Answer:art that can't be produced or viewed without a computer. Like J. Michael James's Fractal Fish.
Just as oil paint and the printing press once transformed expression, so too have computers spawned previously unimaginable worlds.
Consider J. Michael James's Fractal Fish, a three-dimensional sculpture that exists only in cyberspace. Exhibited in a virtual gallery (James's own network of Pentium-based computers in Pleasanton, California), Fractal Fish cannot be viewed directly – it is accessible only through computer screen, VR headmount, or photographs taken from a virtual camera. Not a model of a sculpture intended for real space, this virtual sculpture is itself a work of art.
Swimming in fractal formation, the fish wear texture-mapped skin formed from digitally treated scans. The sculpture has been photographed from different vantage points: From above left, we see the fish arrayed in almost military formation. From below right, we view their profiles. Head on, the fractal formation surfaces unmistakably.
Sculptures in virtual worlds aren't limited by the constraints of the physical. There is no weight, mass, or gravity in this digital medium and no limit to how close or far you can be from the work. In this gallery, there is no "eye level" view: swim around the sculpture if you wish, much as you might around a school of genuine fish in the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean. J. Michael James can be reached via e-mail at pdlcalif@aol.com.
