Digital art is an artistic work or practice that combines digital technology as a fundamental step
of the creative or presentation process. We can, therefore, say that Digital Art created a link and explored the mutual functions and potentiality in between art and technology.
Digital visual art consists of either  2D  visual information displayed on an electronic visual display or information mathematically translated into 3D information, viewed through perspective
projection on an electronic visual display. From the simplest 2D computer graphics which reflect
how we might draw using a pencil and a piece of paper. Moreover, Digital art can host not only
visual static effects but also dynamic ones, adding sounds, music, speeches and, last but not
least, introduce and match together virtual reality and scentes.
The term Digital art was first used in the early 1980s following the invention of a
computer programme named AARON, which was written by the artist Harold Cohen.
AARON was a robotic machine which initially created original abstract drawings on
sheets of paper laid on the floor.
But, since the 1950s, many artists and designers were working with mechanical devices and
analogue computers in a way that can be seen as a precursor to the work of the early digital
pioneers who followed. One of the earliest electronic works is 'Oscillon 40' dating from 1952.
The artist, Ben Laposky (USA), a mathematician and programmer, used an oscilloscope to
manipulate electronic waves that appeared on the small fluorescent screen. The generated
waves were moving on the display in a neverending rythme, and there would have been no
way of recording these movements on paper at this time. It was only through long exposure
photography that the artist was able to record these movements, allowing us to see them
decades later.
Laposky photographed numerous different combinations of these waves and called his images
'Oscillons'. The earliest photographs were black and white, but in later years the artist used
special filters so to produce striking colour images such as 'Oscillon 520'. Laposky together with
another mathematician from Germany, Manfred Frank, are the two commonest references for
the developing of Digital Art.
Funny to say, we can assume that Digital art, quite often quoted as Computer art, brought to
life decades before what we classify as computers...
Results were astonishing since the very beginning. Art was a quite different form of expression
much beyond the using of its original tools...brushes for a canvas, chisels for a statue or the
human voice for the lyrics in a song.
Digital art turned fast into a movement that, like a flock of birds, alternates sudden changes of
course with reunions, in a single apparent disorder that is not a disorder at all, moving in a
cohesive groups, drawing lymph from the strength of all its components. Music art is born,
Digital art, dimensions are merged with sounds and effects generated by the computer but
always under a skilful artistic direction.
2D, 3D, 5D and more, sounds and vibrations, pixels and optical pens, scanners and renderings
are always looking for a common line of action without any burden, any limits.