Media Art in the Age of Digital Production: Digital Identities

Along with a brief archeology of digital media and media art, this paper examines how technology has embodied the desire of self-identity as well as transcendence of human experience in digital environment. In the tandem development of technology and human perception, digital media has become one of artistic forms for self-expression in search of ontological realization that also manifests the status quo of relationship between human and computational system. Together with the extension of their being by means of technology, media artists experiment and identify the uniqueness intrinsic in new media for the sake of distinction from it in mainstream culture. By discussing media art history in the context of technological advancement, we can reevaluate its implications and potentials revealed by media art, and reconsider meanings of exploiting technology in contemporary art.