Roy Ascott, “Is There Love in the Telematic Embrace?” Bill Viola, “Will There Be Condominiums in Data Space?” Précis by Megan Biggins At first reading the essays written by Roy Ascott and Bill Viola bear little to no resemblance to each other, but upon a subsequent, more carefully executed, reading more similarities emerge. While Ascott’s paper discusses how art has been affected by the use of digital media as an art form and Viola questions how digital technology will be utilized to improve the world, both are essentially questioning what the ramifications of digitization of more and more of the media based world will be. The similarities between these two essays lie in the fact that both essays are questioning how digital media will change how the world functions and how people function in relation to each other. In his essay Ascott addresses how different forms of digital and other medias have come together to form networks that, because of the interaction of such forms of communication as computing and telecommunications, are almost without limit in size. Within these same parameters of combination of different media forms Ascott brings to light the question of media in art and how that would change the traditional notion of art as something that must be observed. When digital technology is used as an art form the creator wants the observer to become less of an observer then a participant because the work is not only about the feelings f the artist but the feelings of the observer/participant. This type of art in which the observer can participate in the creation of the art as much as the artist would henceforth been impossible, because only the fluidity within parameters found in digital media could make it easily and understandably so. This also brings to light questions as to what role must humanity take in the creation of art? Will the traditional definition of artist be abandoned for the computer that can develop ways for human beings to manipulate their own “art”? Ascott answers that in saying that a computer is merely a thing and can only be given creative life with in the parameters a human can set for it. Also it is proposed that people should stop seeing digital media as an extension of the traditional more static arts of painting, sculting etc, and see it as an entirely new, more fluid artistic medium. In his essay Bill Viola questions how new forms of media will be used. Viola is less concerned then Ascott that they will break down other forms of communication then they will be misused and their potential usefulness to humanity go unrealized. In this context he discusses how new digital media will change education, as it will allow students to go through a subject at their own pace and explore the different related tangents in that subject according to their interests. Despite the possibilities new technologies present Viola feels they will in all likelihood be used as simple objects of entertainment or in other apparently trivial pursuits. Also questioned is how these new technologies will affect cultural concepts of space. Viola discusses how, in one way or another, most cultures have had some sort of remembrance method to bring about pieces of the past in their mind. These methods have worked for centuries but only because humans have the presupposed notion of there being a place for their memories to go while they are mulling over them. While this space does not actually exist in the physical world it does have limitations and capabilities which, while aware of, humans had no real conscious effort in. With digital technology the same type of space exists that humans are able to call memory into, but they must first create a space by programming it with parameters and capabilities, otherwise the space would be powerless almost because it had no limitations on its power. Then the human must go to the effort of placing memory within this space because the computer can not attain it on its own, nor can a computer call memory on its own, so again this is a new way of dealing with memory because it requires much more effort by the human to first record and then recall something. The benefits: computers never forget and memories can be warped with just a few touches of a button. Where these authors come together is that both are contemplating how digital technologies will effect human perception. Ascot discusses art and Viola discusses memory and education, but in the end both have made the same point that with more and more widespread use human beings’ perception of the world will become more and more altered and farther and farther away from traditional spheres of the thinking. The almost limitless possibilities for change and exploration provided by digital technology allow the human mind and ideas to develop n a way that it never could before simply because no similar technologies have ever come into existence, with such force as the digital technologies have.
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