A Cultural History of Computer Graphics

A Cultural History of Computer Graphics presents a fundamentally new approach to analyzing digital images aesthetically through the example of 3D computer graphics (CG). While numerous methods for creating digital imagery have long existed, the advent of AI-generated content is causing a rise in debates and conflict. It is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate digital photographs, CG, and AI images, and yet, because these types of images carry different cultural or even political implications, it is becoming increasingly important to do so. In response to the need of new methods to culturally decode digital imagery, this book starts from the production process and describes computer graphics as an independent method of expression, containing a specific ideological concept of realism. Through this study, it becomes clear that a particular understanding of the world is inscribed in computer graphics software development and consequently the image creation process, and it becomes necessary to perceive production aesthetically, hence there is a focus on production aesthetics. In its own unique way, every digital imaging method embodies its own sense of the world. This book will be of great interest to researchers of computer graphics, 3D image generation, and the cultural history of computer-generated imagery.