The digital image is a copy—but the event of its visualization is an original event, because the digital copy is a copy that has no visible original. That further means: A digital image, to be seen, should not be merely exhibited but staged, performed. Here the image begins to function analogously to a piece of music, whose score, as is generally known, is not identical to the musical piece—the score itself being silent.For music to resound, it has to be performed. Thus one can say that digitalization turns the visual arts into a performing art.

Boris Groys, From Image to Image File—and Back: Art in the Age of Digitalization

Source: http://www.altx.com/remix/Groys.pdf