Shadow Symbols: The Cave as Cultural Canvas

As we find ourselves poised on the verge of a new millennium, computer networks are profoundly changing basic cultural concepts. Time, space, and community will mean something different in the next century. They already have a different meaning for me than they do for my students, who have grown up in a world that is profoundly electronic and increasingly digital. Telephones, televisions, and computers are routine items in the media landscape in which they live. Sesame Street, MTV, smart bombs, and live satellite feeds all combine to form the backdrop for their everyday lives.

Literacy, in this context, means something different than it has to previous generations. No longer limited predominately to the ability to read words on a page, it has now taken on more televisual dimensions. Literacy in today's electronic culture demands the ability to parallel process rapid bursts of layered images, text, motion, and sound. Citizens in this realm must have highly developed skills in reading information that is multi-layered, complex, compressed, and fragmented. Sharks must keep swimming, otherwise they sink to the bottom and die. Likewise, today's media citizen is always in motion; constantly skimming and sampling, then selectively processing chunks of information. This predatory metaphor may make some uncomfortable, but for better or worse, this is the shape and texture of cultural literacy in the electronic age. And not surprisingly, there is a natural alliance between this media environment and the digital image, both being inherently transitory and immaterial. The electronic image informs the vocabulary of late 20th century American culture, and can potentially be exploited by artists for a variety of purposes.

Artists communicate by speaking a symbolic language that is shared by the tribe. That's what prehistoric cave paintings and Renaissance altarpieces have in common. This is an aspect of art that endures, and it exists independent of medium or technique. But the tools artists use have changed throughout history, and the structure of the language is constantly in flux. Now is a particularly dangerous time for those who think History is something that happens to other people.

We are in the midst of a cultural shift that is changing how art is produced, who views it, and where it is experienced. Emerging digital technology and communication networks will effect not only individual artists, but also the institutions that exhibit art, and the institutions that train new artists.