[Leonardo/ISAST Network] New From the Leonardo Book Series - From Technological to Virtual Art by Frank Popper

[Leonardo/ISAST]

NEW from The Leonardo Book Series and MIT Press

FROM TECHNOLOGICAL TO VIRTUAL ART by Frank Popper

In From /Technological to Virtual Art/, respected historian of art and 
technology Frank Popper traces the development of immersive, interactive 
new media art from its historical antecedents through today's digital, 
multimedia, and networked art. Popper shows that contemporary virtual 
art is a further refinement of the technological art of the late 
twentieth century and also a departure from it. What is new about this 
new media art, he argues, is its humanization of technology, its 
emphasis on interactivity, its philosophical investigation of the real 
and the virtual, and its multisensory nature. He argues further that 
what distinguishes the artists who practice virtual art from traditional 
artists is their combined commitment to aesthetics and technology. Their 
"extra-artistic" goals -- linked to their aesthetic intentions -- 
concern not only science and society but also basic human needs and drives.

Defining virtual art broadly as art that allows us, through an interface 
with technology, to immerse ourselves in the image and interact with it, 
Popper identifies an aesthetic-technological logic of creation that 
allows artistic expression through integration with technology. After 
describing artistic forerunners of virtual art from 1918 to 1983 -- 
including art that used light, movement, and electronics -- Popper looks 
at contemporary new media forms and artists. He surveys works that are 
digital based but materialized, multimedia offline works, interactive 
digital installations, and multimedia online works (net art) by many 
artists, among them John Maeda, Jenny Holzer, Brenda Laurel, Agnes 
Hegedus, Stelarc, and Igor Stromajer. The biographical details included 
reinforce Popper's idea that technology is humanized by art. Virtual 
art, he argues, offers a new model for thinking about humanist values in 
a technological age.

Frank Popper is Professor Emeritus of Aesthetics and the Science of Art 
at the University of Paris VIII. He is the author of /Origins and 
Development of Kinetic Art/, /Art, Action, and Participation/, /Art of 
the Electronic Age/, and other influential works on art and technology.

To order this book and to learn more about other titles in the Leonardo 
Book Series visit the Leonardo Book Series website at: 
http://www.leonardo.info/isast/leobooks.html

MEMBER DISCOUNT! Leonardo/ISAST Associate Members are eligible for 20% 
off all Leonardo Book Series titles as well as a number of other 
membership benefits! Visit http://leonardo.info/members.html for more 
details.

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