Please forgive Artforum editor Philip Leider for rejecting the idea of a digital art issue, like so:
I xxx cant imagine ARTFOR/UM xxxx ever doing a special issue on electronics or computers in art, but one never knows
It was 1967. Computers were room-size. The internet wasn’t born yet. How could he know?
Do we take it for granted that digital/”electronic”/”computer” media is ingrained in so much of contemporary art making and theory? It would be 2000 until Artforum published Rachel Greene’s “A History of Internet Art” (later followed by her comprehensive Internet Art book). In 2012, Claire Bishop published the under-researched, dismissive “Digital Divide” new media takedown (PDF). Hell, last year, Sarah Nicole Prickett wrote up the National Selfie Gallery exhibit I co-curated in London on Artforum.com for fuck’s sake. Could Leider have imagined an Artforum.com?
And though the anniversary issue a few years ago came close (with a piece on Petra Cortright by Bruce Sterling and Greil Marcus on Marshall McLuhan), we’re still waiting on that special digital art issue. Out with it, Artforum! It’s time. (Image: Prosthetic Knowledge)
