The Evolution of Pixel-Based Virtual Imaging From the Digital Processing of Material Imagery to the Virtual Imagery of Digital Art
Keywords:
Digital Image; Pixel; Virtual Reality; AI-Generated Art; New Media ArtAbstract
Visual art has undergone a fundamental media transformation from physical images to virtual images. Focusing on the pixel as the basic unit of digital imagery, this article examines the historical development of image art from avant-garde cinema and video art to digital art, exploring how images gradually moved beyond the limitations of physical media and entered new visual systems shaped by computation, algorithms, and data.
The article argues that images in the era of film and magnetic tape were fundamentally based on the recording of physical reality. Even when avant-garde cinema and video art used montage, superimposition, and formal experimentation to create surreal effects, they remained rooted in material images. The emergence of digital technology changed this logic: computer graphics, 3D modeling, and digital compositing enabled images to move from the manipulation of recorded reality toward the generation of virtual forms.
With the development of virtual reality, image experience further departed from traditional modes of spectatorship. VR no longer presents images merely as objects of visual observation, but creates immersive environments that allow the body to enter and interact with digital spaces.
AI-generated imagery represents a further stage in this transformation. Images produced through algorithmic models and data training no longer depend directly on physical objects, but emerge from computational processes themselves. In this sense, images are no longer only representations of reality, but virtual entities generated through the interaction of data, algorithms, and machine perception. Through this evolution, the article examines changing concepts of image ontology, visual experience, and artistic production in the digital age.
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