At present, multimedia art is almost the same with new media art. But tens and hundreds of years later, there may be something different between them. The differences may equal to that between modern and contemporary. Because“modern” has an entirely different meaning now though it used to be called “contemporary” in the early of last century.

Multimedia art is a new kind of art in 20th century that completes art works mainly based on a series of advanced technologies of the day, such as computer, digital technology, video recording and film technology. It is not only a kind of pure art but also one of the most popular methods used in the picture productions of films, television programs, advertisements and music.

New media art is totally different from readymade art, installation art, body art, earth art and other kinds of modern art. With optical and electronic media as its fundamental languages, it is a new art schoolmainly presented through CG (computer graph). New media art is also called digital art since it is based on the digital technology.Therefore, new media art will surely keep pace with times. Now,the works of new media art are mainly created with the latest scientific achievementslike video, computer, internet and digital technologies.

New media refers to using the latest computer (calculation and information processing) and internet (transmission and exchanges) technologies tomake great changesin traditional media in terms of forms, contents and types. The term, new media, has different meanings in the field of industry division, human-computer interface, art movement and multimedia technology owing to different starting points (industry, technology, art and media respectively).