ABSTRACT
The construction of digital artworks demands a wide range of expertise. Conception, production and technology are closely intertwined; existing technologies have to be adapted to new artistic concepts, and new technologies inspire and create new meanings and contexts. In order to realise a work of art – be it an installation in a gallery or museum, or an online work – an artist has to be engineer, programmer, graphic designer, and hardware constructor all at once or has to have access to others who are able to shape technologies and materials as required. In the case of Daniel Rozin’s Wooden Mirror (1999) for example – a work that produces the reflection of any person facing it by slightly shifting the polished wooden blocks of which the surface of the mirror is constructed – the cameras, motion sensors, software and wooden blocks were all custom made (Bolter and Gromolla 2003). In a sense, the construction of such complex, interactive works returns the digital-media artist to an era before the pre-manufacturing of artist’s supplies. Before the invention of metal paint tubes in the 19th century, before standard-sized canvasses or marble blocks were available, artists depended on custom-made materials and workshops with trained assistants, just as the media artist today might depend on programmers and engineers to provide custom-built technology. Even when artist and programmer are the same person, for example the net.art practitioners Jodi (https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="https://text.jodi.org">https://text.jodi.org) or Olia Lialina (https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="https://www.artlebedev.ru/svalka/olialia">www.artlebedev.ru/svalka/olialia), the procedures of art making are no less intricate or complex.
