A Definition of Technology

• Anything that we make is, in a sense, technology. A sharpened stick is technology. The term as it is generally used today, however, refers to the creations of industry, and usually to the digitally based phenomena that began appearing with the advent of computers in the 1960s. Industrial tools and products have had a tremendous effect on the creation of art, while digital technologies have affected both the means of creating art and the content of the art itself.
  
  

Art Before Technology

• "Traditional art" can be defined as the media and techniques that we associate with museums: drawing, painting, sculpture, and architecture, as well as the artisan-based creations that have existed for centuries: weaving, woodworking, metalworking, jewelry, and related crafts. For most of human history, all of these fields were accomplished with no electricity, no artificial light, no plastics, and no motors. The exquisite nature of some of the creations of the past is in itself a commentary on the assumed necessity of technology.
  
  

Art Unaffected by Technology

• Certain arts are so wed to the movement and function of the human hand that they have been largely unaffected by technology. Foremost among these is traditional oil painting. Although most painters now buy their paints rather than mix them themselves, and although the reproduction of paintings has been revolutionized, the actual practice of painting remains remarkably similar to what it was 500 years ago. In the presence of a painter, a brush, a canvas, and the paints, any added technology is largely superfluous.
  
  

Art Affected by Technology

• Many arts that used to be accomplished by hand have been revolutionized by the invention of new technologies. Artists working in heavy or industrial materials such as stoneworking and steel sculpture have had their burdens eased by powered lifts, pneumatic tools, and power saws. Creators such as graphic designers and architects, who previously had to replicate images by hand over and over, now accomplish this in seconds using sophisticated graphic design and CAD computer programs.
  
  

Art Created by Technology

• At the far end of the technological spectrum in the art world are the media that exist entirely within technology. More and more artists are basing their work in cyberspace, as our culture begins to adjust itself to the possibilities and frontiers of the internet. As the abilities of technology continue to expand and to become accessible to more and more people, the future of art becomes less and less predictable.