Perspective projection distortion is the inevitable misrepresentation of three-dimensional space when drawn or "projected" onto a 2-dimensional surface. It is impossible to accurately depict 3D reality on a 2D plane. The main focus of this paper is to research how the new technologies pushed the boundaries of perspective projection distortion in the digital art world. I will explore contemporary artists’ work like William Kentridge’s anamorphic animation, lights and shadows installations by Kumi Yamashita, Felice Varini ‘s optical art, and Amon Tobin’s stage performances. This paper will focus on a few selected artists in order to illuminate noticeable contrasts that have occurred over time in the realm of digital art. To address the various mediums, techniques and methods within this broad subject would be a staggering task. This is why only a few key subjects will be addressed.
One subject will be to analyze how methods of visualization in digital art have evolved, since this aspect is directly responsible for the perception and aesthetic value of the majority of digitally displayed mediums.
We need a new approach to linear perspective that relates it to the more general development of projection methods, and yet something more than that provided by nineteenth century historians of mathematics and science who were searching for the origins of descriptive geometry. It is not just a question of how the laws were discovered. Needed is a history of how these laws became recognized as being independent from Euclidean theories of vision: a history of how laws of projection and theories of vision were and were not applied to the visual arts.
Such a history will need to emphasize that the Renaissance fascination with projection, that included linear perspective and anamorphosis, did not push artists into becoming mechanical copiers of nature. Indeed it led gradually to a distinction between technical drawing and what we now term fine art.