Napoleon, a Urinal, and Traction Control a Floating Torso:
An Exploration of The Validity of Digital Art, and
Technology’s Role in the Abolition of High/Low Artistic Classification
I am incredibly
amused at the fact that I can have a computer in my microwave to cook my food,
a computer in my car to control my traction, and a computer at work that
controls… well, everything there. What’s more amusing, is the fact that with
all of these technological advances, if I introduce a computer into my art
making process, shit hits the fan. There is a stigma left over from days past
that if it is not drawn, painted, or chiseled by hand out of a chunk of rock
that took 20 slaves to carry, it’s not art. It doesn’t matter how pretty it is,
or how much time you’ve spent on it; it’s just not art. Artists, more so than
the general public, tend to feel very strongly about this. The most current
fuel for this debate is an art movement that has taken the art world by storm:
digital art[1].
Compared to chisel
and rock, keyboard and monitor just do not seem to cut it in the eyes of many
of today’s traditional artists. Digital art is considered a ‘low’ form of art.
In other words, this art form is compared to the validity of children’s
sketches on the bathroom wall in terms of expressive quality and technique, as
well as things like ‘paint-by-number’ and comic books. Low art, in traditional
terms, is absolutely not acceptable to the elite purveyors of high art; these
people would rather pay millions of dollars for a photo realistic portrait
painting of someone, or something, that they could go look at for themselves.
Seems a little odd, but maybe I’m just not down with the latest trends in
financial investment and laziness.
People claim that artistic creation
by means of using a computer, or digital art, is low art either with mediocre
reasoning, or just out of plain elitism/prejudice. I intend to show that
digital art is indeed as valid as any other art form in existence, and that it
has democratized the world of art by bridging the socioeconomic gap between
high and low art. Through the investigation of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s ‘Napoleon on his Imperial Throne’ from the Neoclassical movement,
‘Fountain’ by Marcel Duchamp
from the Dada movement, and one of Christopher Lee Donovan’s apparently
untitled digital pieces (DeAnna_-_Floating_01.jpg) for the digital art
movement, we will aim to compare digital art to past artistic experiences for
signs of validity. Simultaneously, through exploration of the outdated nature
of the classifications ‘high’ and ‘low,’ we will see just how evolution of
creative thought has led to the extinction of these social boundaries.
Art to most
artists, ‘high/low’ or otherwise, is a way of life. Whether through either
tedious processes involving hours of relentless and perfected work, or pieces
that take mere minutes and pack a shocking social punch, art is key in
attempting to express to oneself and society the ever-changing essence of human
existence. From the most accurately drawn graphite sketch to the most
effortless scrawling of babble on a restaurant napkin, every work is an
experiment in coherent or subliminal personal and/or social thought.
All my life I have been an artist; I’ve known
nothing else. The deciding factor for the label ‘artist’ was my childhood. The
physical and verbal abuse I experienced as a child led me to find a way to
escape reality, to let my thoughts and feelings run free of any physical
boundaries. As I’ve progressed through my life, my expressive goals have
changed and evolved. I’ve experimented with many mediums and many techniques on
my own, and have grown to feel the need to mimic, mock, and examine the world
around me. It is in this experimentation that I have found what I believe to be
the most versatile tool known to mankind: the computer.
As a digital artist, I often encounter other
artists practicing traditional art making methods (painting and sculpture, for
example) that denounce my work, egotistically accusing it of being inferior to
‘real art,’ with absolutely no reasoning or proof. Most of the time, actually,
I am faced with the phrase “that’s not art,” followed shortly thereafter by a
snobbish huff and a hasty retreat in the opposite direction. At first I was surprised
at the reactions of these artists to a valid medium of creation: totally
closed-minded and rather not what a ‘creative’ mind would be thought of as
embracing. This surprise soon turned to indifference, as it has with many other
digital artists, and I felt it easier to just dismiss the ignorant whining
aimed in my general direction.
Artistic
Classification: High Art
It is commonly thought within the art world that,
regardless of fairness, two loosely defined categories of art exist: high and
low. These categories define tastes in aesthetic properties. Practices such as
painting, sculpture, and printmaking are considered high art because of the
amount of skill needed to meet the aesthetic standards of higher-class society.
Webb Phillips, an employee of the Cognition Lab at MIT, states that
“[a]esthetic systems perpetuate class inequalities.” In examining this statement, we
find that the higher social class, also being the wealthier class, is
synonymous with the idea of being ‘cultured.’ It seems as if society labels
high art as being “long established art forms such as painting and ballet”
which are “supported by an elite and wealthy class of society” (Webb). Works of
art in these forms are generally not accepted unless the artist is extremely
skilled and masterful with his/her work, which excludes a vast majority of
society on the basis of finance. Webb’s statement about ‘high’ artists being
supported by the elite furthers this predicament. The reason these people are
indeed so skillful is that they have access to the funds with which to do so.
This socioeconomic system places costly skill on a pedestal, whilst leaving the
generally more expressive, humane, and available works of art to the lower
classes.
Neoclassicism is a perfect
example of a movement which is widely considered as high art. The Neoclassical
movement (approximately 1700-1810 A.D.) is characterized by a photographic
likeness to reality, which required the utmost skill and patience. Most of the
artists of this period were extremely perfectionist in nature, sometimes almost
obsessive, as their goal was to accurately reproduce life in two dimensions
with absolutely no difference from three-dimensional realistic vision. The
piece we are to study is Jean-Auguste-Dominique
Ingres’s “Napoleon on his Imperial Throne,” painted in
1806. Right away, note the rigid and stern title of the work at hand. This
title may or may not have been assigned by the artist, but regardless, it
reflects the stern and serious subject of the painting. It also tells us exactly
what we are viewing.
Upon first
glance, this piece seems like a photograph. The detail of this work is almost
unheard of for a painting. This is known as photo-realism and was a standard in
the Neoclassical period. Neoclassicism is what some refer to as a rebound
movement. It is an exact opposite, and very protestant of the “free formed and
colorful” Renaissance movement, which it followed (Victorian Web). The
lack of freedom is quite evident on examination of this work. Napoleon Bonaparte sits extremely rigidly in his throne, staring intently ahead
as if waiting for the viewer to excuse themselves from his view. His lips also
seem to be frozen closed in mid thought, as if he appears to be refraining from
speaking. Though the background is dark and the scene shadowy, the lighting is
rather harsh, lighting the right side of Napoleon’s face and body almost like a
small spotlight. His clothing is heavy and draped in the style of historic
European royalty. Napoleon sits exactly centered in his throne, and interestingly
enough, still bears his sword at his side. This seems to imply a strong warrior
type of royalty. Napoleon sits with two staffs: one short, in his left hand
pointing diagonally upward past his shoulder much as a soldier holds a gun. The
other is approximately twice as long, one end resting on the floor in front of
his chair and held high at the top with the right hand. Detail in the clothing
is eerily accurate. Every shadow, highlight, and detail of fabric is easily
noticeable. So much so that we can accurately deduct the fabrics our subject is
wearing: fur and velvet. Details in the chair appear to us, as well as even the
crisp pattern of the carpet on the floor. Only four colors are present
throughout the piece: brown, gold, red, and white. This signifies a very clean,
refined atmosphere, a signature of European royalty. A perfectly symmetrical
crown placed on Napoleons head completes the scene.
What does all this symbolism mean now that we have documented it? First
we see that Neoclassicism seems extremely strict. Portrayal of reality in a
most accurate form is extremely important. Every minor detail is worthy of
documentation in order to reflect the utmost character of the subject and its
surroundings. It also seems that this person is very important. In
Neoclassicism in general it’s seen that man, as a being, is the most important
subject for art. Rarely is anything else portrayed unless it’s in the company
of a human form. The subject matter is royalty, hinting to regal roots and
financial stability, key features of high art classification. There is almost
no emotion radiating from this piece. No imperfections, no ‘normality;’ it is
most certainly not a reflection of the masses.
Artistic Classification: Low Art
Low art is considered as any art
form that does not require the academic learning of a specific trade (attempts
at drawing from the untrained hand, hobby craft, etc) and/or any forms of art
that are widely available to the masses (anything distributed or mass produced
for example). For our next movement we move forward in time
approximately 110 years to Dadaism. Born from anti-war protest coming out of
the First World War, Dada rebelled against artistic convention and sought to subvert the existing
social, political, religious, and moral order with art that was conceived more
from a process of self and social discovery than any particular rule set.
This leads us to our next piece,
‘Fountain,’ by Marcel Duchamp, widely
acclaimed as the father of the Dadaist movement. An exhibition was held in 1917
by The Society of Independent Artists, an establishment that Duchamp helped
found in New York. The show was open to any artist who agreed to pay the
six-dollar entry fee. Theoretically there were no restrictions on what could be
shown, as there was no jury for judging. Duchamp decided to test exactly how
much reality there was to this artistic freedom. He retrieved from a plumbing
supply store a standard issue men’s bathroom porcelain urinal, which he
creatively titled ‘Fountain,’ and signed under the pen name
‘R. Mutt.’ The show’s hanging committee “indignantly
refused” to exhibit his item as sculpture (Tomkins 39). This blatant disregard
for creative experimentation serves as the basis for the separation of high and
low art.
Duchamp
later argued that it did not matter whether ‘R. Mutt’ made the fountain with
his own hands or not, but that “the act of choosing
the fountain was artistic in itself” (Tomkins 39). Duchamp took an ordinary
object that one sees everyday, and placed it so that it’s normal title and
significance were irrelevant. The object in essence disappeared, and was
recreated with new significance and point of view that totally changed the
associated thought of the object
Duchamp was not
fond of the idea of ‘retinal art,’ or art for the eye alone. He decided to
detach himself from all artistic practice, and aimed to totally remove the
‘artists hand,’ or style, from his work. In order to achieve this, he decided
to stop drawing as an artist, and engage in technical drawing, as a machine
would output. Furthermore, Duchamp engineered the idea of ‘ready-mades,’ or
“manufactured objects promoted to dignity of objects of art through the choice
of the artist” (Fountain was a ready-made) (Tomkins 36). Duchamp described his
ready-mades as “a distortion of the visual idea to execute an intellectual
idea,” which seems to be some ‘thing’ taken out of it’s ‘proper’ context, and
placed into an unfamiliar and unassociated context (Tomkins 36). The simple act
of signing something seemed to take an item out of it’s associated context, and
familiarize it with the context of a work of art. “Duchamp seemed to be
implying that anything made by man or by man’s machines was art, and that the
artist was merely someone who signed things” (Tomkins 36). This idea of almost
everything man-made being art, coupled with the idea that an artist was merely
one who signs things outraged the art world. Artists were insulted at the idea
that they were merely signature machines, and collectors found the idea that
fine art such as theirs was on the same level as household objects blasphemous.
Here we have Duchamp supporting the idea of democratization of the art world by
means of the dissolution of artistic classification.
As we can see,
there is a huge fundamental difference between our two comparative art
movements: one relies only on visual imagery to portray an ideal thought, and
one concentrates solely on the intellectual meaning and/or message behind a
work. Again, this further separates our categories of classification. While
high art is concerned purely with the idea of art for aesthetics’ sake, low
art’s aim is to make people think. Low art appeals to people because they can
relate to it. They are not perfect, and thus they are comforted in artistic
merit that is the same. Mass distribution of low art assures that the art is
molded into societal culture by way of mass impression. Something as simple as
the renaming of a bathroom fixture caused a worldwide revolution in artistic
thought. It is this art that works for and with the people. Dadaism to this day
is still widely disputed, which is akin to the nature of the movement itself,
being a guerilla warfare type assault on the establishment of artistic
classification and the concept of high art-by-class.
Artistic Classification: Is Dead (Computer + Art =
Revolution)
From
computer-programming based images calculated one pixel at a time grew the need
to input true to life images such as photographs, thus starting the digital art
revolution. Tom Porett, in his Art
Journal article titled ‘Cyberart Considerations,’ states that
“[t]echnological innovations have made the computer an increasingly versatile
tool… Artists are beginning to couple traditional forms with new electronic
techniques to produce vibrant and vivid artistic expressions.” (32). Artists
soon realized the potential of this new medium, yearning to discover just how
far they could push the limits of their creations. Porett also says, “in terms
of relevance and participation, the digital age is ushering a new movement”
(Porett 32). Our digital art piece to represent this newest movement is by an
artist named Christopher Lee Donovan, a graduate student at Rochester Institute
of Technology in New York. Upon viewing this piece, right away we must notice
the method of delivery: a web site. With the popularity of the computer as a
household appliance becoming greater every year, more and more people are being
exposed to the ways of digital art making. In the age of technology, so much
relies on the internet and digital communications that even the art world has
been split wide open with the prospect of online galleries and millions of
possible viewers for any given artists work. Donovan has drawn us toward his
work by building a web site based around his portfolio of traditional
photography and photographically derived digital art. This is much different
from the past two movements we have analyzed. Anyone can view Donovan’s work
from anywhere in the world by logging onto the Internet and surfing to his
website.
As today’s
technology connects people with a web of contact that exceeds all past
innovations, it becomes more and more reasonable to send grandma an email with
the latest computer mouse sketch, than to physically draw and snail-mail it.
Grandma can then email it to all of her bridge buddies, print multiple copies
of it to brighten her friends’ rainy days, and set it as the desktop image of
her PC, effectively making her grandchild’s art more accessible than ever
before. As whimsical as this example sounds, it is a perfect reflection of how
today’s technology is revolutionizing art, and becoming more ideal for the
purposes of artistic creation. This mass exposure is a key factor in the
classification of low art. The same mass exposure also seems to cancel out the notion
of artistic classification by de-evolving the artistic state of the work to a
primitive form, in which there was no separation of society based on physical
wealth or artistic knowledge level (which leads to the advantage in skill, and
the emergence of high culture).
Still concentrating on the
presentation itself, there may or may not even be a physical copy of this
piece. The computer allows the artist, as a creator, to focus more on the
content of a particular work, than necessarily the means by which it is being
made. This is not always the case, and sometimes process equals or precedes
content, but this is seen as a general ‘pro’ in the context of creation. Also,
the digital medium, as Daniel Giordan states, “provides a degree of speed and
flexibility that other mediums can’t keep up with”. This allows the artist to
execute the work quickly and efficiently. As a result, more time is available
to the artist to explore alternative possibilities for every action, as well as
fine tune and develop a more coherent product. Donovan has the option of
converting the digital file to film and printing it photographically, printing
the file onto paper via an ink printer, or not printing the file at all. He may
also save infinite versions of his image, modifying it as he wishes, even using
copies in totally different, or derivative works, never having to worry about
damaging his sole original. By nature of technology itself, the technology,
which provides means of reproduction, dictates cultural relationships and meanings.
This digital medium represents total artistic freedom to the artist.
This piece is unnamed on the
website, however the name of the digital file itself is “DeAnna_-_Floating_01.”
This could mean any number of things to the viewer. We have the ability to take
this as the name of the piece, or dismiss this name as solely the name of the
file, with no relevance to the title of the work itself. Again, I reference the
words of Fischer and note that the de-evolution of art also includes “no more
collecting, no more unique signatures.” Although not necessarily all within the
scope of the law, we are able to download this image, delete it, print it and
tear it up, burn it, or staple a thousand copies of it all over the city of our
choice; the possibilities are endless. To collect is to covet generally out of
rarity or fondness, neither of which are necessarily applicable in the case of
mass distribution. This work is not signed, but is marked by text on a border
off of the actual piece itself to clarify a copyright; it reads “©2002
CHRIS DONOVAN” and then lists the address to his website.
Moving
on to the actual content of the image, we assume because of Donovan’s
background and portfolio that it is photographically derived. We see a female
nude torso from the waist up, arms reaching upward as if climbing a rope, with
head tilted upward, looking for the next place to reach. The torso is hovering
in the air a logical distance above the floor of a room, and in front of a
wall. What is interesting about it though, is that the waist of the female
appears to be tied with a rope, and what hangs below the rope resembles very
closely the top of a tied burlap sack hanging upside down. Below the hovering
torso, on the floor, is a sizeable pile of what looks similar to sawdust. It
appears that the torso had been ‘leaking’ until something tied off the lower
portion of it. The most disturbing part of this piece is the fact that it does
indeed look like photographic reality.
Interpretations of this image are
as free and open as the mind is willing to ponder. There is no description of
the work anywhere, and it is obviously not just a portrait. Unlike both of the
previous movements, this image has both common aesthetic and intellectual
properties. Speaking from experience, the skill needed to achieve such a
realistic visual interpretation of this particular thought is associated very
much with ‘high’ classification of art, as are the definite concepts of space,
line, and composition within. It takes a very skilled hand and eye for detail
to create this image. The availability of the piece, and the common yet
curiously grotesque subject matter wholly suggest a low art point of view. The
emotional content of the piece is totally up in the air, conforming to neither
high culture classification, nor humane and moral standards, as with
generalized low art.
This piece compares equally to
both our example of high art and our example of low art in terms of both visual
and intellectual properties. It is a combination of precise imagery and
specific thought, it’s true meaning known only to the mind and hand that
created it. It is impossible to decide whether this piece of art shall be
defined as high art or low art. This is exactly why these classifications are
deprecated. Hervé Fischer, again in “A Crisis in Contemporary Art,” tells us
“[n]ever has any cultural movement been as swift, as brutal, as universal and
yet as easy as that of the digital revolution”. As technology leads the way for
new and better methods of artistic production and presentation, the lines will
continue to be blurred, and artists will continue to push the limits.
The biggest
opposing issue facing digital art has to do with the validity of using the
computer itself as a means for creation of art. There will always be people
that will question the validity of anything, regardless of how much factual
evidence is shown, or how much discussion is submitted for engagement. However,
the majority of people are inclined to follow the facts, and generally intend
on dissolving misconceptions in order to know and feel the truth. In the case
of digital art, part of its non-acceptance is indeed misconception.
Many people believe that the computer is a ‘super
tool’ of sorts, which ‘does the work’ for you. John Pangia, editorial writer
for ‘the-internet-eye,’ accurately states that “[p]urists can be counted
on to rant that there’s no art to it all, that any three year old can cut and
paste pictures on a computer.” They believe that with a few mouse clicks, one
can let the computer formulate equations into something resembling art.
Ironically, that same three year old can be taught to draw and paint as easily
as they can learn to use a computer and an image-editing program. Aside from
aesthetic value and eye for composition, which are purely personal ideals,
drawing and its digital counterpart are both just learned skills. Furthermore,
anyone that works with computers will tell you that computers can only do what
you tell them. This is common sense, as even automation has to be created by a
human at the most basic programming level.
Even aside from this, the fact still remains that
the idea is, by nature, an artistic endeavor. Corinne Whitaker, a
California artist, says that her goal is “to say something about being human;
the computer is simply a fabulous tool to help me do that.” This reinforces the
mainstream conception that digital artists have about the computer: it is
nothing more than a big paintbrush. The skill needed to smear paint is simply
mirrored by the skill needed to create a digitally conceived piece. More skill
is needed to complete a visually appealing and accepted (among peers) painted
piece, and the same also holds true for digitally conceived works. Whitaker
continues, stating that “the original idea is in the artists head,” and
“Regardless of the medium, we won’t convey anything to anyone unless we render
it.” (Watson, 108) This is reminiscent of the open-minded artists stance on the
idea itself being the art, with the render, or physical piece simply being a
container to convey a message. Indeed, if all artists thought along these lines
there would be little conflict on the subject of what is and what is not art.
Alternatively we would just have more clashing of ideas. People will never give
up.
Another argument against the
validity of digital art is based on the idea that “digital reproduction will
cheapen good art” (Pangia). This remains to be seen, but judging from the
number of famous paintings and other works currently in museums for which there
are commercially available digital prints, I would say that this is an
incredibly invalid statement.
It is interesting to note that the availability
of digital art does in fact play a huge role in the dismissal of it as a fine
art form. As our ‘Grandma’ scenario stated earlier provides a new forefront for
the availability of artistic work to the masses, it also, in the opinions of
strict critics and high-art connoisseurs, seriously degrades the validity of
digital art. The availability of artistic work is a distinct difference in the
comparison between high and low art. While there should only be one copy, the
original copy, of any high art piece, it is accepted for low art to be
mass-produced and distributed. In the case of digital art, the multitudes of
ways in which it can be showcased (particularly via use of the internet), pave
the way for critics to suggest that digital art is indeed nothing more than
widespread virtual scribble. In the case of Fischer’s art primitivism theory,
this cyber graffiti isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Sometimes it is
not exclusively the opposite side that discredits a particular idea. A perfect
example of this is an essay by Jason Beam, a self-proclaimed digital artist
like myself, who provides us with an essay called “The Clarification of Digital
Art,” and aims to explore some of the points of this text. Unfortunately the
entire piece is simply opinions dismissing other forms of art, and putting
digital art on a pedestal with no verifiable justification or research. Going
on to state, “What I and others do in photoshop cannot be duplicated in any
other medium other than the computer. Even in the dark room.” shows Jason’s
perceived elitism. It is debatable that a photographer could indeed composite
finely taken negatives and inter-negatives (a negative formed of a composite of
negatives, a consolidation, if you will) to produce very similar work. Though
extremely time consuming and requiring almost mechanical skill and precision,
it is indeed quite possible.
All artistic
mediums feed off each other, and digital art is no exception. The first wave in
digital art popularity consisted of images drawn pixel by pixel, with
the use of the keyboard or mouse. This is no different from using a paintbrush.
Beam’s definition of digital art is very selective, and again unfounded. He
seeks to eliminate art drawn or painted into the computer by means of an input
device such as a mouse or tablet, as it reflects dependence on traditional
mediums. Other than Jason’s rant about having spent “hundreds of dollars
competing in contests that I would never win because my style of art does not
adhere to the styles of the other artists,” there is absolutely no foundation
to this classification. Mr. Beam also
seems to have the same closed minded and opinionated stance on art that he so
wishes to loathe. Stating that “the idiot that smeared elephant dung on the
Virgin Mary” is merely conducting a talent less exercise in human manipulation
in order to “bilk rich people out of their money” serves as a perfect example
of what plagues the art world.
I fully support
Jason Beam in his work to bring light to the idea of the acceptance of digital
art, but it is this mindset that seeks to segregate and dismiss digital art in
the first place. We now see that one of the reasons for the dismissal of the
digital medium as a form of fine art is the blatant closed mindedness of much
of the movement’s members themselves. Our actions and words speak equally as
loud in this debate. When prominent members of our group voice less than
optimal, and sometimes downright insulting opinions about other forms of art,
people take a step back and re-evaluate their stance on supporting us. After
all, why should they bother supporting us if we will never do the same?
The Birth of Digital, The Death
of Classification
There
is not one valid argument against digital art that cannot be countered with a
valid argument for it. Digital art seems to have indeed proven its place in the
history of art as a still-evolving chasm of infinite possibility. As with every
other art movement, as more and more people are turned onto these
possibilities, and the benefits that arrive with them, tastes in society and
the art world will change the popular view… until something bigger and better comes
along to steal the attention away. Through analysis of previous movements we
are able to gain a clear stand on how digital art compares to the past, and how
it’s future might unwind.
Antonin
Scalia, American Surpreme Court Justice, recently stated in a conversation
about the clarification of high/low art relevant to issues of artistic taste in
law: “[I]n my view it is quite impossible to come to an objective assessment of
(at least) literary or artistic value, there being so many accomplished people
who have found literature in Dada, and art in the replication of a soup can. …I
think we would be better advised to adopt as a legal maxim what has long been
the wisdom of mankind: De gustibus non est disputandum. Just
as there is no use arguing about taste, there is no use litigating about it”
(Carley).
It is my hope that people will
start to understand that art is a larger part of any culture than just the
elitist individuals that populate the art scene. Creation, satirical or
serious, is a necessary part of mainstream culture. Everything from dishes and
cars to bathrooms and buildings are influenced by creative endeavors. Though
art and it’s influence are literally everywhere, one’s perception of art is
purely a personal experience, no matter how recycled or distributed the imagery
or thought may become. Because of this, public opinion will always succumb to
private interpretation in the mind of the viewer. Like religion, the definition of
art is very broad. Personal opinions, excessive pride in one’s style or medium,
and inevitable conflicts of interest arising from loyalties to groups or
movements all converge to form an unfounded assault on new ideas and different
approaches. In today’s world, and in years yet passed, cognitive
classification is and will be totally in the realm of the audience’s mind.
There is, however, no longer a logical need for the elitist separation of
artistic endeavors, no matter how deviant these endeavors may be.
There
will always be critics. Hopefully one day, they’ll find something else to argue
about. In the mean time, let’s turn on that fan again, I just got this great
idea…
Works Cited
Beam,
Jason. “Clarification
of Digital Art”
(27 Nov. 2001) 10 Feb.
2002
<http://digitalart.org/features/articles/index.php?ID=6>
Carley, Anne M. “I Know it When I See it”
Arts4All Newsletter. (2 Aug 1999)
v.1 i.3
Fischer,
Hervé. “A Crisis in Contemporary Art.”
MIT Press E-Journals
1 Feb. 2002
<http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/isast/articles/fischer.html>
Giordan,
Daniel. “Digital Aesthetic v3.0”
(2002) 21 Feb. 2002
<http://www.webreference.com/graphics/essay/essay4/>
Pangia, John. “Digital
Art: Is it Creative, or Just Clickable?”
(22 Jan 1999) 21 Feb. 2002
<http://the-internet-eye.com/editorials/digital_art_is_it_creative.htm>
Phillips, Webb “High
Art, Low Art”
(2000)
4 Feb. 2002
<http://cogstantinople.mit.edu/~webb/aesthetics>
Porett, Tom. “Cyberart
Considerations”
Art Journal. (1994) v53 n3 p32. 22 Feb. 2002
Tomkins,
Calvin. “The World of Marcel Duchamp”
Time-Life Books Inc. 1966.
(2000) 10 Feb. 2002
<http://www.victorianweb.org/victorian/previctorian/nc/ncintro.html>
Warren, K.C. “What
Are They Doing With Computers?”
School Arts. (Dec. 1989) v89 n4 p20. 22 Feb. 2002
Watson, Lisa-Crawford. “Is
the Art World Ready for Computer Generated Art?”
Art
Business News. (Nov. 2000) v27 i12 p108. 22 Feb. 2002
(including outline and
commentary)
artchive.
“Marcel Duchamp.”
28 Mar. 2002
<http://www.artchive.com/artchive/D/duchamp.html>
Artchive
is a website that showcases artists in alphabetical order, a concept akin to
basically a web-searchable art museum. This web page, unlike some of the
others, refrains from giving just a simple biography of the artist. Instead, it
focuses more on their key works, their philosophies, and what others have said
about them.
It’s a great concept, and
it’s been useful on many occasions. This was a great resource for some more
information on Marcel Duchamp, my Dada artist, and maker of the devious
‘Fountain’ ready-made. The site discusses in detail, his master work, “The
Large Glass,” as well as his thoughts and philosophies on it and his other
works, and art in general.
art:industri
group. “Art Movements Directory”.
7 Feb. 2002
<http://www.artmovements.co.uk/frames.htm>
Sporting an impressive
directory of 43 of the most influential art movements, from ancient to
post-modern, this site is my idol.
Upon inspection, artmovements
proved to be a valuable resource for my paper as it contains clear and concise
descriptions of each movement, which enabled me to browse through and find the
best finalists for inclusion in my paper.
To make things even more fun, each movement also includes a list of the
most influential artists associated with that time period, which will make for
some great cross-referencing.
Beam,
Jason. “Clarification
of Digital Art”
(27 Nov. 2001) 10 Feb.
2002
<http://digitalart.org/features/articles/index.php?ID=6>
This work is a short essay
on what exactly digital art is, in hopes that informing the masses of the
technicalities of this genre will educate them enough to become accepting.
The essay is decently
written, but provides no real research on the topic. It is also quite
opinionated at one point, and contradicts itself with the following quote: “The social art world is
not filled with skilled masters of mediums, but with gimmicky quasi-artists
that have managed to develop something cheesy to bilk rich people out of their
money.” It seems to me that the author is making the same judgment-based
evaluation of “social art” that he finds so offensive when it’s aimed at
digital fine art.
Brake,
Barry. “Post-Modern-Ism.”
Communique: A Digital Literary & Arts Journal
(2000) 28 Mar. 2002
<http://www.communiquejournal.org/t1/t1_postmodernism.html>
This
(really interesting) article is a down and dirty biography of Postmoderism as
it relates to common culture, it’s older, failed cousin Modernism, and aspects
of life such as clothes and television. There is a really amusing section about
society not adopting full movements, but rather, the most catchy chunks from
each one.
This
article was pretty interesting, and very cool to read. It had absolutely
nothing to do with my topic at all really, but since Ms. Comba suggested I do
some reading up on Postmodernism as it might relate to, or help with
explanation of my topic, I went a-searchin and this is one of the ones that I
ran across. Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading it, and found it interesting that it
was actually written through the point of view of modern Christianity. I didn’t
know those people had ‘movements.’
Friday,
Johnathan. “Digital Imaging, Photographic Representation, and Aesthetics”
School of
Philosophy and Cultural History, Aberdeen University.
(8 Aug.
2001) 21 Feb. 2002
This extremely complicated
article is a tedious undertaking of the following statement: Drawings
and paintings have an
intentional relationship with their subject matter, as they may or may not
actually be something that exists within this reality. Photography has no such
relationship with it’s subject matter because the essence of the medium relies
on physical existence to relate the medium with the content.
(18 Oct. 2001) 10
Apr. 2002
<http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2001/10.18/15-art.html>
Defining Art: TV or Not TV
is about artistic definition, and the relationship between “serious” art and
popular art. Specifically, it is about popular television as art, and where it
fits into the scheme of things.
Although the topic itself
was totally off base with my own, I did find great help in the general speaking
about the definition of art, and the relationship between what is considered
high art, and popular consumer art (low art). The article stemmed from a
symposium held at Harvard with six outspoken mentors from six different
artistic fields. Pretty interesting really. And “Professor of Aesthetics and
the General Theory of Value” is an absolutely badass title.
(10 Sept. 1998) 20
Feb. 2002
<http://www.webreference.com/graphics/essay/essay2/>
This article, first in a
short series of pieces on digital art by Daniel Giordan, explores how the art
world might react to wide spreading trends of technology in art. It summarizes
the past 150 years in art into a short essay to see how past innovations
effected current trends in their respective time periods.
I
found this piece very interesting for one reason. It was written before the
huge boom in technology related art. I’d never thought about finding an
analysis of the art world regarding digital art before it became widespread. I
wish I could sit down with the author and converse.
Giordan,
Daniel. “Digital Aesthetic v2.0”
(1 Nov. 1998) 21 Feb.
2002
<http://www.webreference.com/graphics/essay/essay3/>
This article, obviously
the second in a short series of pieces on digital art by Daniel Giordan, aims
to define the computer’s various uses and describe how technique can define the
difference between using computers simply for technological purposes, and for
artistic purposes.
I really like this guy.
He’s very insightful and speaks in very regular terminology. Someone that knows
absolutely nothing about digital art or computers could sit down and read this
series quite easily. This second essay looks into the reasoning behind the
general public’s dismissal of the computer as an art tool by enforcing the
mindset that people still view the computer as a business tool (keeping in mind
this article was written in ’98).
Giordan,
Daniel. “Digital Aesthetic v3.0”
(2002) 21 Feb. 2002
<http://www.webreference.com/graphics/essay/essay4/>
This third installment
from Giordan explores how digital art is considered ‘flat and lifeless’ my
traditional artists, but yet they miss the essence of the computers
capabilities: the ability to coherently and fluidly execute many thought
processes simultaneously, with much speed.
This
article brings up an excellent point about how painting can be confining: it
takes so long to do and do right that one gets trapped into one particular
thought or idea. With digital art, fluency with the medium allows you to
compose many thoughts at the same time, changing anything you like… Along with
also giving us the opportunity to start over at will, and save multiple copies
of our work for further experimentation. In my opinion this is the ultimate in
artistic creation. Someone has given me the ability to literally extrapolate
thoughts from my mind as fast as I can think them.
Tomkins,
Calvin. “The World of Marcel Duchamp”
Time-Life Books Inc. 1966.
An excellent book
detailing the life of artist and art theorist Marcel Duchamp. The piece details
each art movement Duchamp participated in or reacted to, along with all of his
peers and the people that opposed him. Details key pieces and writings
throughout the history of Duchamp’s influence, and has a great section
regarding Duchamp’s anti-art and the start of Dadaism.
Duchamp is one of my
personal favorite artists and writers. I very much agree with his views and
thoughts regarding the subject of art. I bought this book from an individual
over the internet in mid 2001 to further my knowledge of this artist.
Gealt, Adelheid M. “Looking at Art: A Visitor's Guide to Museum
Collections.”
New
York. Rr Bowker (Aug 1, 1983)
Looking at Art tells how
museums collect and display art, provides background information for each era
and region of art production, and identifies prominent museums, artists, and
art movements.
This
volume is proving to be a great aid in my search for applicable art movements
and artists, as well as giving me some background on the ‘high art/low art’
topic.
Fischer,
Hervé. “A Crisis in Contemporary Art.”
MIT Press E-Journals
1 Feb. 2002
<http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/isast/articles/fischer.html>
This very interesting
article talks about how digital art has become the ‘primitive’ art of the
modern times. It brings up the
excellent discussion that this ‘primitive’ art form bridges the gap between the
normal person and the ‘high art’ concept by doing away with all collecting, signatures,
museums, effectively bringing art to the ‘middle/lower’ class level, much as it
was in the stone age as anyone scrawled on the wall, only to have it inevitably
fade away. “In the world of technology, each piece is eventually erased; it
succeeds and is then obliterated.”
The concepts brought forth
in this article are amazing, and I’m currently looking into finding out where
to find a hard copy of the text (translated or not... the original is French,
that one would be great) for safekeeping. I love revolutionary/reactionary
writing, and this is definitely up my alley.
Kuhn, Virginia. “Proposal
for Integrating Technology with the Study of Art History.”
28 Mar. 2002
<http://www.wum.edu/~vkuhn/arhprop.html>
This article is a proposal
to university staff and others for integration of technology into the study of
art history for high school and college students. It details the study of art
history, the elitism of the museum circuit, and actually provides a class
design for building curriculum around the internet.
This article was really
interesting because it was written by a teacher, and actually deals with
teaching. My girlfriend tutors home-schooled children in art history and gives
art technique classes, and she found it quite interesting and helpful, herself.
Kuhn goes into specific ways to incorporate research from the web into a class,
as well as information on digital reproductions of museum pieces, and peer to
peer learning.
La Rocco, Claudia. “Digital
Art Works It’s Magic on the Traditional Art Landscape.”
Art Business
News, Dec. 2001 v28 i13 p44.
5 Feb. 2002
This article is basically
a cute little tiny version of my huge paper. It explores lightly the subject of
digital art becoming the newest recognized art form, and explores some of the
common reactions associated within. It also has interviews with some
traditional artists turned digital as well as pure digital artists.
This piece was a fun read,
as it was a prelude as to what I was getting in to. It gave me some great
points to follow and some things that I thought should be elaborated on while I
was approaching the same subject. It was a great place to start my research,
and I believe this was actually one of the first articles I read for this.
O’Connel, Kenneth. “The
Challenge of Computers in Art”
School
Arts. (March 1993) v92 n7 p14. 22 Feb. 2002
This article provides an
overview of how personal computers are offering a larger and larger range of
applications that are revolutionizing arts education. It covers the development
of art programs in schools, the impact on the artist, various genre’s of
digital expression, digital imaging special interest groups, and proposals of
what is to come as technology advances.
I found this piece very
interesting to read, since it comes from the perspective of an art educator. It
also had some interesting viewpoints and information on special interest groups
for graphic artists, digital artists in general, and art educators, so that
they may find out more about the genre’s and other information in the article.
Pangia, John. “Digital
Art: Is it Creative, or Just Clickable?”
(22 Jan 1999) 21 Feb. 2002
<http://the-internet-eye.com/editorials/digital_art_is_it_creative.htm>
Published in January of
1999 for ‘the-internet-eye,’ and online magazine dealing with all things
internet related, this article by John Pangia features his personal experience
in transitioning from traditional art (painting) to digital art, and views on
how critics should set aside their own views on art and try to objectively view
art re: the crowd for which they are critiquing.
This article was very
interesting, and provided me with some neat insight into how others feel about
my subject. It was also amusing to read some words from someone that made the
transition from traditional to digital instead of going straight to digital. “I
smeared oil on canvas for about thirty years before succumbing to an early
edition of Corel Photo Paint, and to be honest, I haven’t looked back since.” I
just find that incredibly funny.
Phillips, Webb “High
Art, Low Art”
(2000)
4 Feb. 2002
<http://cogstantinople.mit.edu/~webb/aesthetics>
From
the Cognation Research Laboratory of MIT comes a very useful article by the
tech manager of the lab, Webb Phillips. The lab researches the actions of
knowing and perceiving. What better group to write articles on aesthetics? This
work explains the theories behind why high art exists.
Among others, there is an
interesting section about a theory of ‘universal aesthetic’. This states that
certain groups of people have evolved with common aesthetic perceptions. This,
for example, leads the high-class individuals to seek out pure art as ‘things’
(a detachment from the physical necessities of life, everything being so
abundant that one does not readily conceive such objects as money or time to be
of the essence). This raises whatever aesthetic values the upper-class have to
a ‘higher than art’ status, and leaves everything else as just ‘low art’ for
the masses.
Porett, Tom. “Cyberart
Considerations”
Art Journal. (1994) v53 n3 p32. 22 Feb. 2002
From a 1994 issue of Art
Journal, Porett explains how technical innovations have made the computer an
increasingly versatile tool for the artist.
This article takes a look
at the current trends in the technology world, particularly in the category of
personal electronics, and relates them to future trends in technology and how
this will define digital art making for the new age artist. It was quite
interesting, because as I read, I looked around at my room at some of the
devices Porett was talking about (pda, cell phone, etc).
The Art Bulletin, June 1997 v79 n2 p206. 28 Feb. 2002
This article details the
process of digitization of artistic works for study, and outlines the reasons
why digital reproductions of artistic works meant for academic study should be
shunned, in lieu of minute changes in lighting and shadow possibly altering key
factors of the work.
This article was fairly
interesting, but in all honesty, I think this guy is a serious spaz. Although
the article itself was extremely well written, and the points were completely
valid, I seriously doubt that these changes in the lighting and shadow of
pieces are going to matter as much as he says they are. I did just fine in art
history class viewing projected slides from a hundred feet away. Regardless,
there was some interesting information on digitization processes, digital
printing, and opinions on digital process in art.
(2000) 10 Feb. 2002
<http://www.victorianweb.org/victorian/previctorian/nc/ncintro.html>
This short article from
Victorian Web (the
Victorian Web is a project funded by the University Scholars Program, National
University of Singapore) summarizes the key points of the Neoclassical art
movement. The article is very straightforward with no non-scholarly material.
I found this piece very
insightful, as it is what led me to choose Neoclassicism as one of my main
cultural texts for study. The description is quite clear and concise, with much
detail in a small package.
Watson, Lisa-Crawford. “Is
the Art World Ready for Computer Generated Art?”
Art
Business News. (Nov. 2000) v27 i12 p108. 22 Feb. 2002
This article, from Art
Business News, details various digital artists from around the US, their
opinions on art in general and their specific mediums, and explores their
financial situations.
Reading well-conducted and
concise interviews with other digital artists was a nice bonus. Most of the
ones I find on the Internet are interviews with immature teenagers that say
‘yo’ every fifth word. I feel sorry for you people, having to deal with us all
the time.
Warren, K.C. “What
Are They Doing With Computers?”
School Arts. (Dec. 1989) v89 n4 p20. 22 Feb. 2002
This short piece takes a
look at how computers started to be utilized in schools as learning aides.
Focuses mainly on college art classes.
It just clicked that this
article was from 1989. That’s really cool. Anyway... Now that I’ve noticed
that, I must say it’s pretty interesting to be able to read about what they
were doing back in the day with their big, clunky, icky-slow computers, and
comparing it to what I’ve been doing in the present.
WebMuseum, Paris. “Ingres,
Jean-Auguste-Dominique.”
28 Mar. 2002
<http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/ingres/>
This website,
appropriately named WebMuseum, hosts a plethora of artistic works in a museum
like site dedicated to famous works of art, and their respective artists. This
particular section is about the artist
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and features a bibliography with known
works (paintings), including images.
This page was extremely
helpful in helping me to pick a ‘high art’ movement and piece. The biography of
Ingres was incredibly detailed, and the images of his paintings were of the
utmost help. I just wish they would have been a bit larger, but beggars can’t
be choosers.
Wilson, Stephen. “Light
and Dark Visions: The Relationship of Cultural Theory to
Art That Uses Emerging Technologies.”
(1993)
4 Apr. 2002
<http://online.sftu.edu/~swilson/papers/postmodern.pap.hml>
Light and Dark outlines
critical art theories and cultural studies to understand the function of the
arts in contemporary, technology dominated, postmodern culture. It also
discusses the high value placed upon skilled arts vs. new views on
technological advances in art, and suggests that there is much confusion on the
subject of technology in art, and vice versa.
I definitely have to agree
on there being a lot of confusion in regards to the mixing of the technology
and art worlds. This paper does a great job of applying cultural theory to the
idea of high tech art, and the same with the high tech artist’s view of
cultural theories. Discussion of exactly how and why the arts can and cannot be
part of a technological era is very odd. Some of this paper was extremely hard
to follow, and very technical.
[1] We shall define digital art as any work that is primarily conducted on the computer, with the end result being derived from a digital file. This includes any work in which prior composition or matter is used as input (photographs, scanning a piece of trash off the street, etc), assuming that again the end result, be it a file on the internet or a physical printed piece, originated from the computer.