Technology: The New Medium in Contemporary Art

Technology is redefining art in a new ways. A new and strange way that has works created by people moving through laser beams, using robotics, lights, video, data gathering, and many other things. Simply put, technology is changing how art is made and how it is experienced. Though this is not something new, the Impressionists movement might have been very different if it was not for the invention of portable paint tubes that let them paint outdoors. Andy Warhol might not have been such a prolific and popular artists if it was not for silkscreen printing. The whole point is that technology has been providing artists with new methods of expressing themselves for a very long time. Bill Viola is one of those artists and he has been very important in further developing contemporary art. Specifically, in establishing video as a form of contemporary art. Clearly over the past few decades, art and technology have become more intertwined than ever before.

The American artist Bill Viola, in full William Viola, was born January 25, 1951. He was born in New York, New York, U.S. From 1969 to 1973 he attended Syracuse University which was when he first began to work with video. During that time he was someone who prepared museum displays at Syracuse’s Everson Museum of Art. In doing so he worked with people such as Nam June Paik and Peter Campus. Peter Campus being another one of those artist known for his implementation of technology into his art. He made these interactive and single channel video works that were similar to Viola’s work. From 1974 to 1976 Viola was in Florence, working at an independent art video production facility. It was here that the Renaissance art he saw would become a major source of visual material for some of his later work. Much like the work from experimental musician David Tudor did. Viola’s study of non-Western art and cultures, especially Eastern cultures informed much of his aesthetic