2 The advantage of computer technology

The advance of computer technology has influenced the ways in which we design our environment. For example in architecture, computer programmes can produce the drawings and calculations needed to construct an office block, and it can also create a visual projection of what the completed building will look like. Designers no longer use a drawing board and pen, but a computer and software programmes. Even artists create art using computers!

The advance of technology has meant a shift towards a more ‘visual society’. As Nicholas Mirzoeff explains in his book An Introduction to Visual Culture (Routledge, 1999), in this visual society people look for information, meaning, or pleasure in an interface with visual technology. This interface can be any form of artefact designed to be looked at or to enhance natural vision (a painting, television, the Internet,…). The ability to absorb and interpret visual information was the basis of industrial society and is becoming even more important in the information age. This is not a natural human attribute but a relatively new skill. One of the most interesting characteristics of the new visual culture is the growing tendency to visualise things that are not in themselves visual. An example of this is the visualisation of DNA or sounds: