The Search for New Media: Early Avant-Garde Momentum for the Digital art Pioneers of Japan
The Search for New Media: Early Avant-Garde Momentum for the Digital art Pioneers of Japan

Summary/Abstract: The inspiration and momentum for pursuing digital art as concept in Japan may well have been incubated in the early avant-garde groups of the 1950s and 1960s. Early pioneers in digital media have evolved their conceptual ideas using digital technology and interactive media. Recently, there has been a burgeoning interest in documenting the history of digital media within the international art and technology movement that is so prevalent today. What was once referred to as “computer art”, has earned the new title “digital media” in the art world, but in the field of art history it is beginning to fade into the larger art category of “new media” which includes performance, installation, environmental art, and other ventures that do not necessarily include technology. In an effort to document the interest in technology within avant-garde art groups in Japan, the purpose of this paper is to show that the attitude toward the exploration of materials and processes of the 1950s and 1960s led to a continued search for new types of media. This attitude naturally led to experiments with technology and eventually opened the way toward the digital realm and the use of computer algorithms and interactivity in the fine arts in Japan.

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