Whether we’ve admitted to it or not, we live in an extremely digital world. As you read this, I am able to communicate with you digitally. It is an expansion ubiquitous to technological advances and our enhanced lifestyles. So what does this term “digitalism” mean for the art world? Today, it means a change. Art is one of the oldest forms of visual discourse we’ve ever known. From viewing, to sharing, and even buying, we are seeing the world of art change before us. To study this expansion of digitalism in art, I am visiting an article published in 2014 by Jonathan Bowen from Birmingham City University and Tula Giannini from Pratt Institute titled Digitalism: The New Realism? Through this article and other examples of digital expansion, we can observe the important affects of digitalism in art.
The term “digital” has many definitions depending on the context of its use. Before understanding its meaning in the art world, we need to be able to define it as it is used in the contemporary art world. Bowen and Giannini observed digitalism in a cultural and artistic context in order to define and understand its involvement with society. According to their definition, “digital” in art refers to artists’ use of computers and its involvement in the creation and sharing of the arts.1