Media art is a new art form where the production of the works is based on new digital media technology. It is claimed to have so many distinctive features that it already constitutes its own separate field of theory, and thus must also be separated from other forms of art, such as the pictorial arts, video art, and the cinema.
At present Finnish media art suffers from a lack of basic theory and conceptual apparatus, even though media works have already spawned their own festivals and media art is considered a category in its own right when grants are awarded. Some pioneering work has been done in Finland, but so far there is no basic handbook to the theory or vocabulary of the field in Finnish.
This vocabulary is meant as a short introduction to this subject. It was originally created in Finnish for the ARTTU 4/94 paperbulletin, and was later translated into English. More words will be added to the list, and it will later be distributed for wider discussion to e.g. Finnish universities.
This text should not be considered as final but rather as a list of working definitions. The words will establish themselves later on with use.
Some controversial terms are included - for example virtual reality vs. artificial reality - and untimately this vocabulary must be seen as a personal interpretation of the subject.
The vocabulary is burdened with a technological point of view. An ordinary user cannot be expected to be familiar with words like 'tracker' or 'PDA' and they need to be translated into Finnish. But the real reason for the predominance of technical jargon is that research in new media is still in its infancy in Finland.
All suggestions for improvement are most welcome, as are new or omitted words. They can be mailed (either in Finnish or in the original language) to 'cons*a*uiah.fi'. The vocabulary can be found in Finnish at the following address: 'http://www.uiah.fi/~cons/mediasanasto/'