Digital art is fundamentally digital; it is art which cannot happen without some contemporary media technology, some element of computation, some bit-based machine. Digital art goes by a lot of names — net art, electronic art, computational art, multimedia art, new media art, screen-based art — but generally, this is a domain in which the objects of discussion rely absolutely on modern and contemporary electronics to achieve their artistic purpose.

This collection of essays explores digital art in Ireland, filling a major gap in the national media archaeology of Ireland by bringing together a collection of timely perspectives from scholars and practitioners engaged with screen-based expression. In no way is this book a true representative selection of forms and figures, but it is, hopefully, a small contribution to addressing what remains an intellectual void.

Wonderfully creative things are happening with computers, screens and machines right across the spectrum of artistic practice, but through disciplinary isolation — by focusing only on fine art, literature or film — we are blinding ourselves to contemporary media art as a wider cultural upheaval. The intimate connections being formed between the digital and the expressive, and how such production is mediated through national contexts, will only be fully revealed when considered through an interdisciplinary gaze. This book, comprising contributions from EL Putnam, Anne Karhio, Ken Keating, Conor McGarrigle, Kieran Nolan, Claire Fitch, Kirstie North and Chris Clarke, attempts to do just that, treating what it means for art to be both digital and Irish.

O’Sullivan

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