What is improvisation, and what does it have to do with digital media?

The characteristics of digital media are usually considered in relation to pre-digital media: digital photography is faster than chemical-based photography, digital video is cheaper than film production, computer manipulation of images is more sophisticated than hand-retouching techniques.

It may be, however, that this misses the point (and therefore the potential) of digital media entirely. A bicycle, after all, is not really a machine for faster walking, nor is a telephone really a machine for more-distant talking. The real resonance and capability inherent in new technologies is generally only discovered after the initial “revolution” caused by these technologies begins to fade. The automobile allowed people to drive fast – but its real effect on our culture is seen in the reshaping of our cities and the re-ordering of our society.

When digital media comes to full fruition – when digital photography is just “photography,” for example – we may begin to understand that it lends itself to other strategies than those that were primary at its beginnings. Art production in our culture is currently dominated by a “compositional” strategy: pre-visualize something, create it, consider it, refine it into perfection. The speed, strength and depth that digital media seems to offer, however, may free artists to develop other methods to address ideas and issues that “composition” cannot.

If one thinks of the model of the jazz player – continually building skills, trying new and experimental ideas each night and then reworking these the very next night -- vs. the classical piano student, perfecting valuable but known material, one can see that there may be room for alternative approaches, and that these may prove central to what digital media can grow to be.

- ted.fisher : 9.28.02