Installation and New Media Art

Installation art transforms whole spaces into immersive works, while new media art employs video, computers, and networks as artistic media.

Definition

Contemporary art forms that occupy and shape three-dimensional space (installation) or use electronic and digital technologies such as video, computers, and networks (new media) as their medium.

Scope

This topic studies the rise of installation art that activates the viewer's bodily experience of a space, alongside video, digital, and networked art, examining how these forms expanded the field of art beyond discrete objects and how they relate to perception, technology, and the gallery.

Core questions

• How does installation art reconfigure the viewer's experience of space?
• How have video and digital technologies become artistic media?
• How do these forms relate to perception, the body, and the gallery?
• What challenges do technology-dependent works pose for preservation?

Key theories

Activated spectatorship in installation

Claire Bishop's argument that installation art is defined by its address to an embodied, mobile viewer whose presence completes the work, drawing on phenomenology and theories of subjectivity.

New media as artistic medium

The account, developed by Michael Rush, of how video, computers, and digital networks were absorbed as legitimate artistic media, extending the avant-garde's engagement with technology.

History

Installation art grew from 1960s environments and the legacy of Minimalism's attention to the viewer's space, while new media art developed from early video art of the 1960s and 1970s into computer-based and networked practices. Both became central to biennials and museums by the turn of the 21st century.

Debates

Preserving technology-based art

Works dependent on obsolescing video formats, software, and hardware raise difficult questions about conservation, migration, and what it means to preserve such art.

Key figures

• Claire Bishop
• Michael Rush

Seminal works

• bishop2005
• rush2005

Frequently asked questions

What is installation art?

Art that arranges objects, materials, or media within a space so that the whole environment, and the viewer's movement through it, constitutes the work.

What is new media art?

Art that uses electronic and digital technologies such as video, computers, software, and the internet as its primary medium.