DIGITAL ART : DEFINITIONS AND ORIGIN

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of definitions used in defining digital art, as well as the origins of this phenomenon. With a fairly large number of publications on the topic of digitization of art, the issue of the instability of the terminological apparatus almost does not attract attention of researchers.
The author pays attention to the fact that there is currently no common name for art in digital format. The definitions that can be found in scientific circulation are quite different: digital art, computer art, art of a computer, media art, etc. At the same time, researchers can use them as synonyms, or they can consider them different phenomena or parts of each other.
Since digital technologies are developing very rapidly, the categorical apparatus does not keep up with them. Discussions are caused by many other factors: the problem of authorship, mostly the virtual environment of existence of such artworks, methods and extent of their digitization, etc. Above-mentioned reasons lead to a situation where researchers in each work are forced to justify the use of this or that term, as well as to explain the meaning in which it will be used.
The problem of the origins of digital art also appears to be understudied, and too different concepts prevailhere. Most scholars hold the point of view that the foundation for the development of digital art was avant-garde, and Futurism and Dadaism made a special contribution here. The technological aesthetics of futurism, the ready-made technique in Dadaism, the collage technique (popular in both currents) all these techniques are actively used in digital art. From our point of view, the contribution of pop art was no less fruitful: for example, the emphasis on the purely technical aspects of making a work led to the development of glitch art in the digital age.
The outlined problems require a more extensive study, with specific artistic examples. However, from our point of view, neither the problem of definitions nor the problem of origins will be solved in the near future in the field of digital art, because it touches on many other problems that also do not have clear answers.