Login | Register

Art Behind the Screen: Understanding Digital Art Encounters

Title:

Art Behind the Screen: Understanding Digital Art Encounters

Kitty, Walker (2025) Art Behind the Screen: Understanding Digital Art Encounters. Masters thesis, Concordia University.

[thumbnail of Walker_MA_S2025.pdf]
Preview
Text (application/pdf)
Walker_MA_S2025.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License Spectrum Terms of Access.
1MB

Abstract

This master’s thesis investigates contemporary art encounters in digital spaces, framing them as unique “hyperreal territories.” Through an autoethnographic study of a virtual exhibition Earth Tones Museum, this research uses Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to analyze the lively relationships between human and non-human “actants”, everything from the visitors of platform to the invisible code to interface glitches and to animated frogs.
Findings reveal that virtual encounters are co-created performances where users act as “bricoleurs,” inventively navigating technical failures and repurposing digital tools. The study concludes that these encounters are contingent, distributed networks and proposes a “pedagogy of the glitch,” urging artists and educators to shift from replication to invention, embracing friction and empowering visitors as co-creators of their own experience within the digital space.

Divisions:Concordia University > Faculty of Fine Arts > Art Education
Item Type:Thesis (Masters)
Authors:Kitty, Walker
Institution:Concordia University
Degree Name:M.A.
Program:Art Education
Date:8 August 2025
Thesis Supervisor(s):jessie, beier
ID Code:995985
Deposited By: Kathryn Walker
Deposited On:04 Nov 2025 15:06
Last Modified:04 Nov 2025 15:06

References:

About. (n.d.). About. https://info.newart.city/about
Amorim, J. P., & Teixeira, L. (2020). Art in the Digital during and after Covid: Aura and Apparatus of Online Exhibitions. Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 12(5). https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s1n2
Assuncao, C. (2018). Is Pokémon GO Feminist? An Actor-Network Theory Analysis.
Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association, 3(3). https://doi.org/10.26503/todigra.v3i3.78
Bajpai, V. (2023). Unveiling the Dynamics of Performance: Analyzing Application of Actor- Network Theory in the Performing Arts. Conference Paper.
Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and simulation. University of Michigan Press.
Beier, J. L. (2014). Schizophrenizing the Art Encounter: Towards a Politics of Dehabituation.
Thesis. https://doi.org/10.7939/r3rx93m16
Benjamin, W. (1969). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. In Hannah Arendt (Ed.), & Harry Zohn (Trans.), Illuminations. Schocken Books.
https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf Bishop, C. (2023, September 26). Artforum. Artforum.
https://www.artforum.com/features/digital-divide-contemporary-art-and-new-media- 200814/
Bornstein, M. H., & Gibson, J. J. (1980). The ecological approach to visual Perception. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 39(2), 203. https://doi.org/10.2307/429816
Bounoure, G. (2013). Unpacking the Collection. Networks of Material and Social Agency in the Museum de Sarah Byrne et al. Journal De La Société Des Océanistes, 136–137, 247–
248. https://doi.org/10.4000/jso.6859
Cho, W., & Lee, J. (2024). A framework for digital literacy in art education in the Digital Transformation era. Society for Art Education of Korea, 92, 423–456.
https://doi.org/10.25297/aer.2024.92.423

Cotter, K. N., Alpys, A., Rosenberg, J., Rodriguez-Boerwinkle, R. M., & Pawelski, J. O. (2024).
The well-being benefits of virtual art galleries: Examining the roles of emotion, immersion, and individual differences. International Journal of Wellbeing, 14(2), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.5502/ijw.v14i2.3603
Coulter, G. (2010). Launching (and sustaining) a scholarly journal on the internet: the
International Journal of Baudrillard Studies. Journal of Electronic Publishing, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0013.104
Dewey, J. (2005). Art as experience. Penguin.
Earthtones. (n.d.). https://earthtones.art/
Eco, U. (2017). Travels in hyperreality. HMH.
Farías, I., & Mützel, S. (2015). Culture and actor network Theory. In Elsevier eBooks (pp. 523– 527). https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-08-097086-8.10448-9
Giannini, T., & Bowen, J. P. (2022). Museums and Digital Culture: From Reality to Digitality in the Age of COVID-19. Heritage, 5(1), 192–214. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage5010011
Halsall, F. (2016). Actor-Network Aesthetics: the conceptual rhymes of Bruno Latour and contemporary art. New Literary History, 47(2–3), 439–461.
https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.2016.0022
Han, H. (2015). Teaching Visual Learning through Virtual World: Why Do We Need a Virtual World for Art Education? Art Education, 68(6), 22–27.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00043125.2015.11519344
Hazan, S. (2000). The virtual Aura--Is there space for enchantment in a technological world?
Research Gate.
He, S. (2023). Design of online art education system based on 3D virtual simulation technology.
Applied Mathematics and Nonlinear Sciences, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.2478/amns.2023.2.00265
Hoffman, S. K. (2020). Online Exhibitions during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Museum Worlds, 8(1), 210–215. https://doi.org/10.3167/armw.2020.080115
Huizinga, J. (1971). Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Beacon Press.
In defense of the poor image - Journal #10. (n.d.). https://www.e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/in- defense-of-the-poor-image
Kemper, J. (2022). Glitch, the post-digital aesthetic of failure and Twenty-First-Century media.
European Journal of Cultural Studies, 26(1), 47–63. https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494211060537
Law, J. (2008). Actor Network Theory and Material Semiotics. In the New Blackwell Companion to Social Theory, B.S. Turner (Ed.), 141–158.
https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444304992.ch7
Levi-Strauss, C. (1968). The Savage mind. University of Chicago Press.
Mambrol, N. (2020, July 1). Claude Levi Strauss’ concept of bricolage. Literary Theory and Criticism. https://literariness.org/2016/03/21/claude-levi-strauss-concept-of-bricolage/
Manovich, L. (2001). The language of new media. http://dss-edit.com/plu/Manovich- Lev_The_Language_of_the_New_Media.pdf
McLuhan, M. (n.d.). Understanding Media: the extensions of man. In London and New York. https://designopendata.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/understanding-media-mcluhan.pdf
Merrin, W. (2001). To play with phantoms : Jean Baudrillard and the evil demon of the simulacrum. Economy and Society, 30(1), 85–111.
https://doi.org/10.1080/03085140020019106
Michael, M. (2017). Actor-Network Theory: Trials, Trails and Translations. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473983045
Mol, A. (2003). The body multiple: Ontology in Medical practice. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA69260126
Müller, M., & Schurr, C. (2016). Assemblage thinking and actor‐network theory: conjunctions, disjunctions, cross‐fertilisations. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 41(3), 217–229. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12117
Paglen, T. (2017, October 2). Invisible images (Your pictures are looking at you). The New Inquiry. https://thenewinquiry.com/invisible-images-your-pictures-are-looking-at-you/
Quaranta, D. (2013). Beyond new media art.
Rodriguez-Boerwinkle, R. M., & Silvia, P. J. (2023). Visiting Virtual Museums: How personality and Art-Related individual differences shape visitor behavior in an online virtual gallery. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 42(2), 439–468.
https://doi.org/10.1177/02762374231196491
Sayes, E. (2013). Actor–Network Theory and methodology: Just what does it mean to say that nonhumans have agency? Social Studies of Science, 44(1), 134–149.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312713511867
Shaw, D. B. (2020). The aesthetics of retrieval: beautiful data, glitch art and popular culture.
Anthropocenes – Human Inhuman Posthuman, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.16997/ahip.15 Smith, R. (2015). Encountering methodology through art: A Deleuzoguattarian territory of action
research. Action Research, 14(1), 36–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476750315573588 Steyerl, H. (2013). The wretched of the screen. National Geographic Books.
Steyerl, H. (2017). Duty free art: Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War. Verso Books.
Sylaiou, S., Dafiotis, P., Koukopoulos, D., Koukoulis, K., Vital, R., Antoniou, A., & Fidas, C. (2023). From physical to virtual art exhibitions and beyond: Survey and some issues for consideration for the metaverse. Journal of Cultural Heritage, 66, 86–98.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2023.11.002
Tam, C. (2023). Learning and teaching visual arts through virtual exhibitions: A Teacher–Curator Pedagogy. Art Education, 76(5), 24–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043125.2023.2227531
The Constructivist Museum. (2002). In Routledge eBooks (pp. 165–189). https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203028322-14
Venturini, T., Latour, B., & médialab — Sciences Po Paris. (n.d.). The social fabric: digital traces and quali-quantitative methods. https://www.tommasoventurini.it/wp/wp- content/uploads/2011/08/TheSocialFabric.pdf
Zavarce, E., Penso, M. V. M., Molero, N., & Hernández, S. (2022). Art as a Transformative collaboration: a journal of vital encounters to create the virtual exhibition Confined Bodies. Art Education, 75(5), 45–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043125.2022.2053477
All items in Spectrum are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved. The use of items is governed by Spectrum's terms of access.

Repository Staff Only: item control page

Downloads per month over past year

Research related to the current document (at the CORE website)
- Research related to the current document (at the CORE website)
Back to top Back to top