History of Art in the Digital Age: Problems and Possibilities

This paper [1] aims to provide a broad overview on the impact of computers on the study of the history of art. It begins by considering the nature of the information technology revolution, exploring the often-made analogy between it and the 'Gutenberg' revolution brought about by the development of the printing press. Like Gutenberg, the IT development is technologically driven. However it is driven to a different end, one that emphasizes flexibility as well as dissemination. This flexibility can be a two edged sword. While it enables many new possibilities, it also seems to encourage a more fragmentary and iterative approach to study; to the preference of information over knowledge. It remains, however, something of an open question whether this new approach is a necessary consequence of the structure of the new technology being made available or whether it is more a product of that wider intellectual change that has grown with the emergence of Post-modernist discourses. I would argue that the latter is the case, and that the fragmentary tendencies that can be accommodated by the new technology can also be countered by those who wish to do so. The computer has developed in the way it has as a result of consumer demand. It is up to those who wish to make different demands to feed these into the technological processes as they are expanded and modified. The paper also looks more specifically at issues that particularly affect the study of images, considering both the potential provided by the digital image for new forms of exploration and analysis, and the new opportunities that are emerging via the World Wide Web.