relate to others and on our worldview. The time has come, then, to consider the consequences of such massive permeation for the art world, without neglecting any of its key stakeholders, whether artists or collectors, critics or curators, galleries or institutions. For the art world is an ecosystem with well-established rules. We must also acknowledge that the digital medium has a wealth of specific characteristics, which may be insidious at times—so much so that all artworks worldwide are now shaped, in part, by digital technology, sometimes unbeknownst to their creators. The way we perceive the world has changed now that it fits in the palm of one hand or can be grasped between thumb and forefinger. From now on, everything on the Internet belongs to us, from the most trivial files to the most sensitive data. The final impediments to acknowledging the interconnection of digital technology and art—from media permanence to artwork scarcity—have crumbled away. That is because digital media and art now resonate together, because the practices of artists and amateurs have become intertwined. It is now time to consider what digital technology brings to art and vice versa. It is now or never.

• Dominique Moulon studied visual art at the Fine Art School (ENSA) of Bourges, France, and holds a Master’s Degree in aesthetics, science and technology from the University of Paris 8. Member of the Observatory of Digital Worlds in Humanities (OMNSH), of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), of the Opline Prize for online contemporary art and founder of MediaArtDesign.net; he also writes articles for Art Press, Digital MCD, The Seen and Neural. He is the Artistic Director of the media art fair Variation Paris and currently curator in residence at the art center of the Maison Populaire in Montreuil. Dominique Moulon teaches new media at Parsons (The New School for Design), ECV (Ecole de Communication Visuelle) and EPSAA (Ecole Professionnelle Supérieure d’Arts Graphiques) in Paris. He has also been a regular guest professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), the National School of Fine Arts (ENSBA) in Paris, The Fresnoy (Studio national des arts contemporains) and the University of Paris 8. His book Contemporary New Media Art was published in French by Nouvelles Editions Scala in 2011 and in English as an e-book in 2013. He is doing research at the laboratory Art & Flux (CNRS) of the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne while preparing his next book on the relationships between art, technology and society. As an expert in digital cultures, he has also been sollicited for his input by some companies like Axa, Accenture, Google, Landor or Renault.  dominiquemoulon.com