Snap to Grid: A User's Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Cultures

Where were you in '89? A better question may be: where have we been going since the Berlin Wall fell while, at the same time, hundreds of interdisciplinary walls dissolved in the face of new technological solutions. Snap to Grid: A User's Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Cultures explores these changes as they affect how we think about and react to the world through our computer-generated filters.

Author Peter Lunenfeld, director of the Institute for Technology and Aesthetics, is well-versed in the scope of new art and design, incorporating painting, architecture, and writing in his critique as well as the expected software, virtual reality, and computer-based installations.

The first part of the book, "Cultures," examines the interactions and economics of new art and business, and how each contributes to the development and implementation of new technologies and creates a need for what Lunenfeld calls "real-time theory." Next, in "Media," is a brief discussion of the confluence of new or reinvigorated art forms. The book thoroughly explains and illustrates the state of the art in hypertext, digital photography, the Web, virtual reality, and hybrid architecture. Finally, "Makers" profiles the theory and works of six artists emblematic of the changes seen in recent years. Individuals such as filmmaker Hollis Frampton, video artist Diana Thater, and installation artist Jennifer Steinkamp show us the new world we're creating using the tools of its creation.

Eschewing the academic reliance on jargon to obscure meaning and cull the readership, the book strives for more direct communication--even including a brief glossary at the end. Snap to Grid can be read equally well as criticism, history, and futurism--thus completing the circle of influence from technology to art to theory. --Rob Lightner