The evolution of new media has reached a point where it is now being sought out by photography-based galleries to fill their spaces. Why this shift? There is definitely a lack of art spaces to represent new media works, and I am in no way dissenting this shift. But to me it is curious that photography’s life in a gallery seems to be coming to an end after such a short life. It’s almost as if photography has become a fleeting movement rather than remaining an artist’s medium.

Has the proliferation of digital photography, and the ease with which anyone can take a photo, changed how gallery spaces embrace the medium? In five years, the CONTACT festival alone has grown from 140 exhibitions to 211. “Beautiful” photography just doesn’t cut it anymore, and it seems that galleries are now drawn to more conceptual works, which often include moving images and installations.

I think that moving images are indeed appropriate in photography-focused galleries as a video is, essentially, a series of still photographs displayed in quick succession. But this isn’t new media anymore. Does “new media” itself need a new name? Video art was new media in the 1970s, when the likes of Vito Acconci and Joan Jonas appropriated the corporate tool and used the moving image to explore location of body and monitor–explicitly using video to address the media itself. It seems that contemporary video art is using the medium as documentation, like a moving photograph. Is this conceptual anymore?

New media is such that its definition is constantly in flux. I think this phenomenon can be likened to the way “Modern Art” now refers to painting and sculpture between Impressionism and Pop Art. Relativity is key, here, which is why I think new media is difficult to pin down. Perhaps it’s not in flux as much as it is merely variable. I have seen works with the following characteristics defined as new media:

1. Digital (as opposed to analog)
I don’t think photography fits into this category necessarily, since real-life objects are being represented by similar devices in both cases. I mean “digital” to refer to the creation of images using digital technologies, such as CGI, virtual reality, computer illustration, etc. I suppose it’s also the difference between painting and photography, and photography and virtual reality.

2. Works created with contemporary innovations
This is where the term “new” becomes relative. Ten years ago, net art was new. Thirty years ago, collaboration between artists and engineers was new. What’s new today? What will be new in the future? Is thirty-year-old new media still new media?

3. Interactivity
My favourite characteristic of new media — the requirement of audience for function or effect. See Norman White’s Helpless Robot or Gary Hill’s Tall Ships.

I have sort of gone off topic here, but ultimately I’d like to address how it is new media figures into gallery spaces. Is the gallery an appropriate space for new media work? I think the nature of galleries is such that encourages a distance between artwork and viewer. The gallery is a quiet, reflective space that typically promotes caution and consideration. I find that putting anything interactive into a typical gallery space is highly counterintuitive. It just can’t be done without somehow instructing people to touch and play, which somewhat defeats the purpose of an object being made to interact with a human being.

Perhaps the nature of new media is far too broad to define or even characterize, making appropriate space solutions a difficult task. Since 2001 I’ve seen a growing number of events and parties that focus on exhibiting new media in social environments. It’s a good way to go…

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