Despite, and perhaps because of, our familiarity with the new digital tools,
it is all too easy to lose sight of their potential. All representation and
communication, no matter how it is physically manifested, is means for human
expression. The digital computer, when combined with the optical scanner,
the music sampler, and a myriad of other computer input devices, allow us
to reduce all physical media to virtual binary digit. When sound, or photographs,
or film, or sculpture become digitized, the traditional boundaries separating
them become erased.
This erasement of boundaries allows the creative interlocutor to work across
academic and artistic boundaries which would have traditionally hampered him
or her. Every digital movie, and every digital image, every digital sound
is nothing more than a squeeze of ones and zeros stored in the memory of the
computer. These numbers can be seamlessly combined and juxtaposed by the creative
interlocutor. In the computer's virtual spaces, all forms of communication
are equal.
