ABSTRACT
This chapter considers Live Visuals within the broader domain of contemporary art. As outlined in Chapter 5 Live Visuals can be described as a sub-set of media art, and as such there is some tension between the conceptualism of late modernist and postmodernist art and the technological formalism of Live Visual performance. The chapter provides a critique of both contemporary art, for its lack of engagement with the digital, and media art (and, by association, Live Visuals), for its lack of engagement with the discourses and institutions of the wider art culture. The chapter posits several possible remedies for this situation, partly by invoking the broader church of post-conceptualism, in which technology is a potential element within an unrestrained blend of materials available to the 21st century artist and partly by re-engaging Live Visuals with its obvious antecedent: photography. The chapter also offers some pertinent examples of artwork that can provide solutions to the lack perceived in both contemporary art and media/art Live Visuals.
