Is digital art? - Beyond Tiki

A aquarj Tiki Socialite SF bay area, CA Joined: Apr 02, 2002 Posts: 1125	A aquarj Posted posted on Fri, Jan 13, 2006 7:00 PM But is it art? Sure it's art, but is it GOOD? Even that is a question that can only have relative answers. Do you like it (and why)? To me that's a much more fun question. I think it's easy to get caught up in some of the connotative meanings beyond what a word like art actually means. Things like... "art must carry an intentional creative message from the artist" "art requires the mastery of a medium" "art must be tangible" "art cannot be the result of accident" "art cannot be purely derivative" "art cannot be something produced for purely commercial purposes" All of these have counterexamples. I'd contend that it's much more fitting to allow a broad definition for "art" that encompasses most any creative act. Once you bypass the abstract debate over terms, you can get into the fun part, which is the specific discussions of what we like or dislike about specific creative works. That's when we get into things that characterize the experience, "does it inspire?","does it provoke?","is it familiar?","is it beautiful?","is it funny?". (About that last question "is it funny?", have you ever noticed that Oscars rarely go to comedies? Why should humor be considered less of an artistic achievement?) One of the interesting things about digital art forms is that they present new kinds of experience - a perfect example of "the medium is the message". In other words, how is the overall experience of digital art different as a result of its inherent features? Some little examples... It can be copied more easily and experienced more widely at the same time, so the ratio between artist and audience is different. A truly original piece could simultaneously be in every museum in the world - original in the sense that all cases are exactly what the artist created (digitally) down to the last bit. The creative process is more abstracted from the audience (no globs of paint or chisel marks) in many digital formats, so the results may seem less personal. What if you could record and playback the creative process? So when you experience an example of digital art, you can see not only a final product, but the entire process from scratch. This is impossible with something like a physical painting, but could re-introduce some of the personal element to the art form in the digital case. The experience of digital art comes in one of two forms - presented "natively" in its digital form on a device like a screen, or extracted from the digital environment and reproduced in some tangible form like a print. In the first case, visual digital art resembles other art forms like music. You can't touch or look at a song to experience the musical performance. You can only experience a song while it's performed, either live or from a recording. With a work of visual digital art, once you turn off the screen it's gone. But actually the two cases are closer to each other than that if you think about it. You could leave the screen on just as long as you have the print hanging. Taking down the print and putting it in the closet is equivalent to turning off the screen. And both forms introduce a conversion process that makes the audience experience different (even in small ways) from what the artist saw or heard - things like different color values on the screen or in the print process. Digital art also affords other possibilities that traditional art forms don't, like interactivity. And as some of the earlier posts suggested, it also enables the distribution of work that is creative in different ways. Many works of digital visual art are the equivalent of music produced with a drum machine. Although the computer provides shortcuts in some parts of the creative process that would traditionally have to be performed, it also allows for new forms of creativity that can still be appreciated as having real creative value (in the eye or ear of the beholder). This is why it makes sense to me that people would naturally use different criteria for their opinions of digital art, because the experience is different and the creative process is different, so therefore the ideal is different. I think it'll be really interesting to see how opinions and attitudes change in unexpected ways as a result of these new kinds of experience from the new media. Sorry for getting all philosophical and stuff, these kinds of discussions are fun. Here's a few artists that I like, who do or did use digital tools at least some of the time. Don't wanna step on toes, since I'm not sure if any of them would consider themselves digital artists though. All of these people used to have works in the Burning Brush auctions, btw. I think Kirsten Ulve is the only one whose work at Burning Brush was literally a print of a digitally created work (and it did sell). Kirsten Ulve, Chris Reccardi, Lynne Naylor, Miles Thompson (not sure if he'd call himself a digital artist these days though), Carlos Ramos -Randy

But is it art? Sure it's art, but is it GOOD? Even that is a question that can only have relative answers. Do you like it (and why)? To me that's a much more fun question. I think it's easy to get caught up in some of the connotative meanings beyond what a word like art actually means. Things like...

"art must carry an intentional creative message from the artist"
"art requires the mastery of a medium"
"art must be tangible"
"art cannot be the result of accident"
"art cannot be purely derivative"
"art cannot be something produced for purely commercial purposes"

All of these have counterexamples. I'd contend that it's much more fitting to allow a broad definition for "art" that encompasses most any creative act. Once you bypass the abstract debate over terms, you can get into the fun part, which is the specific discussions of what we like or dislike about specific creative works. That's when we get into things that characterize the experience, "does it inspire?","does it provoke?","is it familiar?","is it beautiful?","is it funny?". (About that last question "is it funny?", have you ever noticed that Oscars rarely go to comedies? Why should humor be considered less of an artistic achievement?) One of the interesting things about digital art forms is that they present new kinds of experience - a perfect example of "the medium is the message". In other words, how is the overall experience of digital art different as a result of its inherent features? Some little examples...

It can be copied more easily and experienced more widely at the same time, so the ratio between artist and audience is different. A truly original piece could simultaneously be in every museum in the world - original in the sense that all cases are exactly what the artist created (digitally) down to the last bit.

The creative process is more abstracted from the audience (no globs of paint or chisel marks) in many digital formats, so the results may seem less personal. What if you could record and playback the creative process? So when you experience an example of digital art, you can see not only a final product, but the entire process from scratch. This is impossible with something like a physical painting, but could re-introduce some of the personal element to the art form in the digital case.

The experience of digital art comes in one of two forms - presented "natively" in its digital form on a device like a screen, or extracted from the digital environment and reproduced in some tangible form like a print. In the first case, visual digital art resembles other art forms like music. You can't touch or look at a song to experience the musical performance. You can only experience a song while it's performed, either live or from a recording. With a work of visual digital art, once you turn off the screen it's gone. But actually the two cases are closer to each other than that if you think about it. You could leave the screen on just as long as you have the print hanging. Taking down the print and putting it in the closet is equivalent to turning off the screen. And both forms introduce a conversion process that makes the audience experience different (even in small ways) from what the artist saw or heard - things like different color values on the screen or in the print process.

Digital art also affords other possibilities that traditional art forms don't, like interactivity. And as some of the earlier posts suggested, it also enables the distribution of work that is creative in different ways. Many works of digital visual art are the equivalent of music produced with a drum machine. Although the computer provides shortcuts in some parts of the creative process that would traditionally have to be performed, it also allows for new forms of creativity that can still be appreciated as having real creative value (in the eye or ear of the beholder). This is why it makes sense to me that people would naturally use different criteria for their opinions of digital art, because the experience is different and the creative process is different, so therefore the ideal is different. I think it'll be really interesting to see how opinions and attitudes change in unexpected ways as a result of these new kinds of experience from the new media.

Sorry for getting all philosophical and stuff, these kinds of discussions are fun. Here's a few artists that I like, who do or did use digital tools at least some of the time. Don't wanna step on toes, since I'm not sure if any of them would consider themselves digital artists though. All of these people used to have works in the Burning Brush auctions, btw. I think Kirsten Ulve is the only one whose work at Burning Brush was literally a print of a digitally created work (and it did sell).

Kirsten Ulve,
Chris Reccardi,
Lynne Naylor,
Miles Thompson (not sure if he'd call himself a digital artist these days though),
Carlos Ramos

-Randy

Post #207446 by aquarj on Fri, Jan 13, 2006 7:00 PM