iDMAa

International Digital Media and Arts Association

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VOL 8 NO 1 2011

Published: January 15, 2011
Vol 8, No 1 COVER

Introduction

For this issue of IDMAA’s journal, members of the editorial team worked together to select past articles that we found representative of the compelling issues that face the various researchers and practitioners of our organization. The motivation for this is he impending new direction of our journal: We are working to move online with an interactive journal that will promote networking and productive discussions among our readers, and we are aiming to have more regular contributions coming in to the online journal centered on a series of themes across the year (see below for the first round of themes and dates for submission).

We felt a best way to begin moving forward would be to take a step back and revisit our past. To that end, Michael Niederman, Jeff Ritchie, Sharon Ross, and Mirella Shannon chose essays from previously published issues that spoke to them in some way and asked the original authors to revisit their pieces and update us on their work and thoughts. We also have included an original piece on the timely issue of social networking among politically oriented college students from Dr. Brandon C. Waite as we find this topic indicative of the converged worlds of our readership.

We hope readers enjoy looking from past to present to future with us and with our contributors.

Artists have always exploited advances in technology to explore, communicate and document their world-views. Advances in digital media technology in the early 2000s enabled integration of text, images, video and audio using a common binary representation, making possible the combination of disparate media into new art forms. Mirella Shannon chose a piece from 2004: “Thoughts On The Launch Of A Digital Media BFA Program” detailed the thought processes behind the development of an innovative interdisciplinary program that addressed changes in the worlds of art and digital technology. The University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts, realizing that the emerging technologies of the time would impact how future artists represented their culture, created DIVAS—Digital Interactivity, Visualization, Animation and Sound. Mat Rappaport (former DIVAS Program Coordinator) and Christopher Burns (current Interdisciplinary Arts and Technology Program Coordinator) revisit this program in its current state for our readers. They focus on how a general accessibility of digital media technology, coupled with the growth of social media networks, has impacted the original BFA program, allowing for improvements in curriculum—particularly in regards to scope and creative approaches. We invite the reader to examine the original article, with this update as an addendum.

Jeff Ritchie is similarly interested in the ways in which academia has risen to the challenges of changing realities in the digital arena in relation to the arts; he chose a 2005 article written by faculty from the Georgia Institute of Technology: “Asking What Is Possible: The Georgia Tech Approach.” We revisited this piece with great interest given the many contributions of the authors to those fields described by the combined terms “digital media” and “arts.” Hamlet on the Holodeck (Janet Murray, 1997) is a staple, and others, such as Video Game Spaces (Michael Nitsche, 2009) and Persuasive Games (Ian Bogost, 2010) seem destined to become key texts. The chief theme these authors address involves attempting to unravel what constitutes the core areas of this field. In the five years between

the original article and its follow-up, we can observe the trajectory of the many different areas of study and practice that comprise digital media and arts; we can see as well in the evolution of the Georgia Tech program—and the resources being devoted to them—an indication of the growing prominence of and interest in all things digital. We invite the reader to examine and discuss these changes, particularly in relation to the update from Rappaport and Burns on DIVAS. Many questions face this field as universities continue to grapple with how best to understand and teach about such a varied and constantly changing landscape; we find it imperative for our readership in particular to examine and ponder how higher education is working through the current environment.

By way of introduction to the discussion we hope to prompt, we offer a look forward (by way of looking back) at one of the weightier issues facing those who practice, learn, and teach in the terrain of digital media: ethics. For any college educator, incorporating an examination of ethics into the classroom is tricky stuff, fraught with personal biases. Scott Olson’s original article, “Digital Deontology” (2005), was an astonishingly prescient look into what laid ahead in modern culture’s relationship with the digital world in regards to ethics. Michael Niederman chose this piece and tells us that he has always desired Scott Olson’s brain—not in a “I’m donna suck your brain dry” Scanners sort of way, but for the profound clarity that his grey matter offers when it comes to such concepts. Olson mapped clearly a radical change in the core ethical assumptions of our world that could be linked to emerging technologies of the time. In the “redux” here, he sharpens his original insights by examining the digital cultural chaos of last six years. His examinations help to pin down a moving target and to thoughtfully deal with the truths of an era where the ethical scales related to the digital world are far from finding equilibrium.

Artists, of course, grapple with such philosophical issues on a daily basis; Sharon Ross chose our last piece, Ellen Jantzen’s 2007 article “Space/Time/History as Subject for Artists,” because of the author/artist’s profound ability to deconstruct her own artistic processes in the face of cultural norms that challenge most modern Western mindsets. Ellen Jantzen revisits concepts of space, time, and memory in her updated piece in a manner that reflects back on her earlier work; her own creative memories have informed her current artistic process and she shares with us some of this work. Ellen’s photographs, both past and present, demonstrate the fragility of the digital image and how digital photography’s very mutability can create paradoxically a stable sense of how space and time operate to ground our understanding of the world around us. Ellen’s ability to reflect on her artistic process is a prime example of IDMAA’s goals to expand its own sense of what is meant by “art” and what we expect from “the image” and we are pleased to bring you more from this provocative artist.

(Editors’ Note: The original essays are printed here in their entirety, edited only in appearance, and appear in tandem with the new.)

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About the Journal

The Journal of The International Digital Media and Arts Association responds to the rapidly developing field of digital media and arts in a variety of settings—academic, educational, artistic, political, and social. Membership in iDMAa includes a subscription to the journal. Get more information on becoming a member.

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