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Software art refers to works of art where software, or concepts
from software, play an important role; for example software applications which were created by artists and which were intended as
artworks.
Software art as an artistic discipline has attained growing attention since the late 1990s. It is closely related to Internet art since it heavily relies on the Internet, most notably the World Wide Web, for dissemination and critical discussion of the works.
Browser art is an important subset
of software art.
Since 2000, software art has become a genre worthy of critical speculation and merit. Art festivals such as Transmediale (Berlin), Prix Ars Electronica (Linz) and readme (Helsinki) have
devoted considerable attention to the medium and through this have helped to bring software art to a wider audience of theorists
and academics. However, there is some concern over whether software art as a specific genre is merely a passing trend.
Selection of artists and works
- The London-based artist group I/O/D created the Web Stalker in 1998 - an alternative, simple browser which creates maps of websites
instead of displaying separate pages.
- Carnivore
, by the Radical Software Group, is an artistic
parody of the wire tapping application of the same name (Carnivore), created by
the FBI. The artistic version is an application with server-client architecture; several
artists have created client applications for this project.
- Alexei Shulgin is well known for this 386DX performance group, but is also credited with
early software art-inspired creations such as form art.
- Adrian Ward has won several
awards for his Signwave Auto-Illustrator, an generative art graphic design application, which parodies Adobe Photoshop.
- Amy Alexander performs with
self-authored software art under the pseudonym of ubergeek. Her act makes reference to the nature of the software hacker
and the potential creative role they play in society.
- Casey Reas, creator of GroupC.net, writes both generative and interactive software to create kinetic screen-based drawings.
Examples include Tissue, MicroImage, and Articulate. He has presented his work at Ars Electronica and other international festivals.
Links
Software art is also a term for the graphic design of visual elements contained in software, eg. GUI ( Graphic User Interface ), Icons, etc.
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