Exhibition of dazzling light

ART 20. The Thames and Hudson Multimedia Dictionary of Modern Art. Thames and Hudson. Pounds 59.53 +VAT (Pounds 69.95 inc. VAT). Windows 3.1+ and Macintosh OS 7.1+ CD. ISBN 00500 100152

The Multimedia Dictionary of Modern Art breaks new ground in a subject area where there is a paucity of quality multimedia publications. Art students, teachers and specialists are used to the high-speed indexes and the national collections made available on CD (for example the National Gallery and the Louvre collections). But this is an interactive spectacular.

The dictionary is an updated and expanded CD edition of the Dictionnaire de l'Art Moderne et Contemporain, published by Hazan in 1992. Developed at Interactif Delta Production and other Paris software studios, and funded by the European Union, it is a monumental collaboration between Hazan, the Reunion des Musees Nationaux, the Video Museum at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Thames & Hudson, and the Spanish publisher Akal. The English production and editorial has itself taken over four years to complete.

When published, the Dictionnaire de l'Art Moderne et Contemporain represented the most comprehensive attempt to cover the art of the 20th century up to recent times. It was also welcomed for the increased internationalism of the entries, but there was a French bias in terms of contributors and entries. This meant that some fairly obscure artists were included while many of the international artists coming through in the 1980s were missed out. The termes-gen raux and environnement, naturally enough, were also biased towards France.

This has been corrected to a certain extent in the CD; the United States, United Kingdom and African sections have been expanded, for example, and searches by country are easily accomplished. Women artists were grossly under-represented in the original dictionary, with only three given for the UK. The representation has increased to include Helen Chadwick and Rachel Whiteread among others. However, black British artists remain as poorly represented as before.

The translation of the subject terms has caused problems and these can no longer be searched as a group, but only within the general index. Areas of importance in contemporary art practice, for example public art and artists' books, cannot be searched as such, and computer art is a strange omission, but performance art and installation art are now in. The most recent artwork in the slide catalogue is Richard Wentworth's installation, "False Ceiling" (1995). Of the artists born in the 1960s a number are included although the entries are shorter and usually restricted to one image (presumably as a result of copyright problems).

The parent Dictionnaire ran to more than 670 pages and included 2,200 entries with 1,500 reproductions, 900 in colour. The multimedia CD has 380 more entries, 2,000 more images, some video and audio. The CD scores first in the quantity of high-quality images. Too frequently digitisation produces fuzzy images with poor colour temperature.

Access to the CD is via the Slide Show, providing a grand entrance through which the other main levels, the alphabetical index and the main hypertext entries are reached. The uncluttered screen design ensures that the images are used in the most effective way. Single images of artworks roughly 150mm x 150mm appear centrally on a dark screen simulating a slide projection. There is the minimum of distraction as the menus and panels are hidden and the buttons small and icon-free.

The Slide Show gives a taste of the gallery of 3,500 images on disc. They cannot be searched by artist or title at this stage, but can be searched chronologically, by moving along the timeline. Alternatively, a click on the random search button and a click to increase speed will give you a wild, fast tour of 20th-century art resulting in some very odd juxtapositions. Clicking on an individual work will lead to the screen which holds that particular image in the main entries. With the zoom facility, enlarged close-ups of 120 of the paintings can be explored using the cursor. As is to be expected there are problems with unusually dark or light paintings and crowded or closely patterned works. There are no 3D images or animation, which would have been useful for installation shots.

The lack of obvious menus and icons can be worrying, but as the buttons are hit, useful labels appear. If the cursor is moved across the top of the screen the hidden navigation and tools menu appears. Guides to the program are supplied by a discreet button there.

An alphabet appears when the cursor is moved down the left hand of the screen, providing access through the alphabetical index to the main entries. Rapid single word or term searches can be made and the appropriate part of the index displayed and then entered. In the main entries the text is clear and the screen uncluttered; a single image is usually displayed. But this can be suppressed, or added to by bringing up further images, which include some video and audio, for example, the video of Joseph Beuys' "I Like America and America Likes Me", and an audio interview with Richard Long played over a still image. Often an entry is headed by a documentary photograph, and most entries conclude with a brief bibliography. There are further options, either hypertext links, or more impressively the facility to search on every word and date within the entry. A cross-reference button is yet another option. These bring up windows to add to the main entry. Page markers and section markers provide a session record, a necessity given the various routes that can be taken. Sections of text can be cut and pasted into a notebook and printed: art history essays will never have been so easy. Although images cannot be downloaded it is possible to select and store them in a "light box" and presumably, if there are digital video projection facilities, these could be projected as part of a planned teaching session.

This is a multi-level work and will have multi-level use; it can be used for the simplest of searches, for browsing, and for more complex thematic explorations.

The high quality production and design and the interactive facilities will be very attractive to most users; and at the publication price Pounds 69.95 represents a staggering bargain. For those who find the CD publishing revolution unappealing there is the possibility of a hard-copy version in the future, but why miss out? Gasp at the planning involved in such a grand project, a vast architectural structure of many layers dazzling in its interactive ingenuity.

Liz Ward is librarian, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London Institute.