The Web and the Horse in the Cave: New Technologies and the Meaning of Art

Peter Walsh, Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College

Main Session: New Meanings
Saturday, April 25, 1998
10:00 am - 12:00 pm

This paper will look at the "the original" in an era of digitized reproductions to see if it has, in fact, lost its long-held power over the human imagination. The paper will begin with the biological origins of image-making in human pre-history and will examine how copies and reproductions have affected the cultural significance of art objects over the centuries, from Roman copies of Greek originals, to the engraved art reproductions of the Renaissance, the chromolithograph of Victorian times, to the high-tech reproductions of today. It will show how the process of reproduction itself changes meaning in art, in ways which are both positive and negative. It will conclude with an examination of how new technologies and the rapid distribution of art images are likely to change the meaning of the original in our own era.