Digital Art Museum
Digital Art Museum DAM is an online resource for the history and practice of digital fine art, founded in 2000. For more than two decades, it has offered visitors an exploration of the rich heritage of innovation and experimentation in digital art. With the advice of a panel of experts, DAM Museum continues to offer a growing archive of resources on the artistic practices and reflections surrounding digital creativity.
DAM Museum was founded and developed by Wolf Lieser, at that time a gallerist in Wiesbaden, Germany and London, UK. His partner in the London gallery Keith Watson was crucial to lay the ground for a collaboration with Dr. Mike King and the Guildhall University. King secured the initial funding through the AHRB which allowed to initiate the first version of the online museum website. After 2003, when Wolf Lieser moved to Berlin, he was solely responsible for the further development of DAM. In 2020 we launched the 3rd updated version of the online museum. We keep updating it!
DAM informs on historical and on contemporary positions chosen by an advisory panel. It exhibits the work of leading Artists in this field since 1956. DAM is an on-line museum with a comprehensive presentation of Digital Art supported by a wide range of background information including biographies, articles, a bibliography and interviews.
DAM also includes an Essays section with articles by artists and theorists specially selected to place the works in context. A history section lists key events and technologies in date order. DAM is intended for the enjoyment of all visitors, curators and collectors, scholars of art, and for an emerging generation of digital artists wishing to understand a 50-year heritage of innovation and experimentation.
Advisory Panel
The Advisory Panel selects the artists of DAM on a majority vote basis; in case of a tie, the director has the casting vote. Suggestion can come from each of the AP members or the director.
Dominique Moulon, PhD
DAM is a collective project initiated by Wolf Lieser and centred on shared passions that blend art and technology to explore the aesthetics that have emerged over the decades right up to the present day. It is by examining what shapes trends in contemporary art that we can understand the world as it is, by considering the imaginations it embodies.
Dominique Moulon is an art critic and independent curator with a PhD in Arts and Sciences of the Art and a research associate position at the Acte Institute, Paris. A member of AICA, he has curated exhibitions across Europe and online, and is associate curator of the Nemo international digital arts biennial of Greater Paris. Since 2024, he has been developing the MAiiA network of museums of artificial intelligence and immersive art for the Riccobono Foundation. He is the author of several books on digital art and has taught at Paris VIII, Panthéon-Sorbonne, Parsons Paris, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Domenico Quaranta, PhD
For a long time an invaluable online resource on early computer art, the Digital Art Museum is today, on an internet full of content as well as garbage, an edited resource and a curated filter on the art of the digital age - one that provides orientation, not just information.
Domenico Quaranta is an art critic, curator and teacher interested in the ways in which ongoing technological changes affect contemporary artistic practices. He is the author of Beyond New Media Art (2013) and Surfing with Satoshi. Art, blockchain and NFTs (Postmedia Books, 2022), and editor of several volumes including GameScenes. Art in the Age of Videogames (2006). Since 2005 he has curated exhibitions including Collect the WWWorld (Brescia, Basel, New York, 2011–2012), Cyphoria (Quadriennale, Rome, 2016) and A Leap into the Void (GAMeC, Bergamo, 2023). He is a Professor of Net Art at the Accademia di Brera, Milan, and a co-founder of the Link Art Center (2011–2019).
Tina Sauerländer, PhD
The DAM offers a great introduction to the world of digital art. It features a well-curated selection of artists from every decade.
Dr. Tina Sauerländer is co-founder & co-director of the exhibition platform peer to space (since 2010). She holds a PhD from The University of Arts, Linz, Austria. The title of her dissertation is PERFORMING IDENTITIES. Self-Representation in Art from the Renaissance to Virtual Worlds. From 2020-2023, she served as artistic director of the VR ART PRIZE by DKB in Cooperation with CAA Berlin. She curated large-scale group exhibitions on Virtual Reality-Art like UNLEASHED UTOPIAS (2023), Resonant Realities (Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin, 2021), The Unframed World (HEK Basel, 2017). She is co-founder of Radiance VR (since 2017) that includes the Radiance VR App with 50 curated VR experiences of visual artists. Her public talks on Virtual Reality & Art include: re:publica (Berlin), ZKM (Karlsruhe), New Inc (New York), Kunsthalle (Munich).
Pau Waelder, PhD
The DAM Museum is a unique resource on the history and practice of digital art that stems from Wolf Lieser's expertise in the field and his unparalleled personal connection with pioneering and emerging artists, developed over more than 30 years of an exceptional career.
Pau Waelder is Senior Curator at Niio.art, where he curates art programs for over a hundred venues worldwide. He holds a PhD in Information and Knowledge Society from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and has worked as a lecturer and art critic. His work explores the intersections of art, technology and society, as well as the relationship between digital art and the art market. He is the author of You Can Be A Wealthy/Cash-Strapped Art Collector In The Digital Age (Printer Fault Press, 2020).
Honorary Advisory Panel
The honorary members of the Advisory Panel supported the Digital Art Museum in it’s beginnings since 2000, at a time when Digital Art was still a new field in the contemporary arts. Together with their support the foundation of this online resource was laid. Thank you so much for your support in the early days!
Former panel members:
Sue Gollifer
Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, Printmaking at Brighton University
Curator of several international Digital Art Shows
Dr. Roger Malina
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology
Bonnie Mitchell
Bowling Green University, USA
ACM SIGGRAPH
Professor Frieder Nake
University Bremen, Germany
Early Pioneer and Writer about Digital Art
Cynthia Beth Rubin
Rhode Island School of Art, USA
ISEA, International Symposium of Electronic Art, member of Board
Anne Morgan Spalter
Brown University, Providence, USA
Research Staff and Writer on Digital Arts
Professor Rejane Spitz
Professor at the Department of Art & Design at Rio de Janeiro Catholic University, Brazil
Curator of several exhibitions on the Digital Arts in South America