Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Northumbria at Newcastle
Introduction: Why Transdisciplinary Digital Art?
The volume presents writing from artists, scientists, designers and scholars who term themselves as transdisciplinary and is the first volume to collect papers on the topic of transdisciplinary digital art. The volume collects papers from two conferences (Interactive Futures and Digital Art Weeks) that Gibson organized / co-organized. The output aims to establish parameters for the emergent area of transdisciplinary research in art, science and technology. The research imperative for this output was to capture how transdisciplinary research involves a level of direct connection between disciplines. In transdisciplinary research scholars, artists and scientists are expert in more than one discipline. True transdisciplinarity involves more than mere interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars in two distinct disciplines.
The research process started with a review of papers from two Interactive Futures and two Digital Art Weeks conferences (2006 and 2007). Each was reviewed by the three editors and chosen for their contribution to the collective establishment of transdisciplinary arts as a new area of research and practice. Gibson's introduction Why Transdisciplinary Digital Art argues that transdisciplinarity is distinct from interdisciplinarity. In transdisplinary practice, practitioners become expert in more than one area, whereas in interdisciplinary work practitioners collaborate with experts in other fields. This innovative transdisciplinary paradigm is discussed as a model for collaboration across disciplines where collaborators have more than a cursory knowledge of the "other" discipline.
The other papers cover a range of disciplines including computer science, electronic music, interactive installation and digital theory. Many papers cross unusual divides (Pappenheimer’s covers inkblots, musical tunings and Situationist aesthetics in equal measure), while others introduce areas of research not commonly associated with the digital (Ramocki’s introduces a Marxist analysis of digital culture). The publication led to further Digital Art Weeks conferences (China, 2010; Singapore, 2013).
