The artistic contribution of the electrographic practices in the archaeology of electronic art

Abstract

Nowadays that it is almost a fact that electronic art and, therefore, Media Art, was not born without inheritance, this research presents a return to the past through the Media Archaeology methodology and within Media Art Histories line, to study the role of the automatic machine of graphical multi-reproduction -photocopy machine- and the artistic practices emerged from its adoption as an artistic media, subverting its original function.

The 1960s is an invaluable period, not only in a political, social or economical way, but this was the decade when Media Art roots emerged. Two automatic image technologies reached the market: Portapack video camera and personal computer. However, other artists started to meet a new “found media”, in universities, offices or copy shops, that was a revolution by its instantaneity, both in the process and result, in social activism period. This technology is the photocopy machine that came on the market with the Xerox 914 model in 1959. One of its significant contributions is that, from a material-physical production, these artworks established new creative parameters that will become the conceptual, aesthetic and discursive bases of current digital art.

For the development of this research, the collection belonging to the International Museum of Electrography Art (MIDE) in Cuenca will be taken as one of the examples as one of the first Spanish centers in art and new technologies, founded in 1990. The result will be the re-contextualization of paradigms and an historiographical and artistic reflection that places them as root of Media Art.