Oliver Grau, an image science professor at Danube University in Austria, discussed the importance of the digital humanities, a discipline devoted to the study of digital art like computer graphics, animation and nanotechnology, in a lecture held in Kreindler auditorium Tuesday. "Digital art has become the art of our time, yet it has not arrived in the cultural institutions of our societies," Grau said, explaining that the genre has yet to be accepted into the mainstream of art history. Like traditional painting and sculpture, digital art requires historical analysis to be fully understood, he said. Grau stressed that digital art is useful to many non-art disciplines like astronomy, which uses virtual observatories to compile centuries worth of celestial studies. Digital art's broad applicability is one reason why it must be documented and preserved, said Grau, who initiated the documentation process by creating the first digital art database. "The survival of virtual art depends entirely on digital storage methods. It is our responsibility to leave something for future generations," he said.
Many colleges and universities are looking to make technological changes to their campuses, including switching of all computers to Macs and offering iPhones or laptops to incoming students. Oklahoma Christian University is offering a free MacBook to every incoming freshman this fall as they make the transition to an all-Mac campus. Abilene Christian University is offering students their preference of an iPhone or iPod touch. Oklahoma Christian Chief Technology Officer John Hermes explained the school's switch as following the "natural progression" of technology to Inside Higher Ed. Many schools explained how their move to offer laptops would benefit the students directly by potentially allowing them to use their computer to take quizzes, alert them of homework assignments or even help them "go" to office hours by iChatting with their professors. These programs are similar to Duke University's 2004 decision to offer free iPods to their incoming class, however, this program deteriorated into a version of an iPod rental service, according to Inside Higher Ed.
