The issue of the reception of the new image is more directly linked to the essence of graphic printing. It is certain that the possibilities of perception of the new images will be limitlessly extended to all Internet users. The limitless circulation, one of the ideals of graphic media, will be achieved in the complete implementation of the information revolution and digital technology.

Wouldn't this new visual art have the same function that graphic art had in the 16th century, when it became the first means of mass communication?

The second issue focuses on the reverse influence digital technology has on graphic art today, and the possibility of it having repercussions on its future.

The inverse influence of digital technology is obvious at a number of levels. One concerns the activities of groups involved exclusively in computer graphics.⁵ They are the descendants of a number of groups that existed a few centuries ago, some of which had a huge influence on the development of graphic art, such as the Association of Painters and Engravers in France in the second half of the 19th century or the Tamarind workshop in recent times. Besides condensing and presenting the latest technological achievements and thus aiding each individual artist, as well as the fact that the production of these associations has reached a level that deserves respect, we must note that they show no obvious evolutionary results in visuality and aesthetics. They are very conventional in the aspect of art, without attempts to achieve innovation. However, perhaps this is the period of anticipation, because it is a historic fact that new technology applied in art must face a certain period of stagnation, only for the following step to bring creative exploration. (Let us remember that the last similar situation was noted in the first decades following the appearance of motion picture technology. Used with completely experimental intentions and as a great visual attraction. film became art a few decades after its introduction.)

These associations, operating through the Internet, promote works that have been generated using computers, from draft ideas to execution (printing). This pure computer graphics, which is the result of new printing capabilities and new technological processes, can be seen at the great world exhibitions.⁶ But, in the visual sense, they arc also very conventional. Its function is often reduced to the level of reproduction, repeating visual solutions already seen. Reaching out to new iconography (e.g. in video games) makes this sort of visual art an illustration in the negative sense. It thus becomes not only "the shadow". but the shadow's shadow's shadow. The social or political message, often very greatly emphasised in them, generally cannot replace the lack of a firm artistic position. Therefore, this production has been criticised, and, not without reason, this type of graphics is labelled as a painting surrogate, and sometimes painfully directly: "computer graphics as a machine-depicted image has not changed art. The visionary manoeuvring of the computer, which would like to be able to do the same thing as the hand, has not gone further than spectacular painting surrogate", said H. Klotz⁵.

Further attempts at imitating traditional techniques are also noted, such as the digitally simulated woodcut or linocut. The replacement of traditional techniques with machines shows a divergence in the understanding of the concept of the virtual, because it is not about the mouse showing that it can replace the hand in retelling what the hand had been directly communicating for centuries. The "inconceivable possibilities" of digitalisation, as Desmond Rochfort put it, should not he used to imitate. This would only undermine the untouchable, that which has never been questioned in graphic arts - the relation of the artist towards the material, his/her direct contact with it. Only in this way, in the utterly direct relationship, can the aura of graphic art be preserved, because. as W. Benjamin said, only in the manual does the authentic preserve its authority.⁸

Will this digital mouse cast out the noble crafts and skills of graphic achievement? And will it abolish all the past esthetic experiences recorded in graphic art? Or, as we hope, will the new aesthetics and new, graphic statement have room for a further purpose of manual skill, though which it will, not only metaphorically. preserve the sediments of the past, which every single large major change in fine arts has included. The creative regard of the new media implies an expansion in expressiveness and vocabulary of the visual arts of the existing media, owing to the new knowledge derived from the experiences offered by new technology.

The period ol'scientific and technological flight that we live in (which is reminiscent of [lie moderne period, i.e. avant-garde) inspires artists in the direction of dynamic exploration.

We will illustrate this through three examples.