Galáxia. Revista Transdisciplinar de comumicaçao, semiótica, cultura nº4

When we consider that the art of every era is made using the media available at the time, it follows that the media arts represent the most advanced expression of current artistic creation. Today, more than ever, artist are using cameras, computers, synthesizers to construct their images, their music, their text, their enviroments. Suddenly, we have become aware of dizzy amount of works all around us created, with a heavy dose of techological means. Naturally, the tecniques, the methods, the devices that the artist uses to conceive, construc and exhibit works of art not mere inert tools, nor innocent means indifferent in regard to the results, wich can be interchanged at will by any number of other means. They are charged with concepts, they have a history, they derive from well-defined productive conditions. The media arts, as any art strictly determined through technical means, present the artist with the permanent challenge of counterposing himself or herself against technological determinism, of refusinf¡g the preconfigured operative models built into the devices, thus assuring that the resulting artwork is not a more endorsement of the objectives of productivity of the technological society. The delinate a clear border between what is , on the one hand more industrial production of agreeble designs for the mass media, and on the other, the search fpr an ethics and aesthetics for the electronic era.