Information art
Information art, also known as data art and sometimes as informatism, is a genre of art that incorporates data or information as part of the work. It may draw on fields including mathematics, science, telecommunications, and digital technology, and may use found data or archived and manipulated information.
Background
Information art developed alongside conceptual art and art-and-technology practices in the 1960s and 1970s. Art historian Edward A. Shanken has discussed the relationship between conceptual art and art and technology, noting that the two have often been treated separately in art history.
In 1970, Kynaston McShine curated Information at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The exhibition included more than 150 artists from 15 countries and dealt with the dissemination, accessibility, and perception of information. MoMA describes it as the first survey of conceptual art in the United States and as one of its early exhibitions dealing with the impact of technology on art.
Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) was founded in New York in 1966 by engineers Billy Klüver and Fred Waldhauer and artists Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman. The organization encouraged collaboration between artists and engineers and followed the 1966 performance series 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering.
Contemporary practices
Information art uses data and information as artistic material. Sources may include photographs, census data, video clips, search engine results, and network signals. The Art & Architecture Thesaurus also includes the use of found, archived, or manipulated information, as well as methods associated with mathematics, science, telecommunications, and digital systems.
See also
Examples
Related subjects
References
- ↑ "information art". Art & Architecture Thesaurus. Getty Research Institute. Retrieved 1 September 2026.
- ↑ Pocquet, Adrien (2026). "Mapping of d.i.y. neural networks' processing data in audiovisual compositions: digital waste, algorithms' idiosyncrasies, and transfictionality of data-evoking aesthetics". Organised Sound. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/S1355771826101344.
- ↑ Shanken, Edward A. (2002). "Art in the Information Age: Technology and Conceptual Art". Leonardo. 35 (4): 433–438. doi:10.1162/002409402760181259.
- ↑ "Kynaston McShine Papers". Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 1 September 2026.
- ↑ "Information Streams". Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 1 September 2026.
- ↑ "Art and Technology, 1959–98". Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Retrieved 1 September 2026.
- ↑ McKeough, Tim (February 29, 2008). "Frame That Spam! Data-Crunching Artists Transform the World of Information". Wired. Vol. 16, no. 3. CondéNet. Archived from the original on April 30, 2008. Retrieved March 5, 2008.
- ↑ "information art". Art & Architecture Thesaurus. Getty Research Institute. Retrieved 1 September 2026.
Further reading
- Allan, Ken. "Understanding Information." In Conceptual Art: Theory, Myth, and Practice, edited by Michael Corris, pp. 144–168. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
- Ascott, Roy. Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness. Edited by Edward A. Shanken. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-520-21803-1.
- Burnham, Jack. "Systems Esthetics." Artforum 7, no. 1 (September 1968): 30–35.
- Meltzer, Eve. "The Dream of the Information World." Oxford Art Journal 29, no. 1 (2006): 115–135. doi:10.1093/oxartj/kci046.
- McShine, Kynaston L., ed. Information. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1970.
- Wilson, Stephen. Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-262-73158-4.
External links
- Intersections of Art, Technology, Science and Culture- Links Archived 2012-07-01 at the Wayback Machine
- The Danish Artnode Foundation-Links
- (FILE) Electronic Language International Festival.
- Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology
- datengraphie (datagrafy) is art using data as direct material
- HTML art