Media appropriation and explicitation

Abstract

This paper presents a novel characterization of new media art together with an exploration of some key aspects of its practice: I propose that new media art’s defining characteristics are media appropriation and explicitation. With media appropriation I refer to the dialectal inscription into the art practice of the knowledge that allows for some particular technological production. I also propose that new media art’s language is constructed in part via the explicitation of certain aspects of more ‘traditional’ art, and that this explicitation allows for a construction of a new vocabulary. Examples of this are the explicitation of randomness, interaction, programming, or of the role that tools and instruments play, among others.