Digital Arts Online
Digital technology has changed virtually (pun not originally intended) every genre of art, while also making possible a host of new genres like net art, digital murals, software art, digital installation, and virtual reality artworlds.
At the same time, cyberspace has proliferated points of access to non-digital art in the form of online museums, galleries, art encyclopedias, sites for individual artists, and so forth.
Since art is one of the most powerful expressive tools in human culture, art online is playing a crucial role in raising issues about inequalities and inadequacies of digital representation of various cultures and social visions.
The sites below give a small sampling of the many ways that artists and cultural critics have sought to use the new media technologies to strengthen the presence of groups currently mis- or under-represented in US and global culture.
Some sites are actual works of digital- or cyber-art, others are resource sites for finding more examples of the diversity of new media and traditional art online.
Featured Site
- Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC). Great site for one of the most important public art centers in the world. Learn about the hundreds of community murals SPARC has created, preserved, and recorded, including many recent digital murals.
Representative Sites
- African American Music and Culture Archive Fine resource on jazz, blues, hip hop and other black cultural/political art forms.
- Cecilia Alvarez Latina painter/muralist whose portraits raise issues of poverty and cultural identity.
- Amerinda A major resource on American Indian/Native artists and cultural workers of all kinds.
- Arab and Arab-American Art Contemporary art in new and old media.
- Art in the Public Interest Fine resource on community art movement(s).
- ArtCycloPedia Extensive guide to finding art and artists online.
- ArtPort Whitney Museum's net art portal.
- Assemblage: Women's New Media Gallery A no longer updated but still useful gallery of women's new media art.
- Beehive Collective Graphic artists focused especially on environmental justice and related social issues.
- Black Shoals Digital art project that turns the stock market into a "night sky" of activity.
- Blackness for Sale (on eBay) Provocative piece by Keith Obadike.
- Break the Silence Mural and Arts Project Community arts collaborative dedicated to traditional and new media works illuminating social justice issues around the globe.
- Brown Pride Site for the promotion of Latino/a arts and culture.
- Claiming Art, Reclaiming Space Post-Apartheid art from South Africa.
- Sue Coe Prolific painter and printer maker who has made brilliant graphic illuminations of political issues ranging from apartheid to factory farming to AIDS to the prison industrial complex.
- Critical Art Ensemble Among the most influential troupes practicing tactical media, and digital performance art.
- Critical Voice Political performance art troupe.
- Cybracero by Alex Rivera. A sensible solution to the immigrant worker problem?
- Daniel: New Media Documentary: Technology for Social Inclusion Artist Susan Daniel lecture on her work participatory culture and tech for social change.
- Day With(out) Art project (Visual AIDS) Art world response to AIDS deathtoll.
- Digital Storytelling A multicultural revival via digital media of the ancient art of community storytelling.
- Dia Art Foundation Web Projects Net art inspired by Dia.
- Drawing the Line at Place: Environmental Justice Project Article on an unusual art project linking toxic waste and social injustice in Louisiana.
- Feminist S/F Wiki Science fiction and fantasy have been major mediums for exploring gender as a social construction and technofeminism as a liberation strategy.
- Frameline National organization supporting gay and lesbian filmmaking.
- Coco Fusco A multimedia/performance artist many of whose works brilliantly reflect on race, gender and technology.
- GuerillaGirls They call themselves the "feminist conscience of the art world," and have worked tirelessly for three decades to bring greater gender and racial equality to the art and museum scene.
- Hapa Project Visually deconstructing racial mixed messages.
- Bob Haozous A Warm Springs Chiricahua Apache sculptor who explores the deep complexities of contemporary Native identities.
- Daniel Heyman Artist whose work includes striking portraits of Iraqis tortured by the US and its surrogates.
- Alfredo Jaar Chilean artist/architect much of whose work darkly illuminates political atrocities and injustices.
- Latin American Net Art Database with dozens of links.
- Maya Llin Famous as the creator of the Vietnam War Memorial, Lin is currently working on a major site-specific installation tracing the multicultural history of the Columbia River in Washington.
- Longhouse Media Project to involve Indian youth in new media production.
- James Luna Site for this renowned Pooyukitchum (Luiseño) and Mexican-American performance artist and multimedia installation artist.
- Amalia Mesa-Bains Site for this important Chicana installation artist, known especially for her political redefinition of the altar.
- Making Face, Making Soul A major Chicana literature and culture site.
- Movies, Race and Ethnicity Fine example of an early online resource on race and media from University of California, Berkeley library.
- Names Project AIDS Quilt Massive, collective art tribute to lives lost to AIDS.
- New Media Caucus Transnational non-profit org dedicated to new media art. Includes an extensive resource bibliography.
- NetArt.org A rich portal to "web related art."
- Mendi and Keith Obadike New (and old) media artists whose works often richly address race and gender.
- Lillian Pitt Wasco, Yakama, Warm Springs Indian whose work explores synergies between traditional and contemporary Native arts and cultures.
- Pocha Nostra Homepage for Mexican/Chicano political performance artist Guillermo Gomez-Peña and friends. Gomez-Peña has been among the most active users of digital media and digital metaphors to explore race and gender, particularly with regard to the cultures along and across the southern border of the US.
- Reel Grrls Terrifically successful project empowering young women from low income communities to become video and film artists.
- Rent-a-Negro by Damali Ayo. A solution to liberal guilt?
- RetroType by Jessica Ivins. Play a female avatar stereotype from the not so good old days.
- Martha Rosler Long one of America's most celebrated socially conscious photographers
- Reza Michael Safavi Digital multimedia artist and teacher at Washington State University.
- Larissa Sansour Jerusalem-born mutlimedia artist much of whose work illuminates the injustices and political struggles in the Middle East.
- Roger Shimomura Artist who combines Asian styles with pop culture graphics whose work often illuminates cross-cultural social issues, like the Japanese internment of WWII as echoed in the occupation of Iraq by US forces.
- Clarissa Sligh Multimedia artist with a long-time commit to art for social justice.
- South Asian Literature Chai Room Pioneering example of a site dedicated to an underrepresented literary community.
- Tate Intermedia Portal to featured intermedia art from the Tate galleries of London.
- They Rule Digital art aimed at letting users map the US power elite.
- Third World Newsreel Longstanding collective that has produced many of the most important documentary films about social injustice in the US and worldwide.
- Voices from the Gaps Rich site on Women artists and writers of color, US and beyond.
- Fred Wilson Starting point to explore work of a key African American installation artist.
- WomenArt Links to many contemporary women artists.
- World's Women online International women's art site.
- X-Mission Ursula Biemann project reflecting the Palestinian response to occupation.
- Yes Men Fix the World Finally, a global corporate conscience, or at least the pretense of one.
- Pamela Z Multimedia sound artist/vocalist who plays with the politics of voice and cultural identity.