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Inside the Politics of Technology Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 January 2021
Technological mediation
The relation between art and technology
Down through history, the relationship between art and technology has assumed many guises. With the present-day rise of new media and technologies, new art forms are appearing which are often situated outside the traditional circuit. The body and its prostheses are highlighted in performances, and the visual arts often link up with industrial design and ICT applications. The formerly sharp dividing line between autonomous and applied art is gradually disappearing. Despite the increasing influence of technology on art, one still speaks of the autonomy of art. The relationship between art and technology is not without friction in contemporary art, but has it ever been problem-free? Contrary to generally held views that ascribe to the artist an almost innate autonomous position over and against cultural processes in which new technologies are adopted, artists actually tend to be accomplices to these social developments. Artists have always played a leading role in appropriating the new ways of looking and hearing that innovative technologies have offered. Technologies that open up new forms of experience have been domesticated and made manageable by artists. It is not an entirely innocent process. In fact, it can best be characterised as a disciplinary process in which the senses are culturally disciplined and the body is conditioned to match. Through the role they play in the embodiment of technology, artists are an accessory to such disciplinary processes.
The central question in describing the relationship between art and technology is that involving the nature and scope of technological mediation, since this is where this relation is fleshed out. Mediation takes place as soon as an artifact articulates our sensory relations with the world around us. Initially, the current sensory disposition is tipped off balance. That event is enveloped in new images and metaphors until a new balance is attained, one that incorporates the technology that caused the disruption in the first place. When new technologies are introduced to the public for the first time, a period of decentring commences: a period in which the users do not know what to make of the technology and the world to which it gives access.
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