The spectacular space battles seen in Star Wars, released in 1977, were created using miniatures, blue screens and optical compositing on plain old celluloid. The film's computer graphics crew? Four. Behind Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace, by contrast, was an army of hundreds of digital effects artists. For Episode II, director George Lucas has said, the live-action scenes will be shot using digital movie cameras, leaving not a single scrap of film on the cutting-room floor.

Bits and bytes, in other words, are rapidly replacing crystals of silver on paper or film as the dominant storage medium for two-dimensional images. Because bits are so malleable, video artists can give visual form to an astonishing new range of ideas.