Mainframe Experimentalism by By Hannah Higgins, Douglas Kahn

Robert Beatty- this art felt so fitting for this reading. It shows how connected to the internet and digital media today. 

WOW this reading was an interesting read. I truly had no idea how controversial and daring digital art was and what it means to society today. I think that the Graphic art we see today has so far transcended the origin of Digital Art. I understand from previous classes and personal reading that computers were really only for schools and military databases. It was not until the creation of interconnecting these assets allowed the internet, and life as we know it today. I found it very interesting that digital art was not well perceived (Mona Lisa) in the beginning and how new the access was to artists. Especially how the United States Army and Research Laboratory won for the art produced and not the artist themselves. I think this shows how collective the US was once, especially surrounding creation, and how individualistic it is now surrounding art. To think that the only way an artist could have gone into a computer system to create, could only be accomplished if they were assisted by an engineer. I couldn’t imagine this kind of restraint, as I have a minor in Graphic Design. No one ever told me how I could or could not create art. This too reminds me of the actual attitudes surrounding computer art at the time. To have loss of authorship that shows the bridge to the ever-evolving capitalistic that the world had yet to become, it makes sense that this “art authorship” was contested, and even discouraged. I think that kind of attitude makes sense for that time period. It really blows my mind how saturated digital art is today, as I know it, however; at one time people didn’t want creatives using the computer for art. That's insane! The whole idea of what is art, who can make art, and those not wanting art made, is a direct and utter violation of art itself. Art is meant to have no ownership- it is in essence- free. That is at least according to me personally. I just feel that in order to have creation you must have freedom. However; if it were not for the artist who created that very ideal by pushing back against the norms and demanding individualism, I would not have that very understanding of art in today's standard.