Digital Art in the Post-Digital Age: Works From Florida Faculty, 2008.

Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT’s Media Lab, declared in 1998 that “the digital revolution is over.” By his account, for the last ten years we have been living and working in the Post-Digital Age. During this time the use of the computer in the design and construction of art has advanced remarkably.

As a way of sampling the various ways in which digital technologies are assisting artists, Polk Museum of Art created a juried competition open to all art instructors and professors at the colleges and universities throughout the state of Florida. This exhibition includes 66 works by 28 different professors representing 15 colleges and universities, ranging from Miami to Tallahassee and almost everywhere in between.

Just as we have come to rely in so many ways on computers to help us through both our work and private lives, this exhibition has revealed that computers are being used in manners both predictable and surprising. It is no surprise that the exhibition includes digital video and photography work. More surprising is that artists who are painters, printmakers and ceramicists are making use of computer software to assist them in their work. In addition, though the largest universities in the state are represented in the exhibition, professors at a number of smaller universities and community colleges are doing outstanding work.