The Myth of New Media

"The Myth of New Media" is an essay for the special theme, "Art in the Age of Technological Seduction"—a special issue of the American on-line journal, Media-N: Journal of the New Media Caucus (http://www.newmediacaucus.org/media-n/index.htm). This paper explores the technological determinism of new media discourse & how certain art practices respond to it.\ud \ud The abstract for the special theme issue was as follows: \ud In recent years, digital technologies have penetrated our lives in innumerable ways. How do we begin to understand and critically engage with the complex effects of this deluge of information? These technologies not only changed our ways of doing things, but also profoundly conditioned our experience of ourselves and others. Have these shifts in technological processes of imaging, communication, information collection and dissemination enabled a break with established power structures and thus flattened hierarchies? Have they changed our ways of imagining and knowing? Or are they simply maintaining and re-enforcing existing hegemonic structures of power? The diverse essays, responses and anecdotes gathered here to address “Art in the Age of Technological Seduction‿ attempt to create a wedge in what is otherwise a shut door, to begin an ongoing and necessary discussion of our investments, desires, expectations and ambivalences within a world permeated by new technologies. \ud Legier Biederman & Joshua Callaghan, Guest Editor