The artist and scientist have been depicted as polar opposites since Michelangelo claimed that Leonardo da Vinci was wasting time with foolish inventions while his art suffered. However, the artist taking on the role of the researcher has precedent. In the 1960s, Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), led by Bell Labs' engineer Billy Kluver, aided artists such as Robert Rauschenberg in pushing the avant-garde to utilize technology. Sullivan asserts that the time has come to examine art as data and artistic practice as research. The digital revolution produced a new artist model for today's avant-garde and has been described as a type of Merlin--a trickster magician. Perhaps a more plausible model is the artist-scientist who is creating a paradigmatic aesthetic shift. Digital art, new media, net-art, or computer art are new art forms that have arrived on the art scene. In order to make sense of digital-based artworks, it is necessary to understand both their predecessors and the technology that makes them possible. This article presents the backstory of digital aesthetics, identifies predecessors of digital-based artworks, and describes how new media or digital art became a tool of expression in the hands of the artists. (Contains 11 figures and 49 notes.)