CONCEITO
Keywords: Digital technology; Contemporary graphic design; New media art; Medium; Expansion
Abstract: This research focuses on the dialogue and interaction between emerging virtual digital technologies and traditional disciplines such as graphic design. In practice, these disciplines often intersect and have become increasingly interdependent in new projects. This evolution began with the early application of digital image editing software as a collage tool, and as activities in the field became more frequent, designers gradually immersed themselves in the use of various hardware and software. The rapid technological advancements sparked the ambition of artists to explore new domains while maintaining close relationships with traditional methods.
Over the past three decades, globalization, the development of free markets, and the rise of capital have driven the widespread adoption of information and communication technology. The rapid development of technology has shaped the form and growth of digital technologies. Under the influence of digital technology, the media and capital have created a fast-forward effect, making everything seem to occur at an accelerated pace, bringing about drastic changes that include both the pleasures and fears of digital culture. Advances in cybernetics, robotics, and artificial intelligence have dissolved physical distances, and the rise of virtual technologies has led to the dissolution of material reality. The emergence of posthuman theories has illuminated previously unknown domains, bringing them into the light.
The rapid development of digital technology and the internet has had a profound impact on art, with the flourishing of modern art being accompanied by a surge in research on digital media technologies. This has altered the way artists create and the forms their media take. Artworks created through binary computer codes are now widely recognized and popular in mainstream galleries. Technological progress not only provides technical support for new media-related creations but also supports traditional fields like graphic design. Since the 1960s, contemporary graphic design has evolved through its interaction with contemporary social media, cultural forms, and technological developments. Unlike the modernist theories based on "medium specificity," contemporary graphic design is directly rooted in technology, drawing new knowledge from it and generating new media, allowing for the expression of conceptual meaning and technical practices. The expression of conceptual meaning and the process of technical practice are inseparable, as technology has deeply embedded itself in artistic practice. The level of embedding determines different paradigms of expression.
In the 21st century, both thought and creative practices have expanded rapidly beyond visual arts, particularly in the culture of computer-based media, and media convergence has brought about extraordinary innovation in mass media, technology, and art. Digital technology integrates sound, images, and text into a cohesive image system, directly impacting the medium, affecting, and determining the concepts and forms of graphic design and other disciplines. The new technological mechanisms at various levels offer artists "technical support," replacing some traditional artistic media, while artists also attempt to "discard" these technologies to explore their potential for expression. Modern graphic design practices no longer rely on a single dominant medium but instead integrate multiple, interdependent media, creating a post-medium environment where art is practiced.
Following the "end" of contemporary art after Donald Judd's theories, Rosalind Krauss's theory of "expanded field" summarized the structural forms of postmodern art, which can be developed and extended in the logic of Klein's fourfold system. Under the discussion of the expanded field, with the rise of television, computers, and the internet revolution, traditional art disciplines (such as graphic design) absorbed the essence of the cultural and technological developments that led to their "end," gradually surpassing their original definitions of "paint on canvas." After several periods of stagnation and development, graphic design has expanded into an unlimited multimedia "simulation space," continuing to provide a place and location for the exploration of its many possibilities. In fact, as early as the beginning of the 20th century, modern artists began to expand the practice of graphic design, such as the exploration of collage art and mixed media art. Collage originated in Cubism, where Picasso introduced foreign materials like wallpaper, newspapers, and cardboard, breaking the surface of images and expanding the scope of flat operations. Subsequently, Duchamp abandoned all techniques related to painting, pushing the expansion of graphic design to its logical extremes.
Today, an increasing number of artistic groups are expanding graphic design into broader fields, continuously integrating different technologies into their creative practices, such as completing images on digital screens using programs like Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter, or printing these images onto traditional canvases to continue their creative practice. They combine three-dimensional, sound, and video elements, pushing graphic design from flatness to a more comprehensive, integrated form. Graphic design continuously redefines itself, whether as a theory or a visual proposition, and remains in a subtle dialogue with the conceptual background of painting history. These conceptual backgrounds constantly debate and intertwine, driving the boundaries of graphic design to expand into what can be described as "truly astonishing" creative realms.
Figure 1: The Expansion of Graphic Design: Artists are integrating different technologies into their creative practices, incorporating three-dimensional, sound, and video elements into the two-dimensional foundation, causing graphic design to expand from flatness into the spatial domain. Graphic design thrives by calling upon the attributes of other media, breaking through the limitations of flatness and stillness, using digital innovation to extend its boundaries and present a comprehensive, multifaceted post-medium structure.
In the digital technology era, advancements in cybernetics, computing, and artificial intelligence have led to a transformation in societal mechanisms, from the disciplinary society described by Foucault to the control society of today. Under the influence of posthumanism, human-machine collaboration continues to provide technical and intellectual support for artists. Artists are no longer the sole creators of artworks but are coordinators of production between technology, materials, ideas, and audience interactions, exploring their ongoing collaborative relationships with non-organic systems. Informationization, automation, and visualization have become new trends in contemporary graphic design, creating new realities for digital aesthetic output. Graphic design, in its ongoing expansion, integrates itself, continually nourishing and connecting with historical methods while exceeding its own ontology and achieving self-realization in new dimensions.