Contemporary art in the digital age

Leafing through Raivo Kelomees’s new book, I caught myself thinking that there is no longer any need to worry – at least not about those digital artworks whose software has become obsolete but whose files have survived. The book is at once a pocket reference to digital art terminology, an encyclopaedia and a thoughtful narrative.

Laur Tiidemann’s “Piano”, whose files no longer work in today’s environment, can also be brought back to life. All that matters is to document the program’s original behaviour: how and at what pace it ran, on how large a screen and with which output devices it was exhibited. AI will fix everything.

Let us use this book, which brings together different artistic disciplines, in educating art students.

The sci-fi chrome covers designed by Margus Tamm probably allude to the ultra-sexy digital art of that time. Hopefully they will hold up for a long time on a book of biblical proportions.