Contemporary Artist: Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol’s works investigated the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement. Warhol first had a career as a commercial illustrator, and then began work with many different mediums, such as paint, sculpture, film and music. His most well-know works are paintings and silkscreen prints, such as that of Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy. His most well known medium is silk screening. The iconic figures that he used in each of these works, as well as the bright colors he used in each of his prints are what make his work so unique. Warhol’s films are his second most well know medium. Most of his films focused on the emotional or mental state of a single subject over an extended period of time. Some of his films didn’t even have a living subject, and simply focused on a building. Warhol executed this theme through film very well. Many of his pieces were very controversial during Warhol’s life, however, maybe that is what made his work so successful.

New Media Artist: Jed Berk

The specific installation A Champion Flock of Weed Eaters by Berk portrays the theme of futuristic rural space. These “sheep” are held in a futuristic solar panel covered barn, which points towards how technology is slowing beginning to control our more rural systems. Berk’s works constist mainly of interactive installation pieces that encourage the audience to be actively involved with the piece. Berk does a fantastic job creating interesting installations that not only actively involve the viewer, but also get the audience to think about the underlying themes of the pieces.

This section asks the question “What is New Media?” “New Media” could be described as numerous things in today’s society. However, there are some things that are considered to be new media, and some that are not. In order for something to be called “New Media”, the use of a computer must be involved. Since we are now living in the 21st century, our culture has shifted greatly to rely on computers for a majority of daily tasks. Since computers have an effect on all types of media, the technological revolution has had a much larger effect than all others. “New Media” is the result of a convergence between the computing and media technologies. Today, all existing media can be translated into numerical data accessible for computers. So, everywhere you go, computers are are affecting your everyday life.

As I stated earlier, new media is the result of a convergence between the computing and media technologies. This began with the Daguerreotype, and progressed to photography and movie projectors. There were also electric tabulating machines, that were developed into early computers. Once it was discovered that these types of media could be translated to be read by a computer, new media was born.

Today, media is used as an information carrier. New media helps to move this information along even faster that before. Some key differences between the new and old media are that new media is now programmable, and composed of a digital code. Also, new media objects can be combined into multimedia, while still remaining independent from one another. Another difference is that new media can be automated, completely removing human interaction from the mix. Also, new media objects are not fixed, and can be changed to hold infinite positions. Finally, new media objects can be more well-organized than old media objects, as they can be coded and filed into a computer.