Is it art?

[utah-cs!jwp]

I consider Voss's work ('Factal Planetrise') quite impressive irreguardless
of the medium used. Even with more conventional media (paint, models...
deep space photography) such an image still requires a lot of care and effort
to produce.

Releated food for thought- Special effects people for Hollywood (Doug Trumbell
or John Dykstra, for example) are frequently refered to as "artists", yet many
of the images they produce are much like Voss's (consider the scenery in 2001).

jw-peterson.

[burdvax!hdj]

'Irreguardless' (sic!) of whether the work is impressive, I
maintain that 'Factal (sic) Planetrise' isn't art.

Personally, I thought Pauline Ts'o and others explained the distinction
between art and 'impressive pictures' pretty well.

A good question now is: *why* is there such a dearth of actual computer art?
Is it due to a lack of good software or hardware? What would be an ideal
software/hardware 'environment' for production of computer-graphical art?
Is 'computer art' an inherent contradiction?

Is anyone out there familiar with the goals and methods of the MIT Visual
Language Workshop, or other computer art workshops, and would you care to
enlighten the rest of us?

I don't want this discussion to be centered on whether or not some particular
work is art, but rather on the deeper issues concerned with high technology
and art, which have been called "the two cultures."

This is getting good,

Herb Jellinek, SDC/aBC R&D
burdvax!hdj (uucp), jellinek@wharton-10 (ARPA), 215-648-7456 (Ma)