Dr. Carolyn Kane investigates subliminal narratives formed by urban digital art in new book

In the last decade, Professional Communication Professor Dr. Carolyn Kane has redefined the media, culture, and communication landscape, where she's grown into an internationally recognized scholar for her groundbreaking research into visual studies, public culture, and the history of technology. As she delved into writing her most recently published book, Electrographic Architecture, Dr. Kane's illustrious career tells the story of an impressive academic journey and the profound importance of visual media in communication – an often overlooked yet integral aspect in contemporary communication studies.

Electrographic Architecture emerged as a critical voice in the dialogue surrounding the role of whiteness in shaping American public spaces through illuminated architectural spectacles. Detailing the history of large-scale electric screens like those found in Las Vegas and Times Square, the book examines how these large-scale screens and electric spectacles became a part of urban architecture and a growing ideology of American Whiteness.

Throughout her career, Dr. Kane has written for and been recognized in some of the world's leading publications, including Design and Culture, New Media & Society, Harvard Design Magazine and many more. Her academic journey began with an undergraduate pursuit of a Bachelor of Fine Arts in the New Media program in the School of Image Arts at TMU (formerly Ryerson University), where her passion for visual studies and the history of technology emerged.

After undergrad, Dr. Kane's pursuit of knowledge eventually led her to New York University, where she undertook her doctoral studies in Media, Culture, and Communication under the mentorship of the esteemed Professor Alexander R. Galloway. The city's bustling streets provided the backdrop to a period of profound exploration, where she developed her skills as a scholar and her passion for visual media. She continued her studies at Brown University, where she completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in “Aesthetics and the Question of Beauty” before becoming an associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University in 2015. 

Exploring the intersection of art and technology

From the culmination of years of research and a curiosity for the historical context of computer art, her award-winning debut book, Chromatic Algorithms: Synthetic Color, Computer Art, and Aesthetics After Code, was born. Her first book chronicles the beginning of computer-generated images, now known as digital art, and demonstrates the ingenuity of computer scientists and avant-garde artists who harnessed the nascent power of postwar computing technologies. 

"Chromatic Algorithms delves into the historical narrative of how colour was integrated into computing during a time when engineers were immersed in programming zeros and ones in a black-and-white paradigm," said Dr. Kane.

Her exploration of the topic centers around the experimental research conducted in the 1960s at institutions like Bell Laboratories and the Stanford Research Institute that would eventually lead to the seamless integration of colour within ever-evolving computing technologies.

Computer Aesthetics: the veneer of breakdown

The success of her first book set the stage for her second, High-Tech Trash: Glitch, Noise, and Aesthetic Failure. In this book, Dr. Kane dives deeper into contemporary media art, where she explores artists' deliberate misuse of digital technologies to simulate an aesthetic of failure–questioning established norms and pushing the boundaries of artistic expression.

"By the 1990s, it was no longer a challenge to use colour in digital computing as personal computing and software like Photoshop and Illustrator became readily available for artists and designers," remarked Dr. Kane. "They then began finding a new vernacular, a visual vernacular of error, glitch and noise to reintroduce novelty into computer aesthetics."

Instead of pursuing a pristine and polished appearance reminiscent of the Web 2.0 aesthetic, many artists and designers chose to defy conventional standards. Rather than conform to the norm, Dr. Kane explains how these artists and designers delved into a creative process that seemed, on the surface, to embrace a retrograde aesthetic of breakdown.

"This seemingly retrograde aesthetic was introduced at a time when there were a lot of cultural fears about Y2K and technological failure,” said Dr. Kane. “But, of course, there's not an actual breakdown within this medium of digital art. Rather, it's the veneer of breakdown, and the book discusses these tensions between failure and control in computing and computer aesthetics in the late 90s and early 2000s."

Unearthing biases in design

Dr. Kane's research has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, integral to her latest project on Electrographic Architecture (external link) . 

Still a work in progress, her most recent research project, tentatively titled Flower Power in Visual Design 1839-2029, is an ambitious undertaking that seeks to unearth the hidden biases in the history of Euro-American design, from the industrial age to the algorithmic present. 

Her teaching philosophy rests on clear and concise communication principles, urging academics and her students to cultivate critical thinking and strong writing skills. These are, in her view, invaluable tools not only in academia but also in the broader professional landscape - and as Dr. Kane reiterates, "Never do in five words what you can do in three."

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