Wither Art?
Norman Maynard
I know most of the threads here are technical in nature, but . . .
I was thinking about the camera the other day, and how when it came
along there was no longer any (or a much reduced) need for artists to
represent people, places and things exactly as they were, and so
artists moved on to do other things: Impressionism, Cubism, Abstract
Expressionism, Etc. . Technology pushed, and artists moved along.
So, now I have this computer, and with Fractal's Painter and Dabbler,
I can, without much effort or time expended, create images that, to
the untrained or casual eye, would be considered indistinguishable
from much of the art any museum goer might be familiar with -
especially art from say, 1960 on.
Remember when Macs first became popular? Everyone suddenly became a
graphic designer, turning out their own letterheads and business
cards. It was awful. Lately, I've been getting a frightening number of
homemade greeting cards, churned out via templates and bubble-jet
printers.
But what's really scary is Fractal's own "Auto Van Gogh" and "Image
Hoses" and click-a-button Seurat. I can now snap a photograph, scan it
in, lay a piece of electronic tracing paper over it, and with a few
brushtrokes, Voila! - an impressionist's rendering of my suburban
home; station wagon, dog and 2.3 kids included.
Is this kind of ability going to push art in a new direction? Or am I
being overly neurotic? (Nothing new there....) Or, like any other
medium, is content enough to distinguish art from its imitators, in
much the same way that pocket cameras pose no threat to "real"
photographers? I guess the difference here is the strength of the
technology . . .
Stormfront Studios
...
Yes, you are being "overly neurotic". Technology will not be able to
interpret an image. That's what we do. There's a special appeal to
hand-made work that a computer cannot simulate. It's a degree of
imperfection and flaws that we recognize as human, and adds a value of
appreciation that cannot be achieved otherwise. No matter how accurate a
tool becomes, it will still create an abstraction of the world we live in.
You can now sleep a little more restfully.
david clemons
base...@stormfront.com
Chris Maher
she...@intr.net (Norman Maynard) wrote:
Norman,
Yes, you can use the tools that a computer makes possible, and create
things that look like art. And they may work as art. For me, the key
is not in form but function. And what functions as art is different
for different people. So create, modify and go forth!
Chris
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david goerndt
Painter simply provides tools for the "artist" to use, how they are used
is what separates the gifted from the hobbyist. The more people exposed
to this type of technology the more a person's imagination is stimulated,
and who knows maybe some genuine "art" will result. I doubt seriously if
Art (capital "A") will ever be diminished because a piece of software
makes it easy to splash color on a page. it still takes a human mind to
conceive the idea and execute it. To some extent it may desensitize many
to what is really good and what is really bad, but since art is very
personal it will never cause it to wither.
Norman Maynard
Thanks for the responses.
Maybe my phrasing was wrong; maybe I'd just had too much coffee.
I was not trying to start another "What is Art?" conversation, as
someone feared, and I certainly never, never intended to suggest that
there might be Artists, and The Great Unwashed (if these two groups do
exist, I happily must place mmyself in the latter), but I guess I was
aiming more at the beginning idea of my post, which was:
Just as technology changed the way artists *perceived* what they saw
around them (okay, okay - maybe technology was not the SOLE cause, but
it didn't hurt) back at th turn of the last century, I was wondering
how art would be altered by the technology we are experiencing at the
turn of this one.
If cameras saw things the way they were, then artists saw things the
way they interpretted them. If computers can bring us "virtually"
anywhere (sorry), and can manipulate images and make movies and sound
and can invite people from all over the globe to make collabrative art
and novels etc. - etc. - anyone want to speculate on how our
perceptions might change?
I'm just asking a speculative, coffee-shop type question here.
Apart from perception per se, one thing I'm wondering is if there will
be a growth of site-specific art, art which can't be broadcast on the
net. Some sort of marriage between architecture and the fine arts
maybe....
mark
The difference between mostpeople & artists is creativity.
--
onelove FreakNation
eli...@cyberramp.net http://www.cyberramp.net/~elibloc