ABSTRACT
The entry provides a survey of the field of information arts, an artistic practice that creatively and critically reflects on the collection, filtering, and dissemination of information. The term information arts is relatively new and used mostly as it relates to the information society of the digital age. The entry outlines the roots of contemporary information art practice in processes of information distribution and mass media and places it within the wider art-historical context of works that have explored information flow and mass-mediated images. Among the topics addressed are the ways in which recent information artworks process data from sources such as science, humanities, and network technologies; and the methods these artworks employ for giving information form, e.g., data visualization and the construction of databases. The entry also briefly discusses the challenges that information art using new technologies poses to the traditional art world, ranging from presentation to collection and preservation.
