hurrengoa
digital: the future turned into the present    The last century's last global revolution was brought about by the digital technology. The concepts of "mechanics" and "electronics" seem like something from the past. The future is digital. The future? Without realizing it, 20 years have gone by since digital technology started to spread throughout society (or, at least, throughout the society we consider to be "civilized"). As it shows an incredible capacity and speed for developing itself, we always think that digital technology is more advanced than we are, but, as we've seen, the digital world has been the present for many years now. You can see this very clearly in the world of art.


Although a few "advanced" people used it in the 80's, it was in the 90's that it really invaded art. Mark Tribe and Alexander Galloway created Rhizome after seeing the possibilities that the Internet offers creativity. Artists who use new technologies as a tool, support and way ahead for their creativity have started meeting at this horizontal, underground and highly varied website. The revolution that digital technology brought to art was the same explosion that industry went through during its revolution. The points of reference changes. Artists started inventing again. They've become the masters of the machines and they've transformed, developed and changed the machines' objectives too. It seems this technology can break boundaries with great ease, and they making getting over these boundaries the greatest challenge. Some of them have contradicted themselves: a screen has been put in charge of craftsmanship but, often, digital technology's objective is to make a copy of that craftsmanship. Film makers, for instance, have to create real-looking pieces of hair, pieces of grass and drops of water even though they have the genuine items to hand.

The great museums started to pay attention to digital art at the start of the new century. Rhizome, which started as an underground platform, has been professionalised and taken into the New York Museum; The classical MOMA, Tate, Pompidou and Guggenheim have also got involved in spreading the net.art-a project and, little by little, they've started buying new media art for their collections. Not all artists understand this revolution in the same way. Many still haven't accepted digital technology art because it's changed the meanings of author's rights and copies. And that by itself has changed the way of showing, consuming and receiving art. And it's still changing. In fact, it's one of the main characteristics that digital technology has brought to art: the possibility of endless mutations. It also has to address new challenges, however. And they aren't small challenges. Although the digital revolution seems free and limitless, in fact it's more fragile than ever. Because finding new ways to continue to be subversive and democratic despite the owners of the technology and developing new skills for experimentation, without losing its own language, isn't at all easy.

Onedozero. Digital audio-visuals Onedotzero (batpuntuzero) has been created to look into where audio-visual developers have come from and where they are going. But the people from Onedotzero have quickly proved to be enthusiastic doers as well as thinkers. They've started working creatively at full steam and it's become a large, delocalised laboratory. All innovative art has a place at Onedotzero. The web gave this project a global dimension immediately. Following on this success, they quickly started publishing books and DVDs, organizing festivals all over the world, producing new work, innovative proposals for television, and many other things. We've chosen Onedotzero because it's a good place to see the development and direction of digital creativity over the last 15 years and, on the web, you can have it on you screen in a couple of clicks.

www.rhizome.org
www.onedotzero.com
www.amoda.org