As computer hardware and software have influenced the disciplines of science, literature, and music, so have they influenced artistic efforts. The expansion of computer technology and prevalence in the 1990's created a new generation of artists--digital artists. The creative process was freed, for digital artists, from the physical realities of paint, canvas and sculpting materials

Computer technology has presented an opportunity for an artist to explore an entirely new medium. In the past, technologies were improved or modified, as in the development of egg tempra paint, for example, rather than truly being created. The new medium also presented a challenge for artists to think beyond the limitations imposed by the other means of expression, and to approach the technology only as a tool to achieve that which they wanted to convey. In the past, a tendency was to explore the capabilities of the computer...