NONFICTION - Oct. 25, 1987

DIGITAL VISIONS: COMPUTERS AND ART by Cynthia Goodman (Abrams: $29.95, hardcover; $19.95, paperback; illustrated; 176 pp.). Cynthia Goodman enthusiastically asserts that computers have irrevocably altered the creation and perception of art in the 20th Century but offers only slight evidence to support her claims. Most of the works in the illustrations, which form a traveling exhibit, are more impressive technically than aesthetically. The book also contains numerous errors, both grammatical (“mediums” for media, “animations” for animated films) and factual: “Looker” was not the first feature motion picture to incorporate three-dimensional computer graphics, nor did video artist Nam June Paik film “Pope John Paul IV” in New York in 1965. The issues surrounding the use of computers in the arts warrant serious, balanced discussion--not sloppily researched advocacy.