New Media Art for an Artist Getting Started

The area of the New Media Arts is the most rapidly growing and changing of all the arts. New Media is a consequence of the changes in art and society due to film technology, digitisation, and world wide web. The 'immateriality' of the digital arts has made artworks more mobile than ever before: works are either seen virtually via the web, sent electronically to be downloaded, or can be sent in hard copy (e.g. DVD, USB, HDD) at a small cost.

As a result of the growth and fascination with the evolving possibilities of digital media, there are opportunities to partake in competitions, festivals, fora, exhibition programs worldwide, from New Delhi in India to Banff in Canada.

It's an exciting time to be starting as an explorer or practitioner of this art form, though as with any creative practice, forging a career as a new media artist is not without its pitfalls and cul-de-sacs. It can be expensive – especially when you're just starting – and its popularity means there are many emerging artists experimenting with this art form, but more limited commercial opportunities even compared to classical media forms like painting or sculpture.

What is New Media? How ‘New’ Exactly Are We Talking?

The term 'New Media' is deceptively broad, and not everyone agrees on it. Because of this, similar practices often appear under different names, with 'digital arts' being probably the most common. New Media roughly contains two basic strands of practice:

1. Outside the box of classical media categories:

The first is to do with practices that cannot be assigned to traditional painting, drawing, sculpture, or photography. This is already tricky when considering 'newer' practices that originated in the 1970s like performance art, video art and installation.

The term can sometimes be used for any artist whose work relies heavily on technology. In Germany, for example, which has been one of the significant growth centres for New Media, an artist who works in digital photography and digital video installation can adequately be called a Medienkünstler, or 'media artist'.

To cut through the confusion, we could say that New Media in the first instance involves computers in some way and in practices that challenge established and fixed concepts of art.

Joan Jonas, They Come to Us without a Word II. 2015. Performance view, Teatro Piccolo Arsenale. Music by Jason Moran and Joan Jonas. Photo: Moira Ricci. Courtesy of the artist and Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York.

Such works are hybrid, 'multiform' or 'multimodal': they are frequently collaborative, and they often combine two or more aesthetic phenomena such as sound, image and movement.

An artist like Joan Jonas, who since the late 60s combined film, performance and poetry is now called a progenitor of New Media because her work did not fit into a single category. In this instance, New Media is a category that serves in the absence of more deducible, historical categories.

While video installations (usually) with several screens and various altered effects can still be placed under the New Media umbrella, generally speaking, video art since around 2000 has now been consigned to the area of general art practice.

2. Interactive and digital arts:

The second strand of New Media is less contentious since it's defined by computerisation. A hallmark of such work is interactivity, although work is not always restricted by it. Interactivity, in this sense, is where the work of art is designed with the viewer-interactor's alteration in mind, whether that be through sensors activated by movement, or prompts set out on a screen.

The viewers' interaction with the work is part of the work itself, shaping the viewer's experience into something like a co-author.

Other digital New Media can be art that exists on the net, or work involving virtual reality (VR) in which a computer partly or wholly generates the environment. All such work does not merely present itself like a drawing or a ceramic. It requires technology to channel it, translate the raw data and to bring it into being.

Artistic Opportunities for New Media

The artistic opportunities for New Media art exist on two opposite poles.

The negatives first. And some thoughts on mitigating them.

Because New Media art is reproducible (and therefore not unique) and ephemeral (and therefore cannot be touched), it will be a long time before it reaches the commodified status of painting – if ever.

Taking advantage of heightened quality and information storage, some artists have begun to download stills from moving sequences and sell them as photographs. But their somewhat uncertain origin makes such images less attractive to anyone but the most devout and adventurous dealer.

So, suppose a work is to be purchased. In that case, it will probably be from institutions, which even the most established artists cannot bank on as conservative museum trustees are nervous about 'unbankable' items. 

New Media can be stored efficiently, so artists are advised to edition in 1-6 from the very outset. Redigitising files and burning disks in ten or more years may be time-consuming and more expensive. Copies can always be destroyed if there's a need to decrease an edition.

Isaac Julien. Ten Thousand Waves. 2010. Nine-channel video installation (color, sound). 49:41 min. The Michael H. Dunn Memorial Fund. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: Jonathan Muzikar.

Another new practice is to patent work and offers the buyer a registration that can be purchased over the web, like membership and software downloads.

The other delicate consideration has to do with the places of exhibition. Few if any artist-run spaces possess a video projector, let alone several. Hiring and insurance are expensive.

And if you wish to have more than one projector hooked up to a computer, then the expense will be more considerable still. This is why young New Media artists downsize either to single-channel video-related practice or programs that can be accessed over the net or through computers that are not top of the range. 

On to the positives.

The prospects of exhibiting for artists mid-career and beyond are excellent and getting better. The same quality of New Media that makes it such an unenticing commodity, namely its immateriality, is what gives it its distinct advantage to transport across the country or the world.

The special power of New Media is that a USB or single file can theoretically fill a room with images and sound. This makes the art and the artist exceedingly mobile. It also means that the same work can be shown in several venues simultaneously with ease.

Competitions, Venues And Residencies

New Media art is still very much in a state of flux. Since developments in software and hardware have not reached any discernible limit, and do not appear to reach it in the distant future, New Media is still experiencing an exciting phase of evolution.

The many competitions in New Media are to see what is out there and stretch the capabilities of artists in line with expanding technologies.

Residencies are of course, not limited to New Media, but it's worth noting that since around 2000, a large number of residencies do have a New Media emphasis. Residencies can range from two weeks to a year and are of many kinds, some with stipends, some without.

The mobile nature of New Media can make this an attractive way of learning about new cultures and making international contacts. However, there's something very important to note: the quality of the facilities of residency venues can be uneven. Many places that say they offer New Media artists facilities have only the most basic and limited equipment.

The solution is again to adapt and to think of projects that do not require state-of-the-art methods, and which may be, if possible, can be executed on your laptop.

Competitions and festivals are a matter of persistence as much as talent. There are now so many entries from around the world that culling processes can be ruthless. Ensure that accompanying notes for the work is concise and clear and that technical/equipment requirements for the work's realisation/installation are not too demanding. With tenacity, something always comes up.

Collaboration is common, though not compulsory.

New Media art has witnessed a development in collaboration within the arts that have made some enterprises seem like microcosms of film production.

Generally speaking, the culture of collaboration in New Media has come from ideas which require high levels of mastery of more than one area/discipline to create the work imagined by the artist. The ready example is image and sound. Levels of technical accomplishment are so high in these respective areas that artists may feel that it is unwise to go it alone.

Sometimes collaborations arise naturally from close association, or they begin as a strategic initiative, usually at the instigation of one artist. Without much professional artistic collaborative experience, it isn't useful to base everything on friendship and trust.

No matter at what stage of their career, an artist should always be aware of the dynamics of collaboration. Regardless of the level of acquaintanceship with the collaborator, it is essential to make certain aspects clear from the beginning, including:

Credit: whose name goes first? Is one person just assisting someone with the principal idea? Should an altogether new, single name be created?

Ownership: is the work 50/50 or 33/33/33 etc.? What occurs if the work is sold? Work out from the start whether the work will be editioned or a one-off. If, for example, three artists are involved, and each has gallery representation, it would probably be prudent to produce the work as an edition of three so that no-one is left out. Furthermore, what occurs if an artist wishes at a later date to extract their part of the work and exhibit or sell it separately? Do you agree? General rule: courtesy, respect and generosity.

Roles & responsibilities: who does what? Will you be comfortable for one another to write applications, make telephone calls, and speak on behalf of the duo or collective?

Rights & commercials: are there clear measures to protect rights to completed work and each individual in case later projects run afoul?

Cost of equipment can be an Inhibiting factor for starting out.

The cost of setting up studio production for New Media art can be quite staggering, especially when compared to the average artist's wage.

Most young New Media artists have emerged from an institution where they have been introduced to the requisite software and equipment. Institutions and peers' association is one of the best ways to borrow or trade equipment or buy it second hand. The consolation is that technology is now at a level that a set-up that costs around $10,000 is beyond what could be obtained in 1980 for $100,000.

As someone starting, you also may have the option of pooling resources, which can be difficult again, due to logistical complications. This might be where collaboration comes in especially handy.

As with all creative practice, experimentation and persistence are key.

If you're starting on your artistic journey and want to explore New Media, or if you're an established artist who is just beginning to dip your toe into New Media as a form, it can be an incredibly challenging and rewarding mode of expression.

There's great aesthetic and technological richness inherent in the form. As a relatively 'new' mode of practice that's subject to constant development thanks to the pace of technological innovation, there's an intoxicating potential for New Media artists to shape the present and future of the form.

While New Media has its own set of specific challenges, especially for emerging artists who are looking to start, as with other art forms, commercial success shouldn't be the sole or guiding motivation. We all know art is hard; it challenges its creators commercially, creatively, personally, and professionally.

But the pursuit and realisation of creative ideas into works that move others can also be enriching. With tenacity, passion, perseverance and an open mind when defining 'success', it's a pursuit that is well worth your time.