Simon Biggs
Related: art theory - media theory
Does new media art differ from "traditional" art?
It all depends on how you define art. It is possible to see art from two quite distinct, although not mutually exclusive, points of view.
Firstly there is the view that "art" is embodied in the status of the artefact. This is largely the preconception that Walter Benjamin held in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction". Benjamin saw the status of art as being inextricable to the object, in particular the social value of the object. He called this its "aura".
Benjamin never really addressed the core subject ((re)production) implied in the title of his essay. His focus on the object denies him access to this approach; the view which regards art not as a function of the object but rather as a process. It was this view that Duchamp was exploring in his work, the urinal signed R. Mutt. --Simon Biggs, 1998 London UK via http://hosted.simonbiggs.easynet.co.uk/texts/nma.htm
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