Rethinking Media Art: on zombie media and perpetual instability

Media art's unstable boundaries exist within overlapping territories — and theories — of a diverse range of technologies, practices, and discourses. As communication technologies become widely adopted in mainstream spheres, they often evolve, along with the ideas we associate with them. Thus, the meaning of terms such as "media art" seems to undergo constant renovation, shifting along with emerging media contexts, never to be confined to a specific tool, technology, or ideology. Newer forms of media join a seemingly ever-expanding and continually morphing realm of potential. But our current post-digital condition also produces several forms of media that, for a variety of reasons, fail to thrive but also do not completely die out, becoming a sort of undead, zombie media. This landscape of alive, dead, and zombie media, entails a variety of increasingly heterogeneous approaches building from, reacting to, or hybridising with other media forms. There is, therefore, a need for critical reflection on media art's relationship with zombie media, and the plurality of different states of media that may coexist with one another. This essay looks at the evolving theorisations of media art, from early discussions on media art and of its associated terms — such as new media art, digital art, etc. — and then delves into recent literature on media, technology, and art in order to develop an understanding of what zombie media are, and what roles they play in the media ecology and in media art.