**1. Introduction**

The field of creative holography is not known for its critical introspection. There is limited analysis of its development as a practice, process or methodology employed by artists. Artists struggle to place pressure on their own work in the medium. Their comments often slip into a diarised or practical declaration of the "how" rather than the "why".

A grea<sup>t</sup> deal of generalised reportage in popular media frames attempts to engage with clear commentary, critical observation and primary research. Critical analysis does exist but, as with many fringe or pioneering media, you really have to hunt for it. Critical pressure is not something a reader might casually come across in a contemporary art journal. Tenacity is required.

Frank Popper, in his review of art in the electronic age, commented that "[i]n order to build an historically legitimate aesthetic of holography one has to detach oneself from the dependence upon the photographic paradigm so important in understanding computer art. The persistence of this paradigm reveals itself especially in the overemphasised 'third' dimension of holography" (Popper 1993, p. 37). It is this "third" dimension on a flat surface, the illusion of "reality", which both attracts and distorts critical interrogation.

There appears to be a grea<sup>t</sup> deal of "fence-sitting" by artists, critics, curators, publishers and cultural observers. Commentators, including artists who work in the field, are unsure where creative holography "fits". It could be a remarkable and genuinely significant medium. However, it may not be, polluted as it is by the tacky commercialism of spectacular visual flotsam. A similar issue exists in other media. There is a world of terrible painting, sculpture, performance, installation, graphics, moving image and conceptual making. Why then is it so difficult to view a critical framework for holography? The worst of the worst in holography cannot be any less awful than the worst examples in other media.
