Light of the Sacred Box / Cyber-Salvation

There is the need to express oneself. When one expresses oneself with musical passion, lyrical poetry, and aesthetic values, then one begins feeling fulfillment artistically. There is a definite search going on and there isn’t an artist that doesn’t search in his own way. Whatever forms this search takes, I believe basically that the essential subjective question "What is my relationship to this vast technological menagerie?"


The hype surrounding hybrid CD-ROM’s and The Internet is fast approaching critical mass. Millions of artists collectively roll their eyes as new buzzwords whiz by and then disappear. Self-proclaimed "desperately hip" magazines and websites promoting a new and better way, cyber-salvation, the cure for what ails you are ubiquitous. "Bowing down" to the sacred box to fulfill all our needs is quite disturbing to me. But in the spirit of this frenzy, I have not lost sight of the usefulness of this new technology. Yes, beyond the hundreds of new wave communication books and the thousands of websites I’m still convinced that it is an exciting place to be right now. The Internet is a truly a democratic platform allowing individuals regardless of age, sex, race, religion, access to vast stores of human knowledge. This may change the human species as a whole, it will redefine who we are and what we do. "Are we ready for such a change?" This communications medium of the 21st century is transforming our culture by fundamentally altering the way we communicate. The nature of what we say and how quickly it can be disseminated is assuming a significant role in all fields. Ironically, we have come full circle in terms of immediacy from storytelling at its most primal as compared to the speed of digital communication. There is a significant amount of content on published CD-ROM’s and on the Internet but artists must see themselves in context with the world of Interactive telecommunications and the larger society in which technology functions. Many major historical eras are rarely produced by a single cause, but result from the convergence of many separate and independent developments that innovation helped to create.


The digital artist must adapt to a constant accelerating change with unpredictable results. This constant change requires the digital artist to respond to survive and thrive. In this "quicksilver" environment responsible artists must seek to be "the" agents of change. While crafting articulate messages requires discipline in all areas of the visual and liberal arts, digital artists today must also play a formative role in creating a new social conscience. The public square of the past is being replaced by the Internet, which enables average citizens to participate in international discourse and communicate with a broader audience than ever before possible.


But what is creative expression if it does not expose relentless indifference, violence, racism, inequality, and apathy in our culture? American culture is no longer the expression of free speech but possibly mankind going off the dark and deep end... Instilling values doesn’t come from the religious right or fundamentalists, it comes from the very society itself, not government, not computer chips that filter out sex and violence, but a self-balancing act and self censoring system. In today’s age, computer literacy has become an essential element in self education and an important tool in self progress. This is a new thechnology, but what is it's purpose?

© Copyright 1997 Denise Urban