The Death of Computer Art

Several instances around this time period signaled the end of “Computer Art” and the rise of “Digital” or New Media Art, as argued originally by Grant Taylor in When the Machine Made Art. The first instance was the art critic David Carrier, writing in Leonardo, rejecting computer art and casting a contemplative shadow on the movement by declaring, “it is genuinely unclear to me whether any art using computers is truly significant.” This was a watershed moment in our story, as computer art now grappled with an existential crisis.

Perhaps feeling the pressure of decades of lack of recognition, the remark alluded to the skepticism surrounding technology’s transformative power in art, ushering in an era of critical examination. Carrier would also not be the only one to give up on computer art over the years. The remark signals the crisis evident in a movement where it was a point of pride and distinction to make computer graphics from code. But as this was increasingly becoming possible with the use of design software, “computer art” as a unified movement was called into question. This year can be, in some ways, thought of as the end of “computer art,” as it had been known since the 1960s.

Taylor explains in further detail:

“The term ‘computer art’ had a fundamental problem which arose when there was a complex intertwining of traditional analog, electronic, and digital technologies, and when the artist had no desire to proclaim the medium as central to the work. In fact, artist Judson Rosebush proclaimed in 1989 that ‘computer art has become a meaningless term.’ That same year, Brian Reffin Smith proclaimed this to his readers: ‘Let us make an art that does not need the computer to justify it.’

Richard Wright in the 1989 SIGGRAPH Computer Art show catalogue also asks, “Does ‘Computer Art’ Still Exist?”