Good points. I had the pleasure of being in an environment surrounded by artists of many skills, interests, and abilities. They all had unique perspectives about their work that was often informed by the technology that they used such as video, audio, computers, sensors, wearable tech, tangible tech, and so on. They were all committed to their art and were incredible to work with. I never had a real clear sense about why they did what they did. They would come up with sublime creations and sometimes I felt the artist had a clear goal and message, but most of the time, I could see that they were just experimenting with new tech and techniques. Exploring the boundaries of the technological medium and the relationship between artist and audience (in participatory design for example). So, their art work wasn't so much about intention and meaning but exploration and discovery. One general zeitgeist that was accepted was that the old roles between an artist and audience were blurring. It wasn't about a single genius artist coming down from the mountains with a masterpiece to wow the masses. Thanks to digital technology, the audience could become the artist or the art itself for that matter. There was no need for a message because the medium was the message. There were certainly a few artists who were more traditional in their approach, but in general, it was accepted that in the world of high tech art at least, we were not in Kansas anymore.