The first problem is what to call it.
Digital art? That's the popular name for art made with computers, but it falls short of describing the full range of possibilities, from works viewed on computer screens to light projections that tell stories, explore scientific concepts or fill entire rooms with kinetic images.
Consider Jeremy Blake's seductive mixed-media digital animations -- or, as he calls them, time-based paintings. Visitors who wander into his show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art sit on benches in a large, darkened gallery and watch a three-screen projection based on the bizarre gothic mansion in San Jose known as the Winchester Mystery House. Images of the rambling residence, built over four decades by the heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune, blend with fluid abstractions and shots of movie palaces, cartoons and cowboys in a dreamlike collage of sights and sounds.
Another current exhibition, "AIM VI: Technological Pervasions" at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, explores the impact of surveillance in daily life. Part of USC's annual festival of time-based media, the show encompasses Internet projects, wireless technology, hardware design, digital video and interactive installations.
Labeling all these works "digital art" is like calling painting "oil art" or sculpture "stone art," said Benjamin Weil, a former curator at SFMOMA who organized Blake's exhibition and is now curatorial chair at the Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology in New York. "Pretty much everything is digital now."
What's more, said artist Victoria Vesna, who heads UCLA's department of design/media arts, the notion of digital art is way too 20th century. And way too limited. For adventurous artists in this field of hybrid art forms, digital technology is more than a tool, she said. It's a medium or subject matter.
Those who work the territory tend to avoid labels or invent their own. When pressed, they suggest one of three catchall terms: "new media," "media arts" or just "media."
But basic as it is, the name thing is merely an indicator of the confusion swirling around a field that refuses to sit still. Art of the Digital Age may be changing ideas about what art can be, but most of the art world isn't ready for it.
Even as kids raised on video games are turning into new-media artists, art schools are scrambling to update curricula and keep abreast of ever-changing technology. Few museums have the equipment needed to show new-media art or employ curators and conservators who are well versed in the field. Most commercial galleries are leery of exhibiting art that doesn't have a ready market, and collectors of new-media works are few and far between.
"People don't know what to do with it," Vesna said. "There is no market for this work. If you look at a Who's Who of the media arts world, nine out of 10 people are working at universities. The reason isn't a secret. There's no other way we can support ourselves."
That's beginning to change.
New-media art -- to choose one imperfect term -- has proliferated as more and more students enter art schools with portfolios of computer skills, and tech-savvy professional artists experiment with online art, robotics, virtual reality and interactivity.
"I think this will make art of the 21st century as different from art of the 20th century as it is from art of the 19th century," said art/tech guru Stephen Nowlin, who directs the gallery at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. "That's a statement of faith," he added, but it's based on 30 years of experience -- and the fact that new-media art looms large on exhibition agendas.
In Southern California, Jennifer Steinkamp -- who essentially paints moving images with light -- is creating a computer-generated installation to be unveiled in May at ACME, a mid-Wilshire Boulevard gallery. Jessica Bronson, a sculptor of moving images, is designing a large video installation and a smaller moving-text piece for a fall show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego.
Jim Campbell, who describes himself as an electronic artist and focuses on time, memory and perception, is preparing an installation for Caltech's stately Atheneum, in conjunction with "AxS," an art and science exhibition opening in June at the Armory. He will temporarily replace a clock and paintings in the Atheneum lobby with illuminated moving pictures from his "Ambiguous Icons" series, an investigation of how much visual information is absolutely necessary for people to perceive images.
