Slashdot Mirror
Are Computer Graphics A Fine Art?
"These responses come from (in my opinion) ignorance about computer graphic programs as a valid art medium, and a lack of vision as to the possibilities of computer graphics as an art form. Movies such as Shrek and Final Fantasy are bringing the medium more and more into the public eye, but not necessarily into the art world.
My question is: am I alone in believing that computer-generated work is valid field of fine arts? If not, has anyone else had similar experiences of attempting to push computer-graphics as an art form and then met with resistance? What are the slashdot community's thoughts on computer graphics as an art form in general? Is it a medium which will be forever banned from acceptance as an art form, or are there ways to push the medium into the field of art?"
Well, to me,' fine arts' means you can fuck it up, and since you can always undo in a graphics program, it doesn't count. QED.
Despite all this, it cannot be considered art until you hack one of your ears off. Get to it, and timeless fame awaits.
Move to new york, period, bottom line, end of the story. You think the like of damian hirst will generate any buzz in Mississippi?
Except, ofcourse, that the artist in your example is London based.
Now take a 640x480 256-color computer rendering. Is that art? The idea behind it may be, but the execution is horribly crude- it's like saying kid crayon drawings are fine art. Fine art's supposed to be _tough_, it takes years to have the craft of it together. The idea is, if you have computer rendering people doing things, what's produced by a person who's creatively brilliant _and_ has been rendering for 30 years _and_ has 27 Crays to play with? If you look at the 640x480 256-color compared with an oil painting it's unavoidable that the painting has _way_ _higher_ _resolution_ in every imaginable sense.
Once you have computer rendering people getting compulsively interested in the fractal-like details of their work, and not only producing resolutions that allow for distinctions in the thousandths-of-an-inch but CARING deeply about what's happening at that lever, then you will have gotten to the stage where rendering is a fine art. By comparison, in recent years digital audio has started to reach that stage: using different approaches to dithering, it's possible to take great interest in what's going on down at least-significant-bit level, and control the pervasive tone of the recording in a fractal sort of way.
The analogy is striking- in both cases, the original form (oil paints, analog tape) had obvious faults but also a capacity to record 'fractal' sorts of detail that people respond to. The patterns of brushstrokes, the subtleties of emotion in a horn's note... then both are 'replaced' by digital media, but the early forms of the media are completely incapable of recording that level of subtlety (ask a mastering engineer about 16 bit truncation sometime!) and it takes some progress and development before the media is up to delivering the same _type_ of satisfaction as the older, more primitive methods delivered as a matter of course.
If computer rendering is not considered a fine art, then you simply need more resolution. At the point where you can render a portrait of a person's room and have the dust on the floor produce a subliminal sense of desert sands, causing the room to 'feel' a certain way... or have the dust on the floor produce a subliminal sense of ocean waves causing the room to 'feel' another way without being obviously different... why, then you will have Fine Art. You have to have both the art and the craft together to the point where you are interested in subtleties like that, interested in the 'feel' of what you're creating. Having an idea is not enough- the work has to also have resolution enough to express a great deal about how you approached it and what your intentions were. It's possible that computer rendering, as it reaches truly fine-art levels of sophistication, will wind up speaking eloquently about _mothematics_ to the discerning, in ways that the untutored would simply not get... as if fine art appreciators of the future would go, "But the most daring element is where the texture of the piece delicately shifts from error diffusion to the hint of pattern dither in the shadows of the lady's face, as if something about her is a creation of the media" etc etc... and not in a Warhol-like hit-you-with-it way, but as if you'd use different processes intentionally, at a degree of subtlety that it would be almost impossible to even perceive it, but in the full intention of using every possible element of your process as an artistic element...
You must disregard the critics and just forge onward with your creativity. The only form of acceptance that matters, if acceptance matters at all, is that by enthusiastic fans of your work.
A creation is art if it exhibits creativity, style and can carry some kind of emotional or intellectual message that appeals to or provokes the mind at some level.
Ray tracing two spheres over a checkered plane is probably not art, but not on account of being computer rendered, but on account of the tiny amount of actual creative input. It's the computer graphic equivalent of throwing a can of paint at the canvas, or painting a few geometric figures; the idea is small, and its translation into the final work is mechanical or random.
Art lies in that region of complexity somewhere between randomness and uniformity.
If the criticism you are receiving is simply about the medium you are using, rather than the forms you are creating within that medium, then that is pure elitism. You should discount that immediately. Any criticism that is not related to what you are actually creating, but to your unorthodox method of creation, should not be considered valid criticism at all.
You have to remember that in the world of art, the value of an artwork is judged by things other than its content. A ridiculously high value is ascribed to an original paining, for instance, even though a faithful replica carries the same information.
In computer graphics, there is no such thing as an original; all copies are equivalent. I suspect that this has a lot to do with why the players in the art world are so disparaging of computer art. You can't do the same kind of wheeling and dealing! A gallery cannot say that it has the original work of some computer graphic artist. A computer file at an surreal price.
(Okay, what you could do is make a one and only print, and then destroy all the digital artifacts that went into it, but I think that digital artists regard those digital artifacts as the real work of art; who wants to destroy their work?)
Picasso, Dali, etc. *demonstrated* that they could do *exactly* what they wanted to do. Their early artistic efforts often fit in one or another 'genres' (I forget what the "Art" community calls it -- periods? styles?) deliberately. They intended to paint an impressionistic painting, and they did; they didn't paint something, and then say "hey, that looks impressionistic, so that's what I'll call it".
In this era of computer graphics, what constitutes a "craft" is a fast-moving target. How can an artist demonstrate their art when there are "craftsmen" out their doing
In the late 80's, Psygnosis came out with several games that felt quite artistic -- some of the images in the game (say, the slides between levels in _Agony_) would count as "Art" then, but probably not *now*. Why? The bar has been raised; rightfully so or not I leave up to the reader.
Another aspect of "Art" that has been suggested to me (in addition to the artist having to be a master) is that Art must both intend and succeed in providing a viewpoint to the recipient that causes him/her to "transcend". To cause another to "see" the world in a different way is the essential effect of "Art".
Or this all might be BS, and Warhol correct. Who knows?
Pick One: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~stremler/sigs/sigs.html (Note - disable Javascript first!)
Most graphic design these days is either to be displayed on computers or is at least done on computers. In fact, most images made on computers are probably graphic design.
This doesn't mean that computer art can't be fine art; most images hung on walls are also graphic design products.
Of course, it's possible to define fine art to specify certain traditional media, such that, for instance, only Monet originals and not prints are fine art; similarly, Bach isn't fine art, but music. Oil painting and watercolor and acrylic are different skills from computer art, as they are from mosaic or sculpture. In this sense, computer art is, well, computer art, not anything else.
That doesn't mean it is graphic design, which is an entirely different thing whose principles are often in opposition. Nor is it somehow less pure or real than painting.
"I definitely don't have the ablility to discern all art when I see it"
Yes you do.
I think this is an interesting post. I would, however modify it slightly.
"but greatness is achieved from the message that the artist tries to convey"
I don't think any real artist is trying to convey a message. Great artists do it for themselves, mostly because they have little choice.
>Does history remember the names of art critics? NO.
Uhh, yes. People who care deeply about art know that throughout the history of the written word, certain people who weren't artists themselves played an important role in getting the people around them to appreciate new kinds of artwork that was being developed. From Vasari to Cocteau to Clement Greenburg and Calvin Tompkins, there've been a lot of people writing about art (i.e. "art critics") who may be currently alive or may be long dead and gone, but who are still read and appreciated and yes, remembered.
I just attended a very popular and interesting art exhibit at the Whitney museum in New York City a few weeks back (it's closed now, nor can I remember the name of the exhibit), and I will certainly tell you that at least in NYC people were not objected to the idea. Besides the computer graphics representation of certain images from history, there were three things that were done that can't be recreated with simply paint and canvas or sculpture:
My two cents follows more or less what Frank Zappa said about music: If you create something and declare it as music/art, then it is. It is up to the critics to decide if they like it or not.
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
If I can take a toilet, stick it in an "Art" museum, put a glass box around it and call it "Art", then it's "Art".
"Art" is anything that an "Artist" wants it to be.
As "Art" can be made by anyone, anyone can be an "Artist", and therefore everyone is creating "Art" every day of their lives without knowing it. Putting a box down, picking up the remote, holding it in a certain way, going to the toilet - all "Art".
Ipso facto, "Art" is bunk, and so are "Artists".
If I screw something up that cannot be undone (and my file is too large to have multiple copies) I have to go with it. In any case your point that art is only fine art if you can screw it up, is arbitrary at best
So your only remaining point is the texture of the paint, well tough that is just a different medium.
Computer art is most assuredly fine art, you are just in the same class as the critics, not having realizing it yet.
ps - I would also disagree with your statement about algorythms, I have seen people who use algorythms in the same manner that fine art is made from newspaper clippings. It is just another tool, and another medium.
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I attended the venerable Massachusetts College of Art from 92 to 96. CG and video were my main areas of interst, and the main sources of my frustration. That, and arrogant faculty.
The "issue" (did any of them call it that) of whether CG is an artform was addressed pretty often at school. There was a core of students from a number of disciplines, all doing CG in some way and getting lots of flack for it. Illustrators getting bad marks for showing animations in reviews, SIM artists getting collectivist detritus tossed at their imaging and multimedia projects, etc. The official word, or as much as that convoluted bureaucracy would give, was that CG would never be a form of fine arts, but merely a "technical exercise" (direct quote, Jen Hall in 93) that related to whatever field you worked in. They had no imagination as to what is possible, nor the skill at storytelling to make it happen, unlike the students that were forging through technical and bureaucratic hell, and producing amazing pieces of art in the process.
I know this only relates halfway to "CG as art", but video was the same way. For me, animation and video are natural extensions of each other, and suffer the same attitude in the art world. Since they are both machine-mediated tasks, many people in the arts treat them with disdain, and have built up whole Luddite arguments against these most flexible tools.
Last, for now, is this, to the submitter and the rest of the artgeeks out there: does animation and CG help you express yourself? If it does, do it. do more of it. push pixels until your eyes hurt, and you will get good at what you do. That is the best, and only way, to really make electronic art viable, both as a living art and something regarded as such.
The studio and salon world is dead! long live art in the real world!
my site has some of my own work, links to others, email for any direct thoughts.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Can you make fine art out of tiles?
IOW, can tile murals be considered "fine art"?
Assuming you answered "yes", what is the difference between the regular placement of
tiles to create art and the placement
of computer pixels to create art?
I don't think there is a difference.
If you say that computer art isn't fine art,
you open a lot of other issues IMO. Can
fine art be performed with electronic
instruments?
-Kevin
Which would make the difference between "Art" and Pokemon trading cards, what?
Depends on what art professors you asked -- I graduated from Belhaven College in Mississippi, with a B.A. in Art. I was totally computer-focused, and my senior seminar was a series of computer generated images (combination of Photoshop and 3D modelling). I had no problems in defending my series, and it was heartily endorsed and accepted.
Re: art critics, remember their job: to make themselves look good. A critic that looks like a lackey will soon be peddling opinions for spare-change: a profession with little upward mobility. Art critics are the worst of the lot: art is such a damned subjective thing, they are in constant fear of being found out for the frauds they are. It costs little to excoriate somebody's work: the potential cost of endorsing it publicly far outweighs the return. You'll only find art critics endorsing something that's politically and/or socially correct, or something that's so far off the reservation that it can be elevated to the position of a Public Debate: Maplethorpe, or the elephant dung work, to pick something recent.
Shake off the doldrums of the critics' comments. All criticism has some merit, but you have to take it with a certain sense of detachment: they aren't questioning your worth, or depth, or parentage: rather, they are talking about your works in toto. If you work to please critics, you'll produce work that will only be appreciated by critics. Apply yourself, instead, to exploring your own thoughts and feelings and reactions. Trust your gut, not your brain. Brains lie and prevaricate, your guts never do.
I hate to say this, but I have to: steel yourself for the possibility that your work comes across as graphic design. This doesn't have to be a bad thing (witness the Absolut Vodka ads -- I don't think anybody will argue that they are art as well as graphic design), but it it a valid criticism. Keep working to trancend the graphic design aspects. I noticed that your job at SAIR Inc was as a graphic designer. This mixing of work and recreation will happen, regardless of how you try to separate them, but to allow your work to grow, you will have to work to prevent this as much as possible.
Let me ask you: your computer at home, where is it located? In a home office? In your living room? I will argue that this is the wrong thing to do if you're trying to produce "true art" with it. If you must have a computer at home to do work on, separate the two: buy a separate computer to producing art with. Put it in a separate room where you only work for art. Surround your "studio" with beauty, in whatever forms you find beautiful. Art, in my not-so-humble opinion, is like any other form of work: you cannot do it in inappropriate surroundings. You would no more do office-work at a resort than you will produce art in sterile, non-stimulating environs. When you're working on art, do not let yourself be distracted by phones, faxes, or other intrusions: turn off the ringer, unplug the fax, toss the beeper in a drawer, set your mobile phone to vibrate and store it on your dresser.
I like to draw on easels -- some find a drafting table better, i like easels and low stools. My workspace is in flux at the moment, but I used to keep the easel next to the computer with a big newsprint pad and a 9B pencil for quick ideas close at hand, with bristol board and more delicate instruments easily available, with all my Ansel Adams calendars littering the walls, the stereo playing inspiring music (always separate the music from the computer, too, or dedicate a computer to the music: you don't want the tunes to stutter while Photoshop is calculating a Gaussian Blur or Strata 3D is rendering a snapshot). Much work was done there.
(I wonder, would hacking be better in such an environment? Worth an experiment, methinks)
To summarize: chin up, my brother. Don't despair if your work is frowned upon. Keep working to improve yourself (using your own metrics, not some disinterested 3rd party's), and let the creative juices flow freely. Be proud of your work regardless of the critcism, and keep an eye out for the valid criticism that does happen. Also, post a link that shows the work in question, if you can. I think we'd all like to see it, and the Slashdot crowd with fill your Inbox with lots of criticism. *grin*
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
There's still such a stigma among many that computers are only for gearheads who can't understand anything involving emotions or humanity.
Fine Art has nothing to do with genre. Fine Art is simply art that is *not* functional. The antonym of Fine Art is Decorative Art and includes things like pottery, quilting, and silverware--things that *are* functional.
Art is in the person, the character, your creative mind, your feelings at that current time - creates - art ...
... music ...
.. though still ART ...
... He did something completely different than "all others" ... was he accepted in the beginning? ...
...
... ("the any key" :o)) that might be a form of art, though if nobody is going to accept it except you .. then it could be your art project is not finished yet :o)
...
Not the paintbrush, the pencil, the type of camera or the type of paper you use nor the medium where you draw it on. The same with sounds
If it is wood, metal, glass or on a screen and printed out or on a piano or synthesizer - if there is anything creative in it with YOUR emotions and want to express that on whatever medium - it's art.
If it looks good and can be understood by other people, then it's (nice) art that can be generally accepted.
For example, I have drawn a lot of images on cards (beercards) and scanned them in. Some of them I have enhanced with the PC - is this computer design or art?
To my opinion art, because I have put the feeling and emotions i had on that moment on that paper! The same when I enhanced it, that's finishing it...
The same with computer demos, whenever you create something out of your feelings, you can tell the PC what to do, though, it is your creative mind that tells what you want to see on the screen. If you want to create a vortex where you fly through with a spaceship - then it's computer ART
It is historically very known that "new art" is not accepted very well - look to picasso for example
People are used to certain things and some of them do not want to loose their precious "good old" thing. Same with b/w photography, same with music
Some people do create "very easy" stuff by just moving their mouse on the screen and pressing whatever button they want to press
My 2 cents anyway
Freaker / TuC
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
I haven't seen your work, but maybe the local critics just didn't like your stuff. Or maybe they're a little behind the curve in Little Rock (and in the student ghettos of northern Michigan). Art created with computers and even art "generated" by computers has been accepted just fine for decades now.. as long as it's good art.
For instance: Wolfgang Tillmans won the recent Turner Prize, and some of his work was digitally processed. He's an artist, I'd think. More to the point, about a month ago I saw a solo show by a guy named Dan Torop. On the walls were a mix of digitally-enhanced landscape photos (trees and water, mostly) and computer-generated landscapes )(again, of trees and water). Those were half decent, but what I really liked were a couple of computer installation pieces in the middle of the main gallery. One was a navigable VR model of the show itself, including the pictures on the walls... and the computers in the midddle of the room. The other, best of all, was a Racter-like "random poetry generator" that slowly poked out line after line of random pseudotext poetry seeded heavily with David Bowie lyrics and read aloud by an old-school speech synthesizer. It was art. No doubt about it. I didn't see or hear anyone arguing that it wasn't.
Maybe you need to move to a more receptive community. Or maybe you need to ask yourself if the work you were showing meant anything and could move anyone (to laughter, tears, rage, deep thought, lust or whatever). Are your programs that generate images designed to generate images that provoke people to feel something in any of these ways? Did they succeed? That's how I figure out if something's art. Don't know about you.
Surely art is an expression of the artists feeling about something, or view of the world (or just cos it looks nice with abstract art) so whether we use paint, clay, wood, or a CRT as long as it expresses something surely it is art.
:)
Hell people stare for hours at my PC if I fire up winamp and activate the visualisation plugins. That to me is a fine example of computer art - its not totally random, the artists had a look in mind for each visualisation.
Perhaps the critics worry that any image looking too perfect cannot be art, but I've seen large paintings in galeries all over the place that are phot-realistic, but they are held up as examples of fine art (getting a camera would have been quicker though guys). Perhaps they get recognition for the sheer amount of manual labour involved
Check out the screen savers that come with most Linux distributions - some of those are fantastic.
Even the great French impressionists were snubbed by the mainstream art circles when they started out. Can you imagine what people would say if a gallery refused to show off a Monet because they didn't consider it "art"? Yet, this is exactly what happened.
Don't worry, they'll love you when you are dead.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
You could start by having a look at the SF MOMA which has an exhibition on at the moment about art and technology. See also
- exhibition details
- web site in conjunction with exhibition
You may be able to get some good ideas by looking at where these artists come from, hang their work, or just hang out. Email some and see what THEY say about art and technology!And then there are the more modern art colleges that focus on graphic design but include a fine art component. These include the Academy of Art College in San Fran and the Queensland College of Art, just to start with two.
Explore...
Ralf
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The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
-Bertrand Russel
Even within the world of art, there is no clear definition of 'Art'... bringing up this question to a bunch of /.ers may bring a reasonable answer but one thing that art is not - is reasonable. However, given my own interpretation of Art, I'd say that Computer Art is NOT the same as Traditional Art... at least in terms of evaluating its value.
Computer art can be produced in quantities without limits - at 'as good as the original' quality. Art buyers generally purchase art based on limited productions - if it is a limitless production it's equivalent to purchasing a manufactured item - thereby reducing cost.
Traditional Art is released by the artist - Once a painting is sold there's no going back to refine the artwork. Digital images are never really released... they are always onhand ready for updates and improvements - (e.g. who's willing to buy Win ME *at a premium* if Win XP is coming out in a few months?)
...the list goes on... None of it has to do with concepts of design of emotion as certainly computer is capable of conveying these concepts just as well as, if not better than, traditional mediums... (or at least simulate it.) If you still want to pursue this topic, consider thinking of how the Art can and has evolved given the capacity of the computer.
I'd argue that this is the 'real' question as posed by the original poster. "Can Computer Art be as Valuable as Traditional Art." My interpretation, of course. If you want to discuss Art by its emotional design merits - well Anything and everything *can* be art... even cow dung... so why discuss it at all?
Actually, a photograph is more than a negative. Yes, it has a lot to do with it, but it has to do with the composition within the negative, the development process, the techniques. Try plopping your family photo album on a curators desk and ask if its acceptable art.
As for the other things - reproductions of art isn't Art - and that's reflected in the price. Novels, poems, music
There's a lot of conjecture about 'What is Art' and how Art has nothing to do with its Value... "its about emotion blah blah blah." This stuff is really *much* to subjective to discuss. The only thing of interest to discuss in art is its Value!!!
Look. Art value is actually evaluated in a more objective fashion than most of you would think. Certain quantizable aspects of art are valued higher than others. For instance, Size matters, Oil is more valuable than most other mediums such as acrylic, pastels, charcoal, watercolor. Finally, there's the artist - their proven record to sell at a particular price range, their proximity to death.
Finally, one last valuation of art is its (in)ability toward reproductions. There's simply no photograph that even comes close to the value of an original Picasso, Dali, Rodin. The only thing that comes close are serigraphs - even these are valued differently. Since the screens degrade with each reproduction - the lower numbered serigraphs are worth more than the higher numbered ones. Additionally, even serigraphs are not worth as much as originals.
This is specifically where Computer art is affected. If you can reproduce limitless numbers of the original, it completely devalues the work of art.
You forget that Computer Art *has* no original.
You can still agree that 'perfect replications' is not the original. And so this is where art notaries and curators and experts come in - to prove which is the original... and that is the one worth the most.
Really? What mad, supernatural art hacker skillz enable one to tell to perfectly identical objects apart?
:).
It's actually a very old skill called lying and deceite.
ini, meeni, mini, mo.
I have all confidence that theoretically, if an exact replica could be made without destroying the original, someone will still claim to have the original and that one will be worth more.
Yeah, I see your point that reproducing Art (Mona Lisa for example) doesn't necessarily reduce its monetary value (or for that matter, its aesthetic value) - exposure definitely lends itself to a certain degree of marketability. However, the difference between computer Art and the Mona Lisa is simply that with the Mona Lisa, there is an original. Computer art doesn't have an original and therefore loses its collectible (monetary) value.
Of course one can argue that Art is not about money, but well... In our age where everything including a blank canvas can be Art, I really interpret the original posters question as
having to do with monetary value rather than one of aesthetics.
Tell that to Ansel Adams
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Well, there are actually a lot of ways to respond to this... Firstly, I'll say that you're right in that it is not 'completely devalued'... that was a bad exaggeration. However, consider that Ansel Adams negatives are worth a lot more than his prints. Consider that Ansel Adams doesn't work in Digital photography. And Consider that Ansel Adams prints are limited. Of course, I'm assuming that you take into consideration the relation of money to do with art.
<br><br>
I won't get into the aesthetic value differences between digital art and traditional art - to me there are no differences there... the only difference is monetary value.
It just depends on your approach and your talent. Sweeping your yard can be an art.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
United States
And this is why art critics always complain about texture and brush lines and whatnot when they look at what should otherwise be considered a beautiful painting? That's bullshit, and you know it. The medium chosen for a particular piece is considered as important as the piece itself. Warhol would not be Warhol without silkscreening. Pollack (though I despise his work on my own objections) would not be considered the artist he was without the texture inherent in the bubbles of paint smattered across the canvas.
I doubt you've ever really looked beyond the forest when considering art and thus do not fully enjoy the beauty of the trees that is created by layers of oil that create more than the two-dimensional image your mind can barely wrap around.
The medium is to be used as the vehicle of your art, while not betraying its integrity. Admittedly, many digital images do fail this requirement, but then again, there are a lot of starving artists out there using traditional media as well. And that would suggest that they too must be doing something wrong.
ALL HAIL BRAK!!!
as Andy said, " art is anything you can get away with..."
Too bad you did not give a link to your work, I'd love to have a look at it.
It is possible that your art was poorly reviewed not because it was computer-generated but because it was - well, sorry - not up to their standards.
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You may like my a cappella music
one page among many. UC Irvine is pretty agressive about Art and Technology. I became aware of this when they hired Antoinette LaFarge.
There's more to it than this.
I studied fine art in college (hey, easy credit!) and, when I covered the simester dealing with modern art, I must admit I was shocked. Most of the works require some level of justification now. Newer "advanced" forms of art (Such as "Voice of Fire" at the Canadian National Art Museum) don't look like all that much compared to, say a Tamara De Lempika (my personal, biased opinon...)
;) logical. It will eventually become an accepted medium, it has to IMO.
However, all the new styles, cubisim, dadaism, what have you were ridiculed most of the time - or wildly celebrated - but when the introduction of a new style came along it was rarely ignored.
Perhaps the composition of art via a computer is the inverse of dadaism. Dada, being completely random - computers being (mostly
If people can fawn over Voice of Fire, and then decry computer generated art, these critics are fools.
Sadly, it is all more or less covered by this common blanket statement: "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like." And that is the crux of the issue. If the critics don't like it, then they don't deem it art.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
When photography was gaining popularity, the painters and the fine art establishment derided it as not being an art form in that anybody could push a button and make a portrait. Now, we have a divergence where the modern and post modern painters have gotten less and less attached to reality in their imagery, and photographers are manipulating natural phenomena to create art.
This was a major theme in a prerequisite class I had to take (history of communication and technology) as a multimedia art major in college.
Yep, not only do a lot of artists and academics in the field of art consider digital technology as an artistic tool, universities teach is as focus on top of a core fine art curriculum.
It's easy to think of the art establishment as forward thinking, but they are humans, and as such, as stubborn and rooted in their ways as any establishment.
Create, show your work. In 50 years, we'll be the ones reminding them that they failed to take art history to heart.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
There are 4 aspects to Art
The philosopher Ken Wilber theorises that there are two basically irreducible axes to the Kosmos. These are "In/Out" and "One/Many" -- and basically "everything" can be mapped onto a diagram formed of these four quadrants.
[imagine nice four quadrant diagram here that got interpreted as "Junk character post." by slashcode]Upper left quadrant [Inside/One] : Subjective Individual. Here art is self expression. Art is the way an individual mind expresses it's own meanings. I as Artist place meaning in my work, and so long as I live and view my work, that meaning exists for me. It's art to me, for this is how I choose to express myself.
Lower right quadrant [Inside/Many] : Intersubjective Culture. We as a society of members who share meanings, who talk to each other, who communicate, must all understand and agree upon the meaning of the words and ideas we use. Memes jump from mind to mind, travelling through the network of shared brain power. Collectively, art is what we can agree to put in an art gallery, championed by academia, and the movement of History.
Upper right [Outer/One] : Objective Individual. Art, regardless of it's meaning, each art artefact has a physical presence, and objective materiality, be it canvas, oils, faeces, or a VDU. Whatever the idea looked like in the artist's mind, this is how it's physically manifested.
Lower right [Outer/Many] : This is similar to the previous, except it's about the physical structures that house the art, like galleries and computer networks. Libraries and books. Again, it all has to have physical presence, or the only way I'd get to see your art is through a Vulcan mind-meld.
Ken Wilber emphasises that ALL FOUR QUADRANTS are necessary, and equally valuable. This means that it's ok for an artist to call his work art, because that is true for the artist. But for anyone else to call it art, the society has to recognise it as art--but this does not contradict the artist. Your art may be unrecognised for years. But for you it's still art. And lastly, whatever the meaning of the art, it has to have physical form, like a collage of newspaper cuttings, or via a computer and projection screen. Note that there's no meaning in the object itself. Only the minds of the viewers or the artist can "hold" the meaning.
Some people think art is "paintings" or "landscapes" or "what's in art galleries". Each of these definitions unconsciously priviledges one quadrant. But Wilber's point is that every quadrant is important, because none of the quadrants can be reduced or collapsed into the others.
Disclaimer: please check out the essays on Wilber's site, and don't rely on my bastard presentation of his ideas.
One advantage of oil on canvas as a medium is that it's relatively transparent, in the sense that you can tell what the artist intended, at least in terms of what pigments go where. This transparency comes from the simplicity; even if you don't know the chemistry behind how paint dries, you still--in most cases--understand the basic mechanics of how the artist put the ideas on the canvas. I'm not saying the physical process is what it's all about; on the contrary, the ability for the viewer to understand the physical process gets it out of the way, so that the channel of communication between the artist and the viewer is that much clearer.
By having simple mechanics, understood well by the viewer, the viewer can better separate intention from accident--that is, separate the message from the line noise. (An artist might make an endeavor of studying the interplay between intention and accident, or even intentionally confuse the viewer, but it would be boring if that's all artists did.)
Enter computers. What separates them as a medium is not their newness so much as their incredible complexity. Computers are so complicated as a medium, in fact, that the vast majority of artists who use computers must work on some abstracted, intermediate medium (like "Photoshop on Mac") that throws away most of that complexity. When a viewer sees a piece of digital art, they may have little understanding of how it was created. This becomes problematic when the artist uses the computer/software as a crutch to make up for laziness or the lack of bandwidth between the artist and computer. How much of what you see is the artist, and how much is the software? I'm not saying that art is about figuring out who should get credit for what, but separating what is deliberate from what is mindless is more difficult with digital art than with other media. And, when the viewer can tell how it was created, it is frequently because the artist was really lazy. ("Ah, yes: an image of the Mona Lisa, with crystallize effect, then swirl, inverted somewhere along the way.")
One could argue that restricting oneself to the filters menu constitutes a medium. In the hands of someone capable it could be used expressively, but the piece would carry all sorts of "emotional baggage" related to the medium. Unless the artist is so industrious that they have really made every pixel matter, the viewer should have some understanding of the medium in order to interpret the work. But requiring the viewer to be familiar with Photoshop, especially if Photoshop hasn't been compiled for any hardware produced in the last 50 years and emulation constitutes an infringement of someone's intellectual property rights, is a burden on the viewer. Of course, James Joyce puts a great burden on his readers, but it's a more worthwhile burden.
Also, though this issue will hopefully go away, today's hardware and software is generally awkward when it comes to creating art. With most artists using software other people wrote, they have relatively little control over their tools. What if you wanted the swirl effect to taper off differently? Would you go to the trouble of writing your own custom swirl alogorithm, or would you just decide that the existing swirl is good enough? What if you wanted the swirl to be off-center? Would you go to the trouble of shifting your image, swirling, and then shifting back, or would you just decide that a centered swirl is good enough? From what I've seen of digital art, the authors of Photoshop are either geniuses who have managed to create defaults everyone wants, or a lot of "artists" are just lazy. Artists in other media have this problem (not being in perfect control) as well, but not to the extent that digital artists do, especially when they are relying on software in a non-trivial way.
You might say, "Well, the people who mindlessly apply Photoshop filters will be recognized as hacks, just as the people who mindlessly jangle on guitars are recognized as such." First of all, there are plenty of people who mindlessly jangle on guitars and make a lot of money at it. Second, computers are better at disguising the artistically empty, especially when the viewer is not familiar with the software.
I've oversimplified these issues to save space and time, but I hope you get my point about computers having often overlooked drawbacks as a medium. Computers do present an artistic universe that is largely unexplored, especially with the ability to mold the medium to the needs of the artist. For example, say you wanted an image that would be of money and pornography when in your peripheral vision, but would switch to a picture of Don Rickles whenever you looked directly at it--possible, with computers. You could call it "American Tantalus Mindfuck 2000". Oh, yeah, and multimedia, blah blah blah...
I'm going to say that it depends.
... the same response from art professors ... and from other schools"
:P
As a professional artist who is plenty familiar with computers, I confess that I have seen darn few computer works that I would consider much more than graphic design or technical exercises, so your professors and critics aren't coming out of left field.
Wholly computer-generated works that rise to the level of fine art could probably be counted on a few fingers (though I can't think of any of the top of my head).
Works of fine art with computers which are NOT wholly computer-generated, however, are more abundant. Montage and collage have entered a whole new era thanks to the flexibility in computers that the physical materials don't have.
"The art critics
This quote could have come from practically any time before a new art movement took place. So be heartened that you may be the lucky one to prove them all fools and secure your spot in history -- not many have the opportunity to do so, and since computers aren't disappearing anytime soon, I would consider it inevitable that SOMEONE will indeed take advantage of the tools to create new works that we consider fine art.
The bad news is that this isn't a medium, its a tool much more general than that. So first you'll have to figure out *something* more specific than just "computer-generated" to begin a meaningful search.
It would be as if flat surfaces were invented for the first time, you would still have the option of all your mediums, all your surfaces, all your techniques. You couldn't call cave-painting "THE way of making art on a flat surface" any more than you could say duck canvas cloth is defined by oil painting (or vice-versa).
Computers don't impose any limitation analogous to those you see in "normal" fine arts -- not in technique, or method, or time or space or even which sense(s) you appeal to. So there's a heck of a lot of decisions you'll have to make to even start experimenting.
And there's a heck of a lot of learning and experiencing we'll have to do to get to the point where people can recognize that what is being created isn't merely a program or a mathematical equation, but has the requisite creativity and emotive content to be admitted to the club of "fine art".
It took several decades for the fine art world to accept the notion of using acrylic paints instead of oil -- you might be overly optimistic to anticipate them embracing an entirely new way of doing EVERYTHING in the short few years that it has even been possible.
And we'll long have to fight the notion that somehow the computer is doing the real "creating".
So yes, you're right, but you better have some damn good work to back it up if you want to change the world and convince everyone else of it
Nathaniel
(Why do I have a terrible suspicion that this story will inspire links to the most horrid examples of amateurish CGI and filter-abused GIMP work imaginable?)
---------------------------------------------
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I think the reason the art establishment frowns on computer graphics is the same reason a an assembly language coder frowns on a VB programmer. Painting on physical media requires not only an idea, but a high degree of skill to put that idea into a media transformation... (i.e. a blank canvas into an El Greco). The skills necessary to do classical "fine arts" are well beyond the reach of me or you. The computer in computer graphics is a tool that shields the artist from needing these skills. It's just the same as if an assembly language coder decides to write a word processor VS the VB programmer... even if it has the same features (read- including the same ideas). We appreciate the "geek" factor the same way the art community appreciates the "physical skill" factor. Maybe "art" should be defined as a purely intellectual pursuit, independent of medium, but even most artists aren't that high minded. It's simply a matter of skill appreciation VS idea appreciation.
Bingo!!
Joseph Beuys defined art as any task undertaken for the love of the task. Designing and coding free software is most definitely art by this definition, and so is the kind of computer art this poster describes.
Quoting Beuys:
Next time you are in a crit like that one start quoting Beuys. That should shut them up.
Better yet, start making real computer art --> Free software...
____________________________________
____________________________________
-- I beleve you'll like this -->
That future is already here today. The popular web comic Diesel Sweeties uses an intentionally-pixelized style. And there was that guy that rendered historical scenes in a Sims-like format.
If I mentally go back in time to the dawn of
:-)
photography, it's obvious that it isn't art:
you don't need to spend years learning paints,
lighting, perspective, etc. You just buy a
camera, click, and get a perfect picture. No
art involved.
So why, a hundred years later, do we think of
photography as art? I think that part of the
answer is that a photographer exercises his art
by choosing from the infinite set of subjects,
angles, camera settings, films, etc.
This, of course, is just an analogy for computer
art. It's obviously not art because once you've
written your Gimp script-fu tool (and programming
isn't a art, right?), you can churn out pictures
by the million, each identical or different, as
desired, but produced by a machine, not a human.
The "Undo" menu entry means that you can try
something over and over again until you get it
right, so you don't even need to learn proper
control.
So how does one fight this mindset? I'd start by
using a pad simply as another kind of brush.
Show how good you are at conventional techniques;
that'll make you more credible when you go beyond.
Next, work on something that highlights your
choices. The critic should say, "This is
computerized, so of course the shading and texture
are flawless, but I'm impressed by his the
choice of subject matter, and the composition."
And if that doesn't work, make a million bucks
selling copies of VelvetElvis.png
Find some trendy little fag that's doing art with a computer and you've found how to make it acceptable as 'fine art'.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
While at one of the largest and most prestigious art shows in North America (Art Chicago) where hundreds of galleries from around the world representing over 3000 artists were exhibiting, I saw some truely stunning and amazing pieces.
These images were pictures - some portraits, others reproductions of famous images - upon closer inspection however it was clear that each image was itself composed of 1000's of other images - which were themselves thematically connected to the larger image.
Check out the website that talks about this - it arose from MIT's media lab. His fine art pieces sell for $10,000+, as well the firm he has founded has commissions from hundreds of companies and organizations. For each image they limit the production of the large and small pieces (but then also sell posters I think) which adds to the rarity. By all perceptions - both the reactions of visitors like myself, the reaction of galleries, critics, and museums - these works are considered fine art.
More to the point of this topic - this is a type of image and art that could NOT be created in without highly sophisticated image databases and computer software - these images are "created" by a computer program that measures the colors and lightness/darkness of each image and arranges them to the best effect. What makes it "art" then is the composition, the concepts, and the sheer physical impact and beauty of the final images.
Check it out for yourselve at:
Photomosaics.com
-- Join us in Chicago May 1-4th for MeshForum -- writer, historian, tech geek, entrepreneur, internet junky since '91 --
http://010101.sfmoma.org/start.html
I don't know about anyone else, but I've been making fine art on computers for the last 7 years. Most people who are into this sort of thing never question whether what they are producing is considered art or not. It's everyone else that seems to have the problem. Which is fine, most artists I know make art for themselves, not to seek acceptance and validation from everyone else.
How can *anyone* here argue one way or the other on this topic when any two people can rarely come to an agreement on what art is?
The issue of a new medium having trouble gaining acceptance amongst the status quo is as old as the first piece of charcoal that hit the cave wall. As mentioned by others, photography is *still* struggling to find the same level of respect as the fine arts, and it's 150 years old! So I think it's rather obvious to *anyone* that the tool is irrelevant.
However, I think there is a very important reason why both photography and CGI have an uphill battle - unlike the fine arts, they don't *require* any discipline to create an interesting picture. That doesn't mean that many users of the medium don't apply a lot of time and discipline, but the fact that there are auto-focus cameras and instant "sunlight/cloud/render me" buttons in CG means it's harder to get respect. You want to paint in oils? About the only shortcut you can get is to watch those old "How to Paint Landscapes" on PBS. However, you better be prepared to do some serious study of form, anatomy, design, composition, paints, pastels, oils, sculpture, etc. if you want to be a fine artist.
Many CG artists do this. So do a lot of fine artists, but I might think their work is shit(I once saw a pile of toffees just tossed in the corner of the gallery - give me a break!). I'll be honest, I rarely find that CG "art", whatever that is, connects with me on an emotional level. I can't say why - probably because I look at it and see all the tricks they used, and once I strip that away, I sort of shrug. Why use CG? What is at the essence of what they're trying to say?
There's exceptions, always of course! But in the end, I think you need to accept that this is an uphill battle. Don't focus on those damned digital tools - they're no more important that a brush or chisel. No-one but a CG geek gives a damn about the care you applied to the anti-aliasing on that cloud shader. Just learn the tools and make something that connects to your audience.
DThorne
I once knew a professor at Purdue University named Aldo Giorgini. He was an amazing man who was equally talanted in Engineering and Art. He was a Civil Engineering Professor until 1994 when he lost his battle with brain cancer. He was also a pioneer in computer generated art in the late '60s and early '70s, and some of his artwork is on display at the Smithsonian Institute. Unfortunately, there isn't much on the web about him. If you are near West Lafayette, IN, you should go to Potter Hall on the Purdue Campus to view some of his work.
But how is this different from photography? Photographers aren't sculptors, they use real objects and creatures, play with the lighting, and hit the shutter.
Meanwhile, there are billions of amateur photographers out there who aren't creating art of any kind. Sounds exactly like computer graphics to me. . .
I expect that people in the not too distant future will say the same thing about various digital artifacts. They'll figure out all sorts of uses for pixelation and compression artifacts and even deliberately introduce them into works that didn't have them in the first place just for their artistic effect. Pretty soon everyone will be so used to them that they won't even consider the fact that at one time they were considered to be undesirable and to detract from the artwork.
A good example of that in computer games (which aren't usually considered art, but use similar display techniques) is how pretty much every game for the last couple of years has tried to build a lens flare effect in when looking towards the sun. Lens flares were considered undesirable in normal photography and video footage because they interfere with what you were trying to get an image of. (Unless of course you wanted a picture of a lens flare...)
Now programmers and graphics artists put in extra effort to introduce a reproduction of a physical artifact into their computer generated pictures.
Having just completed a Master of Interactive Multimedia we did quite a bit of study around the nature of Art, Art Theory, Semiotics and everything else. But on ABC TV last night I saw this on The 7:30 Report. It was an interview with the new Australia Council boss discussing how New Media is the next revolution ...
As other /.'ers have mentioned, art is by defition what you define it as. There are a fwe art prizes around and orgainsation that will take your work, eg http://www.siggraph.org/.
-- Huh, what?
Sculpture, paintings, and the like all have one thing in common: they are each completely unique. When you buy a work of those arts, you know you have something that is one-of-a-kind. It was created at one time by the artist's hand, and no copy or duplicate will ever be just like it.
A rung below these "fine arts" you have lithographs and woodcuts...<snip>... These are never as valuable as one-of-a-kind artworks, but are still considered "art" because of the above.
Rare posters and collectibles are a rung lower yet...<snip>...
Computer-generated art falls into this category as well, then. While it is without question artistic and creative, it is not unique. Existing in digital form, it can be reproduced ad infinitum as long as the digital data exists.
...<snip>...
I think your missing the point, what you are talking about is the value of these objects to a collector. He or she may have no appreciation of the merit of the art, and may simply be collecting it as an investment. Just because it isn't unique doesn't mean, its not art, just that someone who is obsessed or sees the need to have a unique item, can't, for some forms of art.
I don't think music has any less value for being pretty much infinitely repeatable (to a degree anyway), nore are many pieces of literature.
This seems to be a confusion of the abstract art with the medium in which it is expressed. Whilst the medium, may make the abstract more concrete, frequently it isn't really the art itself.
--
Actually it is rocket science...
Just another day of casual Slashdot punditry on issues that people have been arguing about for centuries. Surely, the top moderated posts will have a definitive answer for us?
While we're looking into the small matter of what constitutes art, we will surely have some time to look back on previous debates settled by this forum:
What is the definition of life? ("I can't believe that [insert name] is such a [big company] whore.").
Are humans rational beings? ("First post! My whang is a laser that will illuminate all of the world with justice!").
Does God exist? ("I haven't read the article, but check out my homepage with pictures of lego boobies").
We really tackle the tough ones here, and we win.
I've noticed something about so-called 'artist' and their attitude toward the marketplace. They always like to see themselves as being superior to the average person, as if the they're the embodiment of intellectual refinement.
For instance, I was listening to talk radio a couple weeks ago. The head of the local opera group was being interviewed and taking questions from callers under the premise "Justify Yourself". The host was inviting people who took public money and having them justify to the public why they should recieve that money. The cost for a seat at the opera was $17, and the opera received $40,000 from the city. By raising the cost of a ticket to $21, the opera would not be reliant on the city for anything. They would be totally self-sufficient. The interviewee kept going back to how the opera 'enriches' the community, and that the community should 'give something back'. I don't like the opera (yes, I've attended, and it sucked), so I don't see how they've given anything back to me, but that's not the point.
The point is that in my view, the interviewee was reluctant to give up the grant from the city not because it would cause the opera company to go under, but because he would then feel like a 'commercial' entity as opposed to an 'artistic' one. He couldn't then walk around with his nose in the air and feel himself above all the 'wage slaves' masses, 'cause he would be one of them. You can forget that the vast majority of the companies income was from ticket sales, it only takes a small grant from a 'higher source' that allows him to 'follow his dream' as opposed to 'working for the man'. With the untethered money from the government, he can be a free spirit that is not sullied by commercial interest.
I see the same dynamic at work here. Art professors who claim that graphic design is not art? Fuck them!! Some of the most beautiful art I've seen has been in advertisements. Coca Cola is one company that has done an excellent job of making their advertisements very artistic. Just look at the number of commercials that had different genres of music, but all had the underlying Coca Cola jingle. Just beautiful in my opinion. But of course, to the low-paid college professor, these can't be art, because to be art the artist must be living in a rat infested motel while starving.
If their argument is that your work isn't 'art' because it's done on a computer, which is a tool for 'graphic design', then what they are saying is that your work looks like something that people pay money for. Take thier derission with pride. Do your classwork in whatever medium they ask it to be done in, and get your good grades. Continue being creative on your computer in your free time. Then look forward to a life of eating well in your own nice, rat-free kitchen while doing what you like after graduation. In other words, laugh at their haughty asses.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I wonder if another factor at play is that when you make computer art, you're not actually physically drawing/painting/sculpting something. An analogy is in music (something with which I'm a little more familiar): these days anyone can use sequencing software and other packages to create interesting sounding pieces without being able to play a thing on any real instrument. There are probably people like this in art too: talented in such a way that they can envision and create wonderful masterpieces on the computer, but couldn't draw a stick figure on paper to save their lives.
Synthesizers are sounding more and more realistic, to the point that the average Joe can't distinguish between a piece played by a real orchestra and one played through a high end synth. But music purists will always favor live musicians, arguing that there are subtle nuances of the performance that simply can't be captured by a computer. So it goes over the head of the casual observer, but is critical to the true connoisseur. Same thing with art. One thing that fine art lovers enjoy about good paintings is seeing the textures and brush strokes in the dried paint itself. A painting is not just a picture that could be duplicated easily with a scanner and a good printer - this may be fine for Joe Avg, but not for fine artists. And again, just as in music, I'll bet somebody somewhere is working on technology to better reproduce the subtleties of paintings, sculptures, etc, down to the little physical details that really make them come alive.
On the composition side of things, computers are fairly well accepted as tools to help composers get their initial ideas worked out, before a piece is finished and written for a full live orchestra/band/whatever. And it seems that more and more electronically generated pieces (not necessarily pop stuff) are being accepted on their own merit - I wonder if similar things are happening in the art world? If not now, I'm sure it will happen, slowly...
So did I answer the question? Well, not really... but if computer art is not considered fine art now, I'll bet it will in time. Probably a long time, but it'll get there, slowly. In the meantime, forget what other people think, just make sure you enjoy whatever you like!
Say hello to zMac.
(I believe they may have since had a show of his stuff.)
The art community is full of biggots. They like what they like, and despise what they despise, but in the end the will not acknowledge that it is just some trumped up opinion based on nothing but snobbery.
And you expect them to appreciate art done on a computer? Get real.
First theywould have to understand it, and their guide books to understanding art don't include descriptions of computer art.
How is digital art actually sold? I assume that although infinitely reproducible at essentially zero cost that the cost must be kept high to maintain the economics of fine art galleries?
Indeed, and note that this digital artist hasn't provided any links to his "art". Maybe it plain sucks, and the problem is the artist not the medium.
Art and computers, computer art, the argument is old and over with. Computers are just another medium, like marble, acrylic paint, silver halide. I suggest if your professors are not acknowledging the validity of digital art, then perhaps you need to get some new professors.
n ardo/).
There are various journals devoted to art & technology, probably the oldest is Leonardo, the journal of The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology(http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-journals/Leo
Another good one is ArtByte(http://www.artbyte.com).
Look, i'm a Computer Sciense and Studio Art BFA double major. You won't find another animal like this if you don't try hard. Here is the deal, 1) There are some computer, digital art that is becoming more and more of popular media and getting more attention. For example the new Whitney Museum show (bitstream http://www.whitney.org/bitstreams/ ) I have been to SVA a couple of times, they have excellent excellent digital/computer art. Grandly alot are geared toward one day realized in a Pixar type production. But there are alot abstract interactive computer art. It seems they are not easily done by authoring envirement like flash/max but rather done in hardcore c++. I personally know two artist use computer to make art, one of them use c++ which I loath despite my CS degree. They had a show in a gallery specialize in digital artist which i can not remember. I'm pulling my hair out. 2) There are always certain art form receive alot less attention than the others. Comedy never win any oscar. We all know fine action movie require a geniune artist to make yet nobody give much respect to John McTiernon (I prefer McTiernon over Woo mind you) As does comic, so does american mural, so does sit-com, etc etc. You KNEW what you are getting into when you chose your career. OTOH serious art always make less money. Where can you find another field like graphic art that it's pretty close to art yet so easy to make big money if you want to make your living in 3d animation. If a painter can't make it, he can't make it. He is fucked. There is not "sell-out" job he can use his skill to. I intern in a gallery, everyday there are a few young artists come in and ask their slices to be seen and the answer is the one-liner, "not right now, maybe in the fall." Frankly, going to the like of abstract sculpture kind of direction is like trying to make it big as an actor, failure rate much larger than your "graphic design" 3) In the fine art world, mostly digital stuff are done by people who major in fine art but choose to use the digital media. I will say it's a lot easier for a commercial photographer to move his career to fine art than a career programmer who try to move to art world. Yeah it's not fair but the world is not fair. The idea is you shouldn't be doing something so skill intensive that only you can do it. The work should be easy enough that most people can do it but only one is good enough to think of it. 4) Franky, it's not digital art that it's the problem, it's Mississippi for gods dake. You want to become an artist? Move to new york, period, bottom line, end of the story. You think the like of damian hirst will generate any buzz in Mississippi? come on. I don't even sound arrogant because it's the true. -tino name0000@yahoo.com
(this is a repost cause the first one is screwed up )
Look, i'm a Computer Sciense and Studio Art BFA double major. You won't find another animal like this if you don't try hard.
Here is the deal,
1) There are some computer, digital art that is becoming more and more of popular media and getting more attention. For example the new Whitney Museum show (bitstream http://www.whitney.org/bitstreams/
) I have been to SVA a couple of times, they have excellent excellent digital/computer art. Grandly alot are geared toward one day realized in a Pixar type production. But there are alot abstract interactive computer art. It seems they are not easily done by authoring envirement like flash/max but rather done in hardcore c++. I personally know two artist use computer to make art, one of them use c++ which I loath despite my CS degree. They had a show in a gallery specialize in digital artist which i can not remember. I'm pulling my hair out.
2) There are always certain art form receive alot less attention than the others. Comedy never win any oscar. We all know fine action movie require a geniune artist to make yet nobody give much respect to John McTiernon (I prefer McTiernon over Woo mind you) As does comic, so does american mural, so does sit-com, etc etc. You KNEW what you are getting into when you chose your career. OTOH serious art always make less money. Where can you find another field like graphic art that it's pretty close to art yet so easy to make big money if you want to make your living in 3d animation. If a painter can't make it, he can't make it. He is fucked. There is not "sell-out" job he can use his skill to. I intern in a gallery, everyday there are a few young artists come in and ask their slices to be seen and the answer is the one-liner, "not right now, maybe in the fall." Frankly, going to the like of abstract sculpture kind of direction is like trying to make it big as an actor, failure rate much larger than your "graphic design"
3) In the fine art world, mostly digital stuff are done by people who major in fine art but choose to use the digital media. I will say it's a lot easier for a commercial photographer to move his career to fine art than a career programmer who try to move to art world. Yeah it's not fair but the world is not fair. The idea is you shouldn't be doing something so skill intensive that only you can do it. The work should be easy enough that most people can do it but only one is good enough to think of it.
4) Franky, it's not digital art that it's the problem, it's Mississippi for gods dake. You want to become an artist? Move to new york, period, bottom line, end of the story. You think the like of damian hirst will generate any buzz in Mississippi? come on. I don't even sound arrogant because it's the true.
5) I don't want to say this until i see your work, but photoshop'in a picture is just tip of ice of what you can use your computer to make art. It certain doesn't have to be 2d.
-tino
name0000@yahoo.com
Here is an example. A friend of mine uses a 3d modeling application. (AM for those who care). He grabs wireframes from other people, and to my knowledge has never created one of his own. He then spends hours arranging the various models, and renders the image.
Now what comes out, when he is done, is quite beatiful. He has done some truly wonderful images. But here in lies the question...is he an artist?
I would say no, mostly because the wireframes aren't his. But that is a pretty fine line. All of the arrangement is his, and the final image would not look the same, even using the same wireframes, if he had not arranged them just as he did.
I believe that this is a major factor in people dismissing anything coming out of a computer as art. In the above case, the 'artist', (and believe me I use the term loosly) doesn't have to worry about light/shadow. He just tries various models with various lighting sources and just keeps re-rendering until it looks right. I understand how more traditional artists view this as less than art. Additionally, the perception that most/all art that is created on a computer is done this way probably hinders many peoples acceptance of the computer as a tool for creating true art.
So what you say is true, if the computer is being used as a tool, like a brush. But if used to simply render out images, where the entire input of the 'artist' is to just keep moving the objects and pushing a render button....that debate is still open on that IMHO.
Every medium has to find its "unique selling point", a way to
transcend its origins in older media, and this may take a while. For
instance, movies where long thought to be inferior to theatre, because
theatre was "the real thing", whereas movies where just a registration
of that. It took D.W. Griffith (and many others) to give film its own
vocabulary, and it essentially blew theatre away as an expressive
medium.
Of course not every medium under the sun has a unique selling point.
Ofili's "Holy Virgin Mary" probably exhausts the total expressive
range of elephant dung. However I strongly believe (and I am sure
everybody in here agrees) that computers are more than a one-shot
medium.
The classical distinction between imitatio and aemulatio
may be interesting here. Renaissance artists set out to imitate
classical art as closely as possible (imitatio) and then delibaretely
tried to surpass it while remaining true to the idea (aemulatio). In
the case of computer graphics this would mean you should set out to
reproduce "regular" media as close as possible, taking from it what
you need and focussing on that to take it a step further where the
other media simply cannot go. Which way it that? I don't know. That's
one of the thrills of being an artist. I do know you're by far not the
first to explore this subject. (You probably know the Dutch artist
Peter Struijken, who explored computer graphics way back in the 80's,
and who focussed on the ligh-emitting capacities of the screen as
opposed to the light-reflecting capacities of, say, paint.)
Sometimes however, a less structural approach can work miracles. It is
obvious that the true strengths of computers lie in the capability to
manipulate data in an autonomous fashion. Is it possible to derive
entertainment or even an aestethic experience from this unique
feature? Of course it is. Look at the computer-game industry. They
have been exploring this angle for decades now, and I personally think
they are in dire need of some real creative vision by now, mainly on
the graphics front. Nine out of ten computer games nowadays uses
high-res, bump-mapped, dynamically lighted textures mounted on
increasingly intricate 3d-structures, only to come out looking as a
flaky 80's movie with over-exposed colors and badly grimed actors
running around under black light. There obviously is an industry
crying there for some creative input.
So, yes, I think there is plenty of room for artistry in the
CG-department. The point is that to find it, you will have to stretch
not only your own imagination, but everybody else's too. And that,
my friend, is where the real challenge of art is...
--
Being well balanced is overrated. -- John Carmack
It's not a fine art if it requires skills that established fine artists lack.
I've had plenty of arguments with other artists about the legitimacy of the use of a computer in the fine arts. My opinion is that it is no different than picking up a camera, brush, chisel, etc. It is a tool. In art school you are taught a rather straightforward process to making art: 1. Get an idea 2. Choose the best tool/method/media to represent your idea. 3. Render your idea. 4. Rework. rework. rework. The computer is just another possibility in your scope of media choices. It's almost the same lame argument people have about the computer in the workplace: If you're not getting dirty and sweaty doing it, you're not really working. It's like you have to inhale oil paint fumes and get cancer in order to have worthwhile work to look at. That's just wrong.
You can call me Jimmy. Once.
Gee, I wonder what kind of response we're going to get from the Slashdot crowd?
--
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
What you are facing is probably not only ignorance, but a common reaction against a new form/medium that all new "art forms" have experienced in their times. It is akin to the mocking photography received in its early days before it too became "fine art".
Tragically, you will probably end up dead before such recognition takes place, but perhaps you won't, given the rate at which computers (and the graphics they can show) are pervading society at an ever increasing rate.
Computers provide something not many other "fine arts" can - interactivity. Especially in the graphics arena. Simply creating a graphic, sending it to a printer, or photo print system, or projecting it as a still, or similar - is fine, but it doesn't truely allow for what the computer excels at. If you use the machine as a tool, find out how to interact with it differently, so that the creation of the final art, while computer generated, also has that "touch" of the artist (here is an idea - create a system by which you control a CNC milling machine on a block of steel with a computer, through which you interact and guide the system via a funky Theremin-like interface - even the act of creation could be viewed as performance art). Or, allow the audience "viewing" the "work" to cause the work to change over time, given guidelines by you, the artist (hmm - how about this, think of an audience surrounding a large, deep box, which has sand, or some other material in it, a grid of tubes, and a computer controlled pneumatic system, that would cause the sand to "bubble" and such based on audience "sound" and "motion" input - perhaps taken via video feeds).
Artists have done this kind of art before with computers - I don't think you will get very far though with straight graphic designs, but I wouldn't consider it impossible. Perhaps you could back project the images onto a dome, or somehow immerse the audience in the work (the presentation of the art can be as important as the art itself - sometimes the presentation is the art!)...
Maybe I should have become an artist...
Then again, maybe I don't know jack about art, and you should ignore me?
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Don't get me wrong, LR and especially Hot Springs have reasonably active, sophisticated artistic communities, but not what you'd find in some places. Add to that the general, nearly universal disdain with which "real" artists and critics regard computer art, and you're in a nearly no-win situation. Not only does CG have a stigma attached to it to begin with, but you're unlikely to find an appreciative crowd in Little Rock, either for really new art forms or for CG, much less the combination of the two.
In short, I wouldn't take it too personally. If you're really serious about exhibiting your work, I'd suggest trying to go through some of the departments at UALR to arrange an exhibit, like the Computer Science and Art departments, and maybe even the Math department. At least in the CSCI and Math departments you might find some who would appreciate the technical sophistication of what you've done, and in the Art department you might find at least a few people who would be forward-thinking enough to give your art a look. Good luck!
"Sure, Thag, it was really hard to paint that stuff on the wall of a cave, by torchlight, using only clays and berry juices...but come on! It doesn't even really look like a buffalo!"
--Unknown Prehistoric Art Critic
Humans using computers to create art will take a very long time to be accepted as a fine art form. The reason for this are numbers. Because numbers are involved, because they are exact, because they lack the ambiguity that makes art human, it will be a long time before full acceptance into the art community. Most art instructors that I've dealt with see computer art as a form of Paint-by-the-Numbers. No room for individual artistic talent (in their minds) because you can do something exactly the same, over and over, and another person can sit down and make the exact same thing, in every way identical.
There is something about this that is abhorrent to the average art instructors mind that they fail to see the multitude of possibilities inherent in computer art. _They_ will never accept it because someone "untalented" can create something to be proud of with little or no training. What they don't realize is how hard it is to move from that stage to the truly artistic level.
That being said, I personally feel that it is art, and even a fine art. Of course my definition of art also includes architecture, code, etc. Anything involving a human mind and a medium in which to work can become art. All you need is an artist.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
There's a great magazine printed in Australia (Design Graphics -- http://www.designgraphics.com.au/) that give both tips for artists using computers, info about new programs and hardware coming out [stuff like monitor reviews, high end digital camera comparisons, etc], but they also have occasional interviews with artists, and some samples.
There have been some phenomenal pieces of art in there, and not all of them are done completely on computers. [Just go to their web site, and look at the covers of the recent issues]. An exceptional artist isn't bound to any one media. Some may shun computers as they don't know how to use them, but that doesn't mean that it's not an art form. Yes, it may all be represented by a series of numbers, but that doesn't mean that we can't scan one of van Gogh's works at a high resolution, and accurately reproduce almost pixelated quality of his works. [yes, we won't have the full texture, but the average person wouldn't notice].
There is a learning curve associated with computer art. A great painter may not be able to immediately produce with the same quality as with a brush. But they'd have the same issues when they're working with a chisel and block of marble. An artist, however, knows what looks good, and what they need to do to bring out emotions in the viewer. The method that they use to create the art that evokes the emotion is insignificant. I don't see how anyone can take a look at Toy Story and tell me that it's not an art form to get the computer generated models to behave to realisticly.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I think that people are making the same mistake with computer graphics. It is its own style. CG should not be judged and critiqued by people who's knowlege is based on other art mediums.
Is the art "computer-generated" as in a computer program generated it, or "computer-generated" as in it was a tool a real human used to create the art (through Photoshop, whatever).
In the latter case, I would think that it could still be considered "art proper". The former case though might be a little tricky - there is nothing the computer is trying to "get accross", no emotion it's trying to convey. That doesn't stop humans from appreciating it, but if one includes some sort of impetus of the artist in the definition of art, then perhaps that fails.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
..why anyone, much less an artist, should care about the opinion of the art critics in Little Rock, Arkansas has to say about your work.
Remember, Art Critics are the kind of cretins who fawn all over any asshole in a beret who pelts his audience with raw liver and screeches about how he's being oppressed by not receiving public funding for pissing on a picture of Elenor Roosevelt.
Keep copies of those reviews, and bring them out in twenty years or so. Those clowns will sound just like the idiots in the 1860s who claimed that photography wasn't a Fine Art.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
While I think that Computer generated art is sometimes art (as is some graphic design, certainly nothing is wrong with graphic art, I know lots of starving artists and one resonably well off graphic artist [~100k/yr]) I don't think that most schools teach art. I think that the more interesting art is computer art, using the computer and it's ability to be interactive as art. I've seen a couple of shows that featured computer art and they were very cool (but rarely saleable).
Until our children are no longer molded into castrated sheep democracy remains a fake and a danger. -A. S. Neill
If we say that the computer, between the artist and his work, seperates the work from fine art, then the brush for a painter, or the knife for a sculptor seperates those artists works from fine art.
Now, what do "I" personally consider to be a fine piece of computer work?
Two things determine that for me.
Is the work something I could have done using a better piece of software? IE: is it the quality of the tools that helped to produce the work, or is it the artists skill?
Is the work something I've thought about before? Or, is it "WOW! I could never have thought of that!"?
Whether 2d graphics, or 3d scenes or animations, or mathematically created fractals, I consider them to be an art form.
If some of your work is available online, post a url.
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
Maybe I am reading your post wrong, but what I get from it is that something that had been mass-produced does not qualify as art. I believe that the Original product is what matters. When something has been created, is it a test of time as to whether is should be deamed art? When a piece of art is created, it may or may not meet the criteria for fasionable art at the time, however may eventually be reconized for the skill and vision it may have.
The Mona Lisa is apparently one of treasures of the Art World, and yet I see wino's bumming change in Pike Street wearing a Mona Lisa T-shirt. By your post, it would seem that the Mona Lisa falls into your lower catagory of Art.
Remember it, write it down, take a picture, I dont give a fsck!
I agree fully to this,
.XM and .MOD, the graphicans ( and now I dont mean those popularistic guys doing photoshop with filters ) are going to be recognized as artists.
I have been more or less raised with computer art, first there was ANSI and ASCII-art, yes.
ANSI is art. Check out http://www.acid.org for the proof. As you state, computer graphics is a art, its not only recognized as one.
I think that in 10 or 20 years, computer musicians, the creators of
You cannot compare a drawing to a pixelmade picture thou, and since most artists are conservative ( atleast the ones who decides what is art and whats not ) it will take some time.
In the end however, its the viewer that decides whats good art and what is not.
I have many times pondered over this, since my many friends of my family is artists and since I have been watching the art of computer graphics envolv the last 10 years. I think that in 10 years, I'll take my CDS of ANSI-art and watch them as the masterpiceses they are.
Yes, but it SEEMS easier. It's a lot easier to create something that looks like artwork ("hey I'll just take this photograph and apply three random filters... wow that looks nifty!") with photoshop than it is to do the same with paint.
Actually, that's not entirely correct. There are some people out there who just throw paint randomly on a canvas to hide their lack of skill and put some label on top of it. I'm not critisizing abstract or modern art here: there are some truly great artists who have worked in the field of non-representational images in the past 70 years or so, but more snotty art school kids who think that they can get around learning how to draw.
Anyway, I'm afraid CGI art is somewhat burdened by those who think discovering a new combination of filters qualifies as art. Real works of skill will emerge and prove the critics wrong.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
I've posted something similar above so mod me as you will...
I think digital art forms age quite differently than others. While old photographs have a very cool appearance, old digital images (old video games, images, what have you) have a way of just looking tacky.
It's a bit like Comic Books as art. Looking back on old comics, it's hard to see real "Art" as opposed to nifty cultural artifacts. Anyone arguing that comic books could be art back in the 1940s wouldn't have had much to support themselves on. But now there is a (small) number of artists producing really great things with that medium, check out the work of Chris Ware and Dan Clowes to see what I'm talking about.
Also even modern digital images show too much of the medium. They are very identifiably digital and seem to be making statements about technology regardless of what they portray. Hmmmm... maybe a better analogy: digital art today is painting in pre-reniassance Europe, the form has to evolve some before the art can escape the trappings of the medium.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
I prefer Scott McCloud's definition. Art is anything not purely motivated by survival or reproduction.
If a guy can walk into NY and crap in a jar and call it art, then anything is art.
If art truly takes some kind of skill, then one may consider anything is art.
--
microsoft, it's what's for dinner
bq--3b7y4vyll6xi5x2rnrj7q.com
it's a sig, wtf?
this is a shorter version of a much longer post that got munged *ACK*
:)
My brother studies fine art at Goldsmiths College, one of the top UK art universities (Daimen Hirst, most of the young BritArt people, most of the artists in the Sensations show etc, went there)
It is very theoretically orientated, heavy workload over the 3 years, daily lectures and seminars, daily sign-ins to check attendance etc - ya really gotta work
But they take computer art seriously, and there are always several computer orientated artists at each year's Fine Arts degree show.
However, these people are always artists first and foremost, who just work with a computer, not a paint/brush. Last year, there was one woman who did lots of personally relevant graphics with a mouse in something like MSPaint, blew them up to giant size, printed them out in glossy banner format 1 meter x 20 meters, and wallpapered a room with them. She made a virtue out of the jaggies, pixelliation, erronous joggings of the mouse and so on.
As noticed in another post, these things, the ideosnycrasies of the medium are what makes it a valuable medium, artisically speaking, as with exploitation of the grain in modern art photography.
To be taken seriously in the academic art envirnoment, you need to read up on the body of art theory out there, read about previous academically respected (dead) artists who used new material, such as Klimt, Duchamps, Beuys (especially Beuys) talk about them and the theories they represented.
Your work needs to have personal relevance to you, and to be visbly hand-made, not something slickly photoshopped, to be linked with/ explore respected (!) art theories about colour or emotion or personal analysis or shape/form.
Use this and modify according to your desires. Hope this helps.
-Tomato
I'd wager that the folks who contribute to the Internet Ray Tracing Competition feel that what they do is fine art. Sure looks like art to me.
We use science to learn about the natural world. We use art to learn about ourselves.
Who are we with all of this technology? Maybe art will be the way we learn. How can a part of that searching not be art created jointly by people and machines?
If you got a $100 bill, put your hands up...
One possible problem was that a lot of the art was "commercial" art - eg art that was used for book covers. This seemed to cause more problems than art generated by computer...
www.sflink.net for more info on the artists who exhibited - including some big name SF and Astronomy artists!
SF and Computing Book Reviews from : http://www.DiverseBooks.com
Art != Trading value.
-- That which does not kill us has made its last mistake.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
So if someone invents a matter copier then suddenly the Mona Lisa will no longer be fine art ? Gimme a break.
Bitter and proud of it.
I agree, the impression I get from the ndustry to day is that artwork done with computers are not considered "fine art." Ineed it that term itself "fine art" that is vague and difficult to define. i.e. what does "fine art" mean to you and what does it mean to somone else.
I believe, that the issue of technology and where that is incorporated into the definition does not sit well with most people and how much technology must the be (or not be) before it is no longer a "fine art".
I have met people that argue photography is not a "fine art" because the medium is not tanigble and not maleiable by hand. Thus, sculpting and painting is considered "fine art".
At the othe end of the spectrum, is Shrek considered "fine art"? Most peop would probably say no, from a gut reaction but can't provide a satisfactory explaination when asked why. My guess is that people look poorly upon the commericalism and the technology behind the production.
Since clasisscal critics of art do not know how to catagorize computer aided artwork, many have create a new genre of work called "digial media", which includes interactive, still, and animated artwork.
I used to work with Dr. Ken Knowlton. He was a pioneer in computer generated art in the 60's and 70's.
Someone you trust is one of us.
I think few would disagree that:
cheap wine is not fine wine
polyester is not fine linen
McDonalds is not fine dining
and Rubbermaid is not fine china
That's all beside the point. What makes art "fine" is the artist's interpretation and expression of feeling. I have seen computer-aided art which is much more expressive than hand drawn art. The computer is just a tool in the artist's hand, not much different than a paintbrush. Some may whine that the computer artist is using content designed by someone else... but how many painters make their own paint, canvas, and brushes from raw materials? Each brush has its own signature: wouldn't a painter using paint or brushes by someone else effectively be using someone else's content?
Few high school marching bands would be included in "fine arts," yet most symphonies are. Many people can toot a flute or play the piano, but few can evoke the deep emotional response to music that a talented artist can.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
First off, I think it is fairly difficult for someone to say that something is or is not art. Today's NYT's has an interesting article on that subject. However, I am not sure that saying that everything can be art, or that nothing is art really helps anyone.
I know that there are a number of people working on digital art projects in the academic realm as well as in the commercial field. (MIT's media lab is a neat place, prob not the artistic ammunition you need) (something is wrong with RISD's site, I suspect they could provide good academic support.)
The first thing to say to defend the belief that digital works can be art is to draw the analogy to the initial receptions of impressionism (a la Monet Pissaro) and abstract impressism (a la Pollack, Kandinsky). Then, you would probably want to talk about some more examples of "art" that use technology as a medium. From an artistic standpoint (and I am not in any ways an artist, or an anuthroity on what it takes to be one) it seems that one would need a vision and a desire to create something that has meaning. I know that performance art is about the execution/performance. So, digital art could include things like video games, which has been discussed on slashdot before.
Overall, I must say that to make the sweeping generalization that digital "things" can not be art is a bit shortsighted. The evolution of technology has always had an effect on the ability to create art (most modern artists do not need to "learn" alchemy in order to make paint...).
I appreciate the point being made. I judge from the comments being made that there Slashdot isn't heavily populated by connoisseurs of fine collectibles. We must beware the velvet elvis. Why do things "look cheap"? Because we learn, through experience, that they are, in fact, cheap.
I would make the following distinction: Ansel Adams was an artist. A third generation copy of one of his photographs, on poster paper, taped to a dorm room wall, is not art.
If you think your Nastassja Kinski and the Snake poster is art, take the following litmus test: bring your precious poster to an art gallery, and ask them to exhibit it. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.
I think what we're left with, in the case of digital creation, is a rather paradoxical situation. There can still be great *artists*. Rally great. But not great *art*. Just pop art. Which is fine as far as it goes. Just don't brag about your fine collection.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
I'm an artist. I work in traditional media, as well as digital. I create 3D renderings, I paint digitally, and I color scanned drawings on the computer.
Does that make it less art? NO!
Art is the expression of creativity. If it's expressed through a pencil or a mouse, I don't care. The point is that someone is sharing a piece of their world with the rest of us.
Take one of those critics to see Final Fantasy and tell me what they think.
I suggest you read Scott McCloud's book, Reinventing Comics. He tackles the same self-deprecating issues that face comic artists throughought the last century.
Even legendary comic artists decided that what they were producing wasn't "art." When discussing Will Eisner's political views, the reknowned Rube Goldberg (of bizarre contraption comic fame) said, "Bullshit! What we do is not art! We're vaudevillians! And don't you ever forget that." (Not to mention that even vaudeville stage acts are a form of art!)
If you express yourself, it's art. If you didn't do it to further some physical need, it can be argued, then it may be art.
Scott McCloud also comments constantly about micropayments, writer's rights versus the big publishers, and other issues I see as near-and-dear to the software developer. His focus is on comics, but I see a LOT that applies to non-comics industries like software engineering.
[
He did that too, but he also began by following accepted schools of art. His earliest work is alternately Impressionist or Cubist for the most part, and "Basket of Bread" (1926) is a still life very much in the old style although still unmistakably Daliesque. Here is a gallery of Dali's paintings, and I recommend you check out the earliest pieces. Even at the age of 6, he was strongly Impressionist.
And the brethren went away edified.
I think you're just running into resistance against a new medium. New media, and the new art forms that inevitably accompany it, always encounter resistance from the art establishment.
Salvador Dali once said something like, "Whatever you do, begin by painting like the old masters. After that, no one will ever question what you do." An astute observation (and an approach that worked for him; he began his career as an Impressionist) but like any brilliant insight it's obvious in retrospect. If computer graphics are not yet a medium for fine art, it's mostly because there are no established artists who say it is. It's easy for critics to dismiss any new movement composed soley of newcomers to the art world; it's more difficult to do so when it's participated in by artists who are more well-known and respected. I think you will need to gain acceptance for yourself first, by working in more traditional media. Once you're already known for your fine art, it will be presumed that anything you create is also fine art. That will be the time to introduce computer graphics into your corpus of work.
And the brethren went away edified.
The same revolutions have happened over and over again, and each time have been met with the same resistance! Ages back, many these artists probably scoffed at the CAMERA, and how "That's not ART!", and then again with Film, and again and again with every new medium.
Thats all this digital medium is, a NEW one. It will take time, but as history has shown that it will happen.
On a good note for here in Australia actually, the newly appointed head of the NSW Art board (or something like that, cant remember, but was on TV a short while ago), is not the usual appointment, ie he's not "an artist" with years of art background, he's background is actually more IT based! [Insert uproar from art community here] And he has stated on many occasions, his belief in Digital artwork as a new revolution of sorts.
 
Firstly, I'd like to make sure the distinction between the medium and what is produced is a clear one. Oil paint is a medium of expression. So is the silver gelatin of the photograph. So is inkjet ink and the paper that supports it. But these are not art in themselves. They are just mediums of expression.
Secondly, I have seen the gamut of "computer generated art" that is nothing more than graphical representations of fractal or trigonometric patterns. They may be very beautiful in some beholder's eye but I personally feel that the word "art" is being used loosely here. Creativity was no doubt involved in the program to produce the images (programming is indeed an art). But where is the creativity in the images that the program itself produced? I'm not saying it doesn't exist. But the program, in this case is just a recipe for a kind of "canned" art. What I've seen to date is no better than someone's first attempts at making wine. You follow the directions in the box, and you get a wine-like result which you can drink. You can get a a pretty good buzz off it, too! But good art, like good wine, starts with good craft. Computer generated wine is like the mechanized wine kits that are designed to work at all. Quality is beyond the scope of the kit manufacturer. It's something that the wine maker has to pursue on their own.
Nothing computer generated has any redeeming value due if there is a limited involvement or limited experience in the "artist" directing the output. They're just following a recipe that comes in a box with a few premeasured ingredients.
Next. I have seen some incredible images that where created using Adobe and Corel products. (note the operative word is "created", not "generated".) This is art. It is "graphic" art. Some of it is even "good" art. But it is not "fine" art. It takes years of practice to achieve the kind of maturity the the older wine masters can pull off with seemingly no effort. And this goes for art too.
A few years ago I wrote this about the photograph as fine art. I confess my views have changed somewhat and it was written to apply to photographic art. But much of it applies to the computer as an artistic medium as well. A slightly edited/updated version of my definition of fine art:
It is "fine" art if:
* The output embodies the unique expressions of the ideas of the artist.
* The output has aesthetic merit, in terms of subject matter and composition.
* The prints are "archival" quality.
* Supporting materials (paper, matting, frame, etc.) are selected to meet the same archival standards while taking into account the aesthetic and viewing requirements of the subject matter. (This is "presentation".)
I think the operative meaning of the word "fine" is delicate, refined or subtle. It is almost the opposite in meaning to "pop" art. Pop art appeals to the masses, especially younger people. I liken it to Beaujolais Nouveau ($15) as opposed to a grande cru chateau-bottled wine that will cost a few hundred dollars a bottle. I'm not trying to invalidate pop art. Just clarify the distinction. Each have their time and place. Computer art still tends to be of the pop art variety, largely because most of the artists are still young.
At any rate, there is not a huge market for "fine" art. "Commercial" art, by and large, makes up the bulk of income-generating work. Not surprisingly, much of it is now produced with commercially-available illustration software. So I don't feel, as has been mentioned by other posters, that computers are slow to be accepted. They are being used to produce some very good works of art. Ultimately, whether commercial or fine art, the artist still has to have a clear objective. What is it that you are trying to communicate to your target audience?
As for longevity, no museum is going to be interested in a print that fades to oblivion in 50 to 100 years. Right now, there is a lot of effort going into making computer printout materials that approach the archival stability of colour photographic prints. But even conventional colour photographs do not meet the stringent requirements for being "archival" quality. So while few would argue that photography is not an art form, colour prints are seldom sold as "fine" art. Black and white photography doesn't suffer the same fate as the colour photographic if care is taken to properly stabilize the prints.
There is hope, though, for the colour photographer and for the computer artist. Some alternative-process colour exist that meet or exceed archival stability requirements. Ultrastable , for example, qualifies as a computer-outputed medium with archival (500 years+) stability. If you think that this is too cumbersome to use then remind yourself that you get out of something, whatever you put into it. Of course computers aren't limited to just visual arts, but I've made the assumption that that is what you are studying.
Finally I'd like to comment that I still consider myself a beginner as an artist. And I have been creating visual images for about 35 years. Or trying to, anyway. About the best that I have been able to achieve is the ability to recognize the difference between good art and great art. Producing good art is a process I am still trying to master. When I was in my 20s, I thought I was great. Now I am embarrassed to even think about how naive I was.
In more recent years I have taught photography in an art college. I have had a few talented students (less than ten percent), a few more not-so-talented students who merely thought they were talented and out of those, one or two who thought that their "talent" exempted them from having to learn the crafts that we were mandated to teach them. Some were just naive but a couple were downright cocky. I hope you are not one of these types becuase if you are you are going to have trouble getting through your course work.
If you really feel that the computer is an important artistic medium, then study your courses hard, don't bore the teachers with stuff that is irrelevant to what they have to teach and, after you graduate, prove to the world that the computer can produce fine art not by talking about it but by doing it. The ultimate test will be peoples acceptance of the end results. Contrary to the views expressed in many of the postings here, a lot of art critics do know good computer art when they've actually seen it. Alas, in the galleries, we just aren't seeing that much quality yet.
So getting back to your questions, no you are not alone in your belief. It is already being done. And while there will always be diehards that think that only traditional materials can produce "art", the computer is already proving indispensable for producing commercial art, at least. The word "fine" will always be subject to arguments on semantics, I'm afraid. But keep in mind that some of these diehards have simply grown tired of seeing half-assed attempts at art by those who have naive views about what art is.
The medium is in the here and now. Go for it!
@
What you are describing has absolutely nothing to do with art. You are describing the market for "art". How "art" is valued. What does that have to do with creative expression? How can I, a non-visual artist, recreate a piece of computer artwork without having access to the original data? In other words, if I view it on a screen, does that make it any easier to recreate? Not at all. Being able to create facsimile's of art does not invalidate it, no matter how easily copied. Look at music and poetry. They have been copied throughout the ages, very easily, and yet retain artistic merit through and through. Because the act of creation is the art, not the value of the art. I can copy Mozart all I want but that doesn't mean I can sit down and recreate his brilliance. I can even learn to play his music flawlessly, and I still am not creating art, I am copying it.
If you can't screw up royally while doing it, its not a fine art. Whether that means painting (who bumped into me?!) sculpture (damn! there goes the nose!), stage acting (ummm, umm, line!), or live music performance (*screeeech*, damnit!)
Many people question or belittle the creative process in writing the algorithm, and whether that can be considered art. Those critics for the most part don't understand the process, and therefore dismiss it. This is a lot like critics of photography as art. You might think the process is trivial, but let's see you go out and shoot scenes like Ansel Adams...
If you draw / paint in program in GIMP, Photoshop, or MS-paint... that is just a different medium, like using charcoal, oils, acrylic, or finger paint.
Other things, like 3d modeling and ray tracing should still considered art. I don't think anyone will agrue that Toy Story or Shrek are any less artistic than Snow White, just because computers were used in the process.
A lot of people have given examples of art that was poorly received by critics at the time, like those forms, art created on the computer will take time to be accepted.
Nonsense! Take Music. Mozart's requiem. It's just dots on paper - information - and so, like all information, infinitely copiable. I can take the sheet music, and photcopy it a thousand times.
Perhaps you argue that the performer adds something to each performance to make it unique. Fair enough. Many a Mozart lover will have differnet recordings of the same piece.
But one can take the sheet music, and convert it into a midi. Here's one here of the Kyrie. No artistic contribution to the work at all by the performer, my PC is converting numbers into sounds.
So Mozart's work, becomes, by your argument, becomes worthless, and not art, because I can make a zillion copies of this?
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Recipe for fine art with a PC: take your PC. Smash it to pieces with a sledgehammer. Piss on it. Put it into a plexiglass box with a dead pig. Throw in some graph paper. Splash some paint around it. Put a crucifix on top of it. Now that is fine art!
-- Each tock of the Planck clock is a new world and here we are still life. --
When governments fear the people there is liberty.
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
Jesus loves you, I think you suck
find some of the advice being dished out here pretty outta control
Here's some facts:
1) It doesn't make sense to say pixels aren't accepted by the "art world" when SFMOMA is hosting a big show of online art (http://010101.sfmoma.org/). Sure, some people around your parts may not wear it, and there's even a famous Australian critic who still writes in major newspapers that photography is "on the verge of being accepted as an art form", but generally those involved in setting agendas for contemporary art are up with technology.
The key thing to remember is that there are *a lot of different "art worlds"*. Choose your world carefully!
2) If you're really serious about computers as art and read slashdot, I'm surprised that you haven't come across all the sites which show online art such as http://rhizome.org/artbase, which has an advisory panel represeneting of all the major contemporary public museums in the US. If you have a look around you will find there are plenty of places looking for digital work. You would get a low grade for your research component in my class! Sign up for some mailing lists where digital artists hang out, such as nettime. You'll get a picture of what opportunities are available and the kinds of aesthetic ideas people are working with.
3) I think you need to ask yourself how seriously you are interested in engaging with contemporary discourses on art, versus applying your knowledge of historical art practices to computer graphics. Contrary to one poster, the "people who discuss the term 'art'" are precisely the ones who are advancing digital media within the art context.
To have your work accepted as "art", you really need to devote yourself to fully understanding this context. If you apply yourself to the study of innovative works of art created in the last 40 years, you will find they have plenty to offer about finding an appropriate context for your work. Flip through some magazines like Artforum, frieze, etc. These are mainstream magazines and you'll see digital art in them. Rip out the appropriate pages to show to your professor!
Good luck,
Danny
I would certainly consider what they do as art. 3d Modelling is alot like sculpting, the more detail you put into it, the better it looks. The more detail you want to put the better your artistic vision and "eye" has to be. The only difference is that in 3d modelling you can't just sculpt the object, you also have to place the camera in the perfect position to get the best quality "photograph". And possibly the biggest hangup I've had in modelling is position of lights (and indeed the objects themselves). All of these things are things which affect "real" artists, be they still life arrangers/painters, sculptors or photographers.
I don't see why you can't use it as the base of a welding sculpture or something.
It took many years before cartoonists were regarded as artists, and in many circles cartooning is still seen as "lesser art" than painting or sculpting. Computer-based art, art though it is, has a long road ahead before it will break through similar prejudices in the art community.
---
"This message is composed of 100% recycled electrons."
...or even the end product.
Art is the process - the exercise of skill to produce the end product in the chosen medium. It's what you do, not what you have done it to.
So anyone who thinks you can buy "art" is kidding themselves. Think about it this way - you produce a thing of beauty (or compelling ugliness) in some digital form, and run off a billion copies. Anyone can have one in their living-room and the world becomes a slightly better place.
But then where is the place for the art critic, the arsehole who tells you what is good and what is not, and validates some irrational monetary value for an unmade bed or an arrangement of bricks? You guessed it: nowhere. And I think you will find that at least some of the resistance to digital art media comes from that. It's too liberating.
(BTW, IANAA, but I know what I like)
-- What do you need?
-- Gnus. Lots of Gnus.
"It's not art until you manage to sell it."
Whether you agree or not it's at least an easily verifiable criterion ;-).
Cheers //Johan (and good luck selling some art ;-)
Installed the Bubblemon yet?
I think the greatest problem at the moment is, that most people don't use the computer in a way that makes use of its fantastic capabilities. Everybody tries to mimic the old tools like brush, pen, camera. An example is WaltDisney. They just use the computer to ease the creation of the films. But there are others who maybe will see what can be done with computers. If you leave the old paths, you will maybe find something which can only really be done with computers. Fine Art, in my opinion, uses the medium to show something from a new perspective. Computer-art at the moment just mimicks old perspectives. There has to be an new perspective on things which can only be presented with computers.
cu
--== Jerri ==--
cu
--== Jerri ==--
Homepage: http://www.jerri.de/
Im not sure if its art, but I heard a few years back about an "artist" the NEA was funding who masturbated and took pictures of his sperm as it fell to the ground ... if that is "art" your friend is still miles ahead of him.
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Aye. "I'll know art when I see it" is so often used as an excuse to disguise the subjective as objecive. It may not take a generation any longer for most people to recognize a new form of art - but in this case, the problem is that those in power have a "the world is this way and it's always gonna be this way" attitude, and will project that attitude on their institution until personal death or retirement. While their replacements will have a more up to date vision of how the world is, far too often, they just ossify into the same attitude with regard to further changes.
Still, one can hope that, as the pace of change in human society speeds up, believing that the world does not change will become more and more obviously preposterous (and thus, less and less common).
I've taken a couple of classes that dealt with the status of computers and the visual arts. One of the the interesting theoretical problems with using the computer to make art is the aesthetic of the computer art is often to some degree programmed into it by the designers of the software used to create the art. For example, many images are readily identifiable as having been doctored and/or created with Photoshop (though there are some exceptions as well; that might be criteria for saying what is art made on the computer as opposed to computer art). Does that make the programmers of Photoshop or (3D Studio or Maya) the artists? Do you have to be a programmer to be a computer artist? Some people think computer artists need to have basic programming skills, or work in concert with programmers, thus making computer art inherently collabrative in order to be successful. Another theoretical problem is the status of the original in computer art. There is no original in the fine art sense, since a copy of a digital image file is theoretically identical to the original, bit-for-bit. In a sense, it is the same problem with sculptures by Rodin; are castings made from his models after his death originals or copies? (I read an article on this for a class... don't remember the attribution, but the original idea isn't mine). So how do traditional art museums include digital work in the canon? It is hard to assess value on an art work that is infinitely copyable... especially if it is distributed on-line, where each viewing makes a copy somewhere. The only thing that can be said for sure about computer art is that there will be more of it....it is a new medium that is still looking for its place.
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In X-Windows the client serves YOU!
Here are my definitions: Art is the product of creativity. Fine art is art that required extraordinary skill to produce. By my definitions, your work is art and may be fine art. The hard part about distinguishing between art and fine art is recognizing the skill that was required to produce the art. This means that there will be a lot of people who are not impressed by your work. The ones most likely to enjoy it are those who have an understanding of the creation process and/or have an understanding of their own perception when they look at the work. Since most people do not understand the creation of computer art, they will not recognize your skill in that area. They may not even believe that you (instead of the computer) are the artist. But, if you create the proper image, they cannot deny that it is art. (Notice that I am talking about "most people." It is impossible to create a work of art that appeals to everybody, unless you understand absolutely everybody.) You can prove this by scanning a photo of a popular painting into your computer and then asking people if it is art. Even though it is not presented to them on canvas, most people will still know that it is art. This will work, even if you present it to people that haven't ever seen this particular painting before.
There are people in fine arts who take digital media and VR seriously, cf http://www.fa.indiana.edu/fina/fina/digital.html and http://strvid1.iu.edu:8080/ramgen/uits/sc2000/mdol insky.rm
These printers have an uncanny knack for transferring computer art to canvas (or other materials) with very good results. Depending on the artwork in question, you may be able to fool some people into believing in the art without them knowing about its origins. Once you get some good reviews, you can let the cat out of the bag. There's no way that they can change their mind after this...
Try checking with some sign shops for info on where to get access to one of these (yellow pages: signs). Colorspan isn't the only company that makes 'em but rather the first that I could find a link for.
Good Luck!
More
I work in an Art Gallery, and we have "Fine Art and Design" shows. Computer generated art is art, but it's not Fine Art. It's Design. Fine Art falls under: a.Art produced or intended primarily for beauty rather than utility. b.Any of the art forms, such as sculpture, painting, or music, used to create such art. Computer generated art is still veryvery new to the Art community. Although you may bitch and moan about not being appreciated as a Fine Artist, potters get the same predjudice, as well as drawers. Is drawing really Art? Or is it just sketches? It is Art, but the Art community is full of snobs, and doesn't consider drawing as finely tuned an artform to consider. Pottery/Ceramics have the same problems, because some pottery can be used (vases/cups/bowls), but the majority of pottery is for the sole purpose of being Art. But because you can use pottery, the Art community considers them more "crafts," and not Fine Art. What you are complaining about is basic Artist bitching. You will never be appreciated as much as you want, and the schools are obviously in the wrong (Artists are clearly always right). If it bugs you so much, I advise you make your own gallery show. That's what I've done. There's nothing the Art community loves more than bitchy rebel Artists. The question of Fine Art is futile. In the Muses, painting isn't even mentioned, and yet these days we consider painting the only Art. Just have patience. Cheers, Tamr
Well, yes and no. Your heart's in the right place, but when it gets down to brass tacks, I have to disagree. Remember two point, though. First, we're talking about *visual* arts, so mixing in discussions of music and poetry aren't really valid. Words and notes are different from pictures. Also, remember that the original poster was talking about "fine art" and how it is distinguished from other types of art.
With that said, the definition I've always used for fine art is something that will be bought by some rich idiot to hang on his walls to impress a bunch of black-dressed New York snobs that he invites to a once-a-year cocktail party so that he can feel "with it." It doesn't matter what kind of crap it is. It just has to be expensive.
The problems with photographs are exactly as you state - they can be reproduced ad infinitum, though lots of copies require some labor and expense. Computer graphics are even worse in this regard; they can be reproduced ad infinitum with very, very little labor and expense.
So why are early prints more valuable than later ones? More valuable than estate prints? Why are hand-printed-by-the-photographer, limited edition monographs more expensive than high-quality custom silver prints turned out in large numbers? Why are platinum/palladium one-of-a-kind fine art photographic prints so highly prized? Why are top-drawer fine art paintings more expensive still? Because in each case, if the tools and methods used to create the art necessarily enforce rarity, then simple economics kicks in and the price goes up.
Consider this - Why can some photos be sold for much higher prices after the photographer announces that s/he has destroyed the negatives? Rarity. Why was there a minor panic in certain parts of the photographic fine art world when it was discovered that Ansel Adams had NOT destroyed some negatives that he said he had burned? Because the rarity of the prints derived from those negatives was now only theoretical.
Like it or not, for something to be called enduring fine art it has to be something that people will pay a lot of money for. "Fine art for the masses" is a contradiction in terms.
If I wanted to produce fine visual art using a computer, I'd burn the best possible large-format negative, use that to produce 2 or 3 platinum prints on ceramic-coated titanium plates, then destroy both the internegative and the original file. And even then, I'd have a hard time convincing buyers that a backup of the file doesn't exist somewhere and that those really expensive prints I'm trying to sell won't be duped by the thousands 20 years from now.
Computer files as fine art has a long way to go. Never fear, though. It took photography, my personal passion, a couple of lifetimes to get any respect from the fine art world.
Agreed, agreed, agreed.
However, the willingness of people to lay down a big chunk of cash for something does seem to figure rather prominently in whether or not museums and others call that something "fine art" or "a nice picture." After all, those paintings on museum walls are almost always worth big dollars. Cash-strapped museums don't just "de-accession" their donated crap; sometimes they sell stuff they should be displaying. They usually issue some sort of statement about "refining the focus of the collection," but the bottom line is that they get big bucks.
Like it or not, no artworks gets accepted by the art establishment as "musuem-quality fine art" without a big price tag. Why do up-and-coming artists salivate at the thought of a prestigious gallery show? Because it lends them legitimacy, helps get them accepted, and, as an inseparable component of the process, it increases the price tag of their works.
You are quite right that digital artworks will be tremendously valuable to viewers. All good art makes the world a better place and that's a pretty valuable function.
But just because digital artists are producing (spiritually, not monetarily) valuable artworks doesn't mean that profs, curators, critics, or collectors will ever refer to their work product as "fine art." Digital artists need to find a way to make their works rare, even artificially so, before they and their works will be taken seriously by the money-game-playing art establishment. And acceptance by the establishment was what the original poster was seeking.
Who is Allan Holdsworth, you ask? Only the most incredible guitar player that you've probably never heard of.
Check out his site here.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
Dick Dale? That was so...1994. Just kidding, he's alright. Well, to each, his own, I guess, although I must admit that the older stuff of his (i.e. pre-Gnarly Geezer era) was much better.
As far as the site itself, yeah, it does suck, but that wasn't really the point I was trying to get across anyway.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
Hear, hear! I've often wondered just what the job qualifications for a "critic" of any kind are. I mean, do any of them have degrees from the New England School of Criticism? No, most of them are just self-important blowhards whose job worthlessness and full-of-shit factor rank second only to the field of "sports reporter".
Why sports reporter, you ask? Take a Sunday morning sometime and tune into ESPN's "The Sports Reporters" show. Then come back and tell me whether you think any of those fat bastards has even seen a playing field in the last 20 years, nevermind actually participate in the activities that they think they know all there is to know about. It's the same deal with these so-called "critics"....
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
The trick to winning over the people who don't call it art is to have them express their creativity through the same medium.
My then girlfriend and I had the same argument 12 years ago. I was the computer student; she was the artist who was of the opinion that "computer art is not art." She meant of the fine variety...
Anyway, she sat down one day at my computer with a drawing program and produced a very detailed sketch. It was far and away better than anything I could do, but I said "You're right, it's not art". She instantly saw how wrong she had been!
She is now a graphic artist professionally using computers in her work (in downtown Little Rock I might add, so the location doesn't have much to do with the problem).
in Mississippi? Obviously not Steve Larson who does most of the CG classes at UM. Pity he is on his way to N. Michigan - say bye-bye to CG art classes at UM......
Eric Aitala
www.f1m.com
Old School
Plato thought of art as representation, and as such he didn't have much respect for it. a picture of an apple is further away from the Form of an Apple than an actual apple is. In the light of Plato (or neo-Platonists) CG art probably fairs relatively well, since you probably are trying to represent something (be it concrete or abstract).
Neo-Wittgensteinian
To these guys art is an open concept. Art is about breaking rules and truly creating. The problem they have, it that that can easily lead to the problem that "everything is art." So to fend against that, they have the amorphous concept of "family resemblance." Basically, if you have certain characteristic that the "art community" deems in commom with previously accepted works of art, poof! its art. CG Art probably doesn't do to well here, because as it was pointed out, CG art is tied to the decidedly non-fine art Computer design.
Those are the only two I remember, though there are many more. Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about being accepted by the artistic community -- you're not going to be. But that doesn't mean that you can't find artists out there with simmilar skills/interests, and you can certianly keep creating, which is really the most important thing.
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no comment
A computer is just a tool. When used for graphics it can produce any kind of art that you choose. You can produce graphic art (as my wife does), or you can produce fine art.
The people who you asked were artists unfamiliar with the capabilities of computers. Listen to their advice when they know what they are talking about. Nod and say nothing when they don't. You have a chance to pioneer the acceptance of computers as a valid fine art tool if you choose. Personally I'd just paint with the computer and they'll work it out one day.
A brush doesn't make an artist. A canvas doesn't make it fine art. Being done on a computer doesn't mean that it is not fine art. Nor that it is. Art has many forms but should never be confused with the tools and media used to make it.
Cuiusvis hominis est errare; nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare.
As other people have mentioned, computers are just a tool. It's like the old debate of photography versus paintings (actually heard arguments for both each).
But if you need support just contact someone from SIGGRAPH, at least from the closest professional chapter. SIGGRAPH is the largest organization in Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, and covers all aspects of CG: straight art, animation, latest research, commercial projects, etc. Each year they have an art show (could be seen by mopre than 40,000 people this year) at the annual conference. After the conference the art show travels around the country. There are numerous panels on art at the conference and countless artists of all kinds.
It's too late for this years conference, but youy can still check out the following links for help and ecouragment:
ACM SIGGRAPH Artist's ConnectionSIGGRAPH Chapters Directory
SIGGRAPH 2001 Art Gallery
Computer graphics aren't art. But neither is canvas and oil-based paint.
It is a medium. So the real question is: Is computer graphics a valid medium for fine art?
Which begs the questions: "Can you define a "valid" medium for fine art"? and "Can you define fine art"?
Anyways, I would argue that the medium is irrelevant, but you are going to fight an uphill battle for a while. The art world can be very conservative, surprisingly enough.
Oil on canvas is a "valid" medium. Oil on canvas allows "undo." Media that allow "undo" are valid. PhotoShop, Gimp, et al, allow "undo." PhotoShop, Gimp, et al, are valid.
It's a really good art school. They offer courses that use computer as the medium.
My wife has a BFA ¥bachelor of fine arts and one of the guys I work with has an MFA© They are both artists and both do lots of artwork on their computers© I was just at an exhibit in NYC of computer artwork at Parsons School of Design in NYC©
The Parsons School teaches many art and technology type of classes, because they realize that art is what you take away from it© It's a feeling and a conveyance of emotion and not just paint on canvas or pixels on a screen© Art historians will note that 'the photograph' was not considered art for quite a while©
Check out www©parsons©edu and tell me that some of the exibits are not art©
Ummm, Jon, aren't you supposed to be dead...? - Otter(3800)
...therefore just because you like it does not mean that i will, and vice versa.
i think the many visitors, the 400+ submissions of digital art a day, and the 40000+ overall pieces of art, submitted by artists themselves within less than one year, at deviantART speaks for itself as to the answer of the question at hand...
Anyone who doesn't believe computer graphics can be 'real art' should check out the work of Vladimir Konstantinovic. Maybe start with The Sacrifice of Abraham. There are links to some of his other images there. You have never seen "computer art" like this. What was the comment someone made in the early posts on this thread, about starting by duplicating the old masters?
Vladimir does this stuff in his free time, using Xara, the best damn vector graphics package available. (yes, that's right, those are vector images). He actually works at a Russian TV station. Amazing, no?
n.
- Art produced or intended primarily for beauty rather than utility.
- Any of the art forms, such as sculpture, painting, or music, used to create such art. Often used in the plural.
And from your question: The art critics there claimed that computer-generated art was not a 'fine art' but more of a graphic design, regardless of the quality of the work.I always thought that the main difference between fine arts and design was the purpose of the work rather than its quality. Graphic design deals with beauty and usefulness. Fine arts usefulness is beauty.
I don't know if computer generated arts can be called fine arts if the computer does it for beauty or if the programmer does it for beauty. But I think the main problem here is not knowing if it is called fine arts or graphic design, but if it can be called arts at all.
phobos% cat
phobos% cat
cat:
There is a big problem here. The guy uses the words computer generated art quite extensivly in his text. And then he says that it is about the medium used.
.sig
I'm quite mixed up. I don't say pencil generated art to talk about drawing. If I said that, people would tell me that it is not the pencil that generates the art. The pencil is the medium, and I am an artist. It is human generated arts. And there are quite reknowned artists using computers for their art. And very few artists (even older teachers) would dare to say that the computer is a bad medium for arts... some artists use garbage, flesh, etc.
If the guy was talking about real computer-generated arts (which is what i understood at first), he is wrong talking about a new medium. If he wants the art to be computer generated, he doesn't want people to say his computer is the medium, but the artist. Then, it is a totally questionable thing, and it is not as easy to answer. Not to know if it is computer design or fine arts (i wrote another post about that), but if it is arts at all.
Reading your rating=5 article, and looking at your examples, i believe that you took the first interpretation of the original post. If it is the right one, i think the question is invalid. It is false to say that people look at artists using a computer like people looked at the work of Picasso before (which is the example everyone gives in their posts).
phobos% cat
phobos% cat
cat:
How does computer art, in this respect, differ from photography? As both a computer artist and a photographer, I've never felt there was a difference. Indeed, I now carry three cameras with me - one takes digital shots, another takes APS film, and a third takes 35mm stereograms. The digital shots go directly into the computer. The APS film goes to Kodak, which returns to me a CD of JPEG files of the images, which go into the computer. The 35mm film goes to shutterfly.com, which returns to me negatives, which I scan into the computer. I use the computer to perform touchups and color corrections as desired, and have my photos printed by shutterfly.
So, is what I do photography, which could be fine art, or is it computer generated, which you claim can't?
Again, I'll bring up photography. If I shoot photos with a very fine grain film and have them printed by an excellent photo finisher on glossy paper, do they have texture? Do they have any more texture than prints of images I created digitally and had printed on the same glossy paper?
Really? Come visit my house and look at my living room wall and tell me which of my photos were created on film and which were created with my digital camera. Tell me which could qualify as "fine art" and which couldn't (pretending for a moment they're all good).
I'm pretty sure you won't be able to tell the difference between the photos taken with my mid-range consumer-quality digital camera and the photos taken on film. With one exception that I enlarged up too much, I don't think you'll be able to point out any pics with visible pixels, either.
And again, photography differs how?
Here's my litmus test for you. Pretend, for a moment, that I am Monet, transported alive to the year 2001 and taught to use computers. I create four works on identical pieces of paper:
- I paint something, scan it into the computer, print out the image, burn the original painting, and delete the computer file, leaving only a printout.
- I create something in the computer, print it, and paint over all the ink so you can't see that there's computer printing anywhere, but I slavishly paint exactly the same thing as was on the printout in the first place.
- I paint something, and photograph it and have 10,000 prints made.
- I create something in the computer and print it out.
Now: I show you these four things without explanation. Tell me: which of these things are "fine art", and which aren't? And more importantly, how can you tell?Tom
I am the son of a professor of art history. At the last university where he worked, there was one member of his department who as of about 5 years ago works exclusively with computers to create his 2-D art. He certainly is not a particularly unique case. Currently, my dad runs the Department of Art & Design at Southwest Missouri State University. If you take a look at their website, you'll see that they offer a Bachelor of Fine Arts in, for example, "Image Production", or in "Computer Animation". This is a serious, well-known program at a regional university, and again it is not at all a unique case.
I think what causes most people to think of "computer graphics" as something other than fine art is that unless they are being created purely as "art" people ignore everything but their functional use. But then again, as my father would lecture at you for hours on end, "art" is hardly just stuff to look at.
As to the thing about computers being a graphic design medium, that's true in many cases. That doesn't make it any less art, though. I just completed a degree in Visual Design and I definitely see myself as an artist. I have a focus in animation (yes, it's a kind of visual design), but I strive for good composition and execution in all my pieces, just as any painter or musician would.
Visual Design is the study of visual composition, whether static or dynamic (such as in animation). That ends up being very applicable to most comercial art applications such as posters, billboards, TV spots, etc. Since it's used so much in applied arts, it's easy to fall into the trap of saying that graphic design is not art, but tell that to Andy Warhol.
But when it really comes down to it, art is art only if people say it's art. What else can we define it by? So if you say "I created this, it's art", then it is. Whether other people think the same thing is a seperate issue. And you'll need to ask yourself: what's the value of something that you create if only you can appreciate it? I'm not saying it isn't valuable, just that it's something to think about. There are lots of artists who don't care about an audience. Personally, I need an audience for the art I create. It's part of my medium. Every artist has to decide why he or she creates art.
In order to create art on a computer you have to understand what's going on the medium, why you are choosing a computer instead of paper or canvas or a sharp aged twisted metal structure. The object of your expressions must be well fit to it's bounds and ways. To do art on a computer is NOT an easy task (well neither on the other media) remember you may use inter activity, you can make something show itself exactly the same way for years and then program to a change occur on some specific second. When you create on a computer you are tying that to the specifications of our epoch in other words you'll be probably making some very dated artwork, picture your self crafting in 1980, drivers become outdated, specifications change, if your art only runs on system X it my be lost if something bad happens to X. You may have to rewrite your art. You may have to keep a computer from the distant year of 2001. As for those critics , ask them about glass painting...
most of that shit people slop on to canvases and take pictures of isn't even art ;-)
the problem is that people, in general, are getting too wrapped up in the medium. The dogma has become: Music = Art, Painting = Art, Drawing = Art, Photography = Art.
Art is that which enriches the soul. However that thing that gives you an introspective into yourself and helps you know you better is formed is completely irrelevant. Painting != Art. Drawing != Art.
So to answer your question: No. Computer generated graphics is not art. If you can generate something on a computer that makes people really think and come away from it a better person, then that is art.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
...yeah, I studied Art at university and have a BFA to show for it. Of course I have turned to network administration to feed myself, but that is off-topic at the moment.
Anyway, the medium used (in this case, a computer) is no more the defining part of 'is it Art?' than in any other media (oil paints, acrylics, watercolors, marble, granite, glass, steel, whatever.) Just because the image is, at some molecular level, PIXELS, does not detract from the message(s), the concept(s), the intent(s) of the artist.
The critics, as usual, are just behind the curve.
But then again, they always have been, always will be.
I don't think a Linux kernel is art. I think it is more designed. IE, you designed it to do a certian thing.
Art is sort of more self expression. Design, all though it may seem like art in some mediums (graphics, painting etc). Is not art. It's doing something (quite oftern for someone else) for a specific reason.
EG. I'm a "web designer". If I made a website for some shop. I'd consider it design (There was a reason, and there where specific requirements for it). If I made a website for my self. For no real resason other than say, I felt like it. I was bored. I really to do it, self expression. Then think it would be art.
For starters. Any medium can be art, whether it's programming, photography, painting, drawing, music, graphic, scuplture, gardening, engineering, whatever.
I think what makes art. Is whether it was made for no real perpous. IE. the person might really like doing it. Might want to express feeling about something, might be bored, experimenting. Heaps of reasons. But the key is. It wasn't talored to meet any requirements. It wasn't made for a specific perpous or anything.
Design on the other had. Is made for a specific perpous. There are restrictions, requirements that have to be meet. There is a deffinit goal to be achived at the end.
Whether that be painting a portrait for someone, designing a magazine cover, making an OS for a computer, a fashion shoot, architecture, a tool etc...
I think, you'll find, that if you look at all the great art thoughout history, that it was made like I said: No specific perpous (I really do need to learn how to spell that word). It was created because the person just feel like doing it. Probably becasue they enjoyed it, and/or it meant something to them etc...
Of course. Art and design do quite oftern mix together in the real world. Just look at a fasion mag, the building you work in, you mouse (an the rest of the computer). Most probably, there is a bit of art in there mixed in with the design, and visa versa.
regardless if the medium is stone, wood, paper, canvas, or a computer... it matters not.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Before starting, stain your printing paper liberally with urine tracks.
Next, I'd suggest adding a cross, some blood and maybe dab a bit of faeces or vomit here and there.
Before 'mounting' your 'art', get liquored up and roll around in it on your bed as you have unprotected sex with your animal(s) of choice.
Now, that will get you rave reviews and you'll be the toast of the New York, LA and San Francisco galleries!
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
It's hard to judge the conservatism of the critics without seeing the artist's work. My bet, however, is that if the work was really great, the issue of "computer art, is it really art?" wouldn't even come up. 99.9% of all college art major art is crap. Sorry, but that is the reality, the medium doesn't make a difference.
For example, defacing billboards is art when done well, however most billboard defacement is just junk. Same with graffitti, fighting robots, etc.
So far, the only good computer art I've seen is by the dude that did historical scenes in a "the sims" like setting. (was a /. article, but I can't find it.)
I don't mean to sounds too negative negative, but if you're in college and complaining that your medium is not treated seriously, I suggest you either ignore the critics and do your thing, or switch to acrylics, graduate with a B average, and look forward to a career as a Red Lobster manager.
SFMOMA currently has an exhibit with a heavy emphasis on computers. But I think it's instructive -- very few of the pieces could ever be construed as "graphic design." Without seeing the show in question, it's hard to say whether it was unfairly painted or whether it really was graphic design masquerading as art. But I think you're going to be fighting an uphill battle if your computer-generated art isn't some sort of statement about technology itself. Using a digital canvas just isn't very thought provoking in itself.
Actually, a lot of the best digital art is genuinely breaking new ground. They aren't just drawings or paintings that made use of a new box of tools, but rather use the computer to make the artwork interact with the viewer. In that way they are computer art in the strictest sense; part of the art exists strictly inside the computer and makes good use of the computer's unique capabilities. This may or may not be what the original poster had in mind, but they are examples of computer art. Of course in many cases they include much more than just the computer and program to the point that they can't just be reproduced at will, which would probably make them classify as valuable artworks under the ease of reproduction viewpoint.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Ah! This explains it. I am primarily a museum goer rather than a purchaser of fine art, so my perspective on its value is very different. To me the value of an artwork is primarily its "use value"- the value produced by the enjoyment of viewing it, rather than its resale value. I don't think that the fact that someone is willing to lay down a big chunk of cash for an artwork makes it inherently more valuable. It may only show that the buyer is a dolt. In fact, IMO, the wide availability of an artwork increases its value, as more people can derive enjoyment from it. That's why its important that great artwork be put in museums, where it can be enjoyed by anyone, rather than stuffed away in people's homes or locked up in warehouses. In that sense, digital artworks have the potential to be tremendously valuable, as their ability to be duplicated makes them very widely available.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
You most certainly are not alone. Computer based work may be too cutting-edge for old fuddy-duddies, but it most certainly is not for Modern Art lovers. I'm a member of The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and they most certainly have their share of computer based work in their exhibitions. They even have a digital gallery on their web site, which is part of their ongoing program of encouraging computer-based artwork. To quote:
So some people in fine arts most certainly do support computer artwork.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
What a load of crap! Art is about expressing ideas, not about how unique or collectible the product is. A photograph can be fine art even though an almost unlimited number of copies can be made from the negative, and the production of reproductions of famous artworks does nothing to devalue the original.
One only has to look at fields other than the visual arts to see how ridiculous this view is. A novel or poem is an artwork, and nobody claims that it's any less significant just because it's printed or put on the web instead of hand-copied. A musical performance is a work of art whether or not it's being recorded for the masses to hear.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Hear! Hear! This is a very good point. You can make an even stronger one, though, by looking at grain in photography. It's an artifact of the process used to make the image, but people are now absolutely attached to it. Why? Because they know how to use it to artistic effect. They can use the grain in the picture to enchance what it is that they want the photograph to say.
I expect that people in the not too distant future will say the same thing about various digital artifacts. They'll figure out all sorts of uses for pixelation and compression artifacts and even deliberately introduce them into works that didn't have them in the first place just for their artistic effect. Pretty soon everyone will be so used to them that they won't even consider the fact that at one time they were considered to be undesirable and to detract from the artwork.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Siggraph is -the- computer graphics conference (look it up) and is pro-active about computer graphics as art. 2 things I saw there: This wasn't GG, but it is art, whereas this is computer graphics, and art, and maths, and cute.
If you can get it via a library or someone who went to Siggraph, look up the Siggraph Electronic Art and Animation Catalog and show it to the people who aren't convinced.
Unless you have an absolute compulsion to say something in your medium, without regard to fashion, critics, or a regular meal schedule, art ain't for you. Only if "you got something in you that's gotta come out" will you survive. Clarify your message and ignore the critics. The medium will become valid when (or maybe 20 years after) someone says something important with it. Apparently, no one has yet.
If I paint an actual canvas, I have to mix colors, and brush the canvas. Plus the texture of the paint is in and of itself part of the art.
If I sculpt something, and I make a mistake I have to go with it(or pay lots of money for marble).
this goes for most art that is created and exists in 'real space'
Is computer art still creative? yes.
Is it art? yes.
is it fine art? no.
This is assuming your atually creating the piece of art. If you run a computer algorithom that generated all the art, you are no longer an artist, or being creative. Yes the creation of the algorithom MAY be a creative task, but thats another question.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Go read an art history book. Most new art forms are poorly received in their own era.
User error, execute?
Art is a composite of both technical ability and intellectual merit. It must have both to be art, if one is lacking it can be made up by having more of the other. Thus for example if a painting shows no technical ability but the ideas and philosophies behind it are amazing then it's art. Now, at the school where I study their is a yearly art contest for students to win scholarships and awards. This year the two winners were artists that used computers as their tools of the trade. I have seen many "artists" use computers and do 3D images, and no matter how amazing the scenes look I still have to ask, Why? Whats the point? These two students that won the awards this year went beyond pure aesthetic values and delved into something deaper, emotion, philosophy. That is what makes art. As my profesor Mark Cohen has said, "art is philosophy without words". Peace Omar
Computer art is going to be difficult to sell. You probably cannot expose it without effectively giving away the original. If it's interesting it will be flashed around the world and probably pasted onto everyones backdrop.
I know of a couple of major curators who would probably disagree with that statement, as well as some art historians. Prints by Durer are considered art, as well as works by Rodin which were reproduced by the artist in several different media.
Also, lets not forget the late great Andy Warhol, who bought a cheap-ass snow shovel, stuck it in a corner, and called it art (an item which most folks in temperate climates have in their garage, and you can buy them at Ace too!). He also reproduced multiple images and sold them as originals, multiple copies thereof, which were sold as fine art.
There is also the artist whose installation was a toilet manufactured by American Standard- but the title the artist gave the toilet, which intimated the ABSENCE of what he suggested, made it art according to the critics.
Note that I refer to critics, curators and art historians as those who define what art is, and don't mention artists aside from the examples of what artists produce. That is because most artists couldn't give a fuck about whether someone defines their work as art or not. Artists work on actually producing something and leave "definitions of art" and other such fripperies to the art history majors who make their living on creating and marketing such concepts. Ok, the last statement was a bit overbroad...suffice it to say the artists I mean are those that I either know personally, have met who are currently making a living, those whose lives I have studied or have discussed with art historians and curators, etc, ad nauseum.
Historically, artists cared (and still care) about using a medium that is cheap, an affordable medium which allows for something of a budget to make more work (and maybe, possibly enough money to also eat). This is how lithography came about in Italy, and how a number of media and techniques were developed. This also may tend to influence the desire of artists to step beyond the envelope of "art" defined by critics and find quality materials that are not overpriced. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but she is most often the bed partner of artists. Artists also know that they and their heirs will never likely see a damn cent from their sales, unless they are one of the lucky few who are able to market themselves into super-stardom either through prestigious patronage or a good publicity agency.
So, while pixels on a monitor may not qualify as art to those non-artists who CURRENTLY discuss the meaning of the term "art", artists will go on using whatever is cheap and easy to get their ideas across the boundaries of their souls. If the kid wants to call his work art, well, it probably is art. Is it saleable art? No, and so it won't command any kind of definition of "art" by those who depend upon art's scarcity to make a living.
mrgoat
'Hail Eris, baby, hail Eris...pfffffffttt.' *cough* 'Yeah.'
Does that mean that if I take a photograph of 'Mona Lisa', 'Mona Lisa' will seize to be 'fine art' because it's been reproduced (in whatever quality the photograph is) and thus it's possible to mass-produce? Or is it simply my photograph not being art, while the subject of my photograph still is? In the latter case, Computer Art may be Fine Art aswell, no matter the number of reproductions. How many people don't have 'Mona Lisa''s hanging somewhere in their house, repro quality good or bad? Keep your crap to yourself.
Love over Gold.
Sorry, didn't mean to sound that hostile. Only annoyed ;)
Anyway.. If you read my article again, I said _nothing_ about the value of the photographs taken or any reproductions made of it. What they DEPICT however, is still real, fine art. The 'Mona Lisa' is (today) considered a piece of very fine art, regardless of the number of reproductions made in any form. So my point is: Art produced with the aid of a computer (like a pencil is the aid of a painter, a piano or a violin is the aid of a musician) should have the same chances of being considered 'real' and 'fine' art as anything else. How many reproductions (copies) you make has nothing to do with it. The art in its original form has the same value; it's just that with computer art, the quality of the reproductions are usually indistinguishable from the original.
I can draw another parallel here - Literature can be considered art, in one way or another. I'm not sure if anyone would call it 'fine art', but at the least 'fine literature'. Now one must agree that in general, it's the TEXT in a book that represents the artistical product, and in any REPRODUCTION of the book, the text will be (in general, not taking into account translation, typos, corrections etc.) the _exact_ same as in the original work. This doesn't, however, reduce the quality of the original work, even though the reproductions are, in this sense, 100% indistinguishable from the original work.
I hope you are catching my drift..
Love over Gold.
Computer art doesn't have an original and therefore loses its collectible (monetary) value.
Umm.. Just because you can't distinguish a copy from the original, doesn't mean there aren't any original.. And suppose we find a way to make sure you can distinguish a digital copy from the digital original (I think this is impossible, but just suppose..), will computer art then suddenly qualify as potential 'fine art'?
I think that 'disadvantage' of computer art is rather unfair..
True, it's hard to put monetary value on such art. And it's hard to see how someone could actually 'buy the original', when, in fact, technically the artist could always 'keep a copy' or whatever.. But I am of the 'ideological' opinion that this has nothing to do with the quality of the art, or the classification of it.
Love over Gold.
Art critics are often much more closed-minded than they'd like to admit. There are one or two with vision, and the rest of them follow along with the current "scene". Maybe crosses dipped in piss are popular this year; next year they're passe; the year before they weren't art.
Where a lot of the resistance is coming from, however, is the fact that art involving computers is often commercial. You'll see the same disdain towards commercial art-- people who paint pretty, inoffensive scenes for people to put in their homes. You see it in a lot of bigotry towards movies as an art form-- some justified, some not, but a lot of art critics display some degree of prejudice toward their movie critic counterparts. It's the commercial pressures-- obviously a starving painter isn't in it for the money, whereas Ridley Scott is fairly well off. (Side note: Scott's Bladerunner was actually showing on a television in the middle of an art exhibit at the Louisiana museum in Denmark. Very cool.)
Are people doing things about it? Yes. A friend of mine was originally an art major at Stanford (one of, say, a couple dozen-- not exactly the usual track there), but changed to an individually designed major called Visual Studies in Computer Animation. She and a staff member or two worked fairly hard to squeeze a few bucks worth of computer equipment out of the school (while quad-proc machines were sitting unused in the Gates Building basement, but that's another story). Now there are several classes involving digital art and computer animation. There's also a building/room for SUDAC, Stanford University Digital Art Center. It's fairly tiny and not too well-funded, but it's a start.
For a while, the art department didn't want anything to do with them. I'm not sure what their stance is now, though, since a lot of art students take digital art classes.
Back to the original question, anything can be art if it offers sufficient revelation. It's often difficult to understand why artists, supposedly in pursuit of new insight, are so quick to dismiss a new medium. My guess is that it's because a lot of the early stuff is crap-- using computers for the sake of using computers, and not as a powerful tool for art. A few great things are starting to pop up here and there; I found a few nuggets at the SFMOMA digital art exhibit. A few years from now, I think the evidence will be irrefutable-- digital tools will powerfully change the way we experience art.
Speaking as an artist that has painted in both traditional mediums and computer based graphics, I don't think that you have a hope of seeing the current stigma changing during the course of your career.
The words 'fine art' are typically used in referring to valuable pieces of work, usually an artwork that is one of a kind, that contains some special qualities over and above other forms of artwork. Above all, a fine art should express the emotion and style of the artist, and should be unique to that particular artist.
Computer assisted artworks lack these qualities. On top of the fact that they can be easily duplicated (which lowers their value considerably), they are also confined by their lack of texture and limitations in resolution. They are cold creations, etched onto screens or printed onto paper. They simply are not deserving of the term 'fine art'.
Tell me, would you prefer to own the original Mona Lisa, or a digitised print?
Computer generated art is still art, but the boundaries between what constitutes art and 'fine art' should be respected. It is unfortunate that you were snubbed, but such criticism should be expected. In future this may change, but you should accept the limitations of computer assisted artworks as they stand at this point in time.
When you buy a work of those arts, you know you have something that is one-of-a-kind.
OK, so it's art if I can PAY for it? So would that be something like "it's not a real operating system unless you pay for it." As for one of a kind, Andy Worhal made silkscreens of his art.
A rung below these "fine arts" you have...
You ass.
Who are you to judge what value, what rung of the ladder a medium should be? What creative abilities do you have. Let us be your judge! Asshole!
Those who can, create. Those who can't become art critics.
Fuck 'em. You're part of an important new art form that will be seen one day as legitimate as painting, sculpting, photography, or any other accepted form of art.
Picasso wasn't understood during his early career. Van Gogh was ingored until well after his death. Michealangelo's rendering of the human form, known as contrapasto, was considered "twisted and agonized." Leonardo De Vinci, who taught us how to paint with light, was considered a nut. Mozzart's music was too complicated for the ear. Blah blah blah...
Does history remember the names of art critics? NO. So why give a shit so long as what you do means something to you? Are you saying something when you create? That's where you should draw your convictions from. Not some asshole with a snobby opinion.
Don't seek self-validation from other people. You'll be waiting a long time.
"Yeap, it's amazing. Nowadays pretty much every piece of art our friends create starts by turning on the Mac."
"They first outline, sketch and play with it on the screen, and then proceed from there to whatever is the medium of their choice, including hitting the print button."
Although our computers are becoming more powerful and capable, they still do not allow us to create art freely. You are always bound by a certain set of algorithms.
A lot of us (yes, including me) may find art in computer generated images, but i still find them a bit too "clean". There's no flaws, the colors are perfect, no dust and speckles (ok, its a filter), which always leaves me with the feeling of the whole thing being a bit sterile.
-.sig sauer-
If I create something that is an expression of me and *I* call it art, no matter what the medium, then it *is* art, regardless of it's subjective 'beauty' or acceptance by the rest of the world.
Look at Warhol's Soup Can for example.
Is it pretty? - Not particularly.
Is it conventional? - Not at all.
Is it art? - You betcha! It sure is, and an era defining milestone at that. But it's art for no other reason than because Warhol presented it as such.
Medium, content, and technique do not define art... it's all about the intent of the artist.
Quomodo cogis comas tuas sic videri?
i think one of the problems so-called critics have with CG art is that, given the nature of computers, it can be difficult to judge how much creative energy was put into a piece. It could have been painstakingly calculated, or it could have been a Bryce 3D image run through random Photoshop filters, whereas with the more traditional analog art (canvas)... it's pretty much assured that if it wasn't stenciled, there's some creative force behind it.
just my $0.02
Art causes us to see some familiar object in a new and interesting way. Van Gogh's sunflowers aren't just a picture of flowers, they provide a sort of commentary on beauty. If your digital art is creative, that is if it "speaks" to people I think it will be accepted as art. If you just use it as a different medium to express old ideas then no one will care much.
Cryptnotic
My other first post is car post.
One of the challenges of the 21st century, especially for a creative type, is to make truly good stuff stand out against the vast noise of the now-too-easy. (And lest you think I'm being totally elitist, I admit to being one of those who make bad 3D art simply because POV-Ray is available and free.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
On the other hand, someone who cuts up various masterpieces to make a collage might not be art... how much has to be original? And is anything really, truly, totally orginal, anyway?
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Also, you should ignore the critics, since critics are typically those that can not produce such works themselves, which led to them becoming bitter and is why they became critics. As long as there are people that enjoy your art....it's art. Hell, even if people hate it....it's probably still art as long as you consider it to be. Art comes in many many forms and many people are slow to accept things they don't understand. There are several houses in the town I live in that I consider art due to their unique designs and I've seen bongs...er "water pipes" at various music shops that qualify as art. If a bong can be art, computer-generated art can be art.
Excellent point. As long as your are using the computer as a tool to create the images yourself, rather than having it do the work and creating for you, then its art. There needs to be interaction from the person sitting at the computer is what I guess I'm saying.
BigCat79
BigCat79
"The dead have risen and are voting Republican!" --Bart Simpson
/.!
Age old philosophical debate finally put to rest!
Anonymous posts are filtered.
Given the target demographic here, you're mostl likely to find people who agree with you. There's a lot of people here who live and breathe computers. They're tools we use every day, for all sorts of tasks, and so the chance that we'd see them as a legitimate tool for expression is much higher.
That said, I still do think that it's possible to create "fine art" using a computer. It's a different medium, certainly. That doesn't make it (in my eyes) any less legitimate. I've seen both purely computer generated art, and art which started as paper sketches only to be scanned and refined, that is of very high quality indeed - stuff which made me think "You did all that in Photoshop?" or something similar.
The art world - especially the world of "fine arts" tends to be a different story. Many probably see the use of computers as "cheating" - that somehow if computers make artistic effect easier to create, then it's just not the same as doing it all by hand. In photography, producing an effect by digital manipulation wouldn't received as well as the same effect produced by techniques such as double exposure.
For all that the art world seems to like to promote avante garde, new expressions, it can also be quite a paradoxically traditional and hidebound institution at times. I get the feeling that it's going to be quite a while yet before computer-created graphic art is considered a legitimate medium by the mainstream of "fine arts".
Then again, I consider quite a number of works of SF to be "literature", too...
I prefer the lesbian sims. I think it was linked at cruel.com.
Art schools like Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design & Minnesota College of Art and Design specifically separate computer art as a separate medium. Art is simply a visual expression of thoughts, emotions, or concepts, so really anything can be art. If it's received poorly, it's simply because people are stuck in tradition and don't like change. If you consider yourself an artist, do what feels right... no matter how it is received. You'll see that as more computer generated art appears in galleries and museums, art critics will accept it more. It's just a matter of time.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Computer art should be considered a fine art. I mean, when some guy decided to throw a sponge full of paint at a canvas, they said that was art. I found this definition, art is... "The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium." Art is NOT defined as to how you create it, but what the final result is.
geek n performer who performs morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken
That's a rotten site. There are no music samples. I will have to divine a sense of his musical greatness from the graphic design, I guess.
Ah. Just as I was about to post I found the music. It's hidden on the Gnarly Geezer site. You can't get to it from AH's site directly. So I still maintain that it sucks.
Hmm. The music underwhelms me. I'd rather listen to Dick Dale.
If you can reproduce limitless numbers of the original, it completely devalues the work of art.
Tell that to Ansel Adams.
Aren't critics always a bit slow to warm up to something new? Photography, lithography and all sorts of 'technical' artforms went through phases where people were wowed by the technical side of them, but wouldn't consider it art.
Art is such a silly subjective thing. When I was in art-school, the instructors were *very* protective of their 70's era definition of art, and dismissive of a lot of art forms that came before and after.
Ah well, I suppose in 20-30 years there will be a new batch of art students creating a stir with their bio-genetic artworks as my generation adjusts it's glasses and looks back to our flatscreens saying yes yes thats all very impressive, but it's certainly *not* art.
Art is, in a very loose definition, anything you do creatively, if it inspires you, go with it.
air and light and time and space
http://keigh.port5.com/artgallery1.html
I'd consider this to be fine art (well, first two anyway). All the same considerations and effort went into their creation, only the medium is truly different.
Any spoon would be too big.
The concept of "Fine Art" is created to ensure an artificial scarcity and inflatable pricing, just as with domain names. The Art Establishment are the sole arbiters of what's Art and what's Not Art, and therefore can define the parameters of the scarcity as they see fit.
And of course, to maximize their profits, they make those parameters narrow, arbitrary, and more or less completely unpredictable to your average innovative artist.
Digital art, being infinitely reproducible, destroys this artificial scarcity, and basically makes these greedy assholes shit bricks in fear. Of course, a pissed off reptile is going to be very nasty, and under all that mammalian cortex, there's a nasty, vicious reptile lurking in every one of us. Of course these guys are going to get defensive and slander the hell out of anything that gets in their way of making a buck.
It's enough to make me think this lot are all in bed with their mutual fund managers to artificially inflate stock prices by bulk buying and then selling off.
--
NO TOUCH MONKEY!
Well, the medium carries it`s own personality really, it`s own soul and history if you like. The artist molds the medium into what he likes it to be, into his message or his expression. The same goes for paper and inc. It`s still very much an analog process to print photos. Airwaves are analog, and are subject to interference, heat, moisture, etc. There is allways an interpretion stage where the viewer has to correct his senses.
This is not to say that 2d screens or soundcards or whatever are not subject to the same principle, a randomness factor, as small as it probably is, is still there. But the raw data behind the art is a pure functional discretized nondeficiant set of 1`s and 0`s, which do not carry meaning, soul, expression or history. Only when interpreted by the right set of software do you get to experience the actual art. In a sense, this extra level of interpretation, this dependancy on digital technology, is what makes digital art different from classical analog art.
Usually, the medium also embodies history. A painting is painted upon with paint in a certain way. Clay is molded and baked redhot in ovens above 2000 degrees, sculptures took years to work on. They represent hisotry, a bondage with the artist. You can hardly say that massmanufactured Sony screens carry the artist`s message, or have any relatinship to the art that is expressed.
Digital art also paradoxically represents art that you will never see the original of. The analog actions the artist uses to mold his medium into his favourite shape, is digitized entirely, only to be reconverted to analog output that will try to reproduce the original analog artwork. What the artist makes is never exactly the same as what the world will see. The soul in art is usually extremely fragile and easily damaged, so maybe digital art does not exist i this sense.
If you disregard the level of digital means that have to interprete the art-data for you, then digital art becomes essentially the same as any art out there. The queation whether something is art or not is the very personal question whether something touches and moves the senses, soul, emotions and feelings of the observer. The television screen becomes the (imperfect) looking glass which you use to observe a digitized version of analog actions, which may very well contain pure art, or pure garbage, aside from any (mis)interpretation. Since digital artificats belong to the medium, it is therefore highly dangerous to say it belongs to the art as wel, as the artifacts are sensitive to changes in the technology behind video screens, which may very well change, whereas the art should not.
So it`s a personal thing mainly. Everybody decides for himself whether something is art or not. Digital art prompts problems for the mainstream art critiques out there because it isn`t clear why something can be art or not. Digital art asks for a very personal form of appreciation. You like it or you don`t. Everybody sees the same thing, and there`s little history to hold on to, which is what critiques usually use to judge artwork.
If you ar interested in knowing what people do or have done with digital art n the past, have a look at scene.org and hornet.org which feature most of the 1987-2001 period of digital art produced in a underground movement called the demoscene. The democene itself has discussed the topic of demoscene material being art multiple times in the past, and the general consensus is that the actual question what art is, remains. The modalities and reasons why people create digital art rather than classical art may be important to understand what digital art is, too. In fact, digital art is open to everybody, requires talent, skill, exercise, just like any other art. It is however much more accessible and easier to put into practice, and tools are much more diverse and in ambundance.
In the end, art is a personal feeling, a whimp of the hart, something that cannot be explained, and that takes everyday life into a metalevel. Those who define fine art probably did without digital art in mind, but the concept that led to the fine-art definition probably remain the same.
ignace
With great power comes great electricity bills.
Actually, a lot of the best digital art is genuinely breaking new ground. [..] Of course in many cases they include much more than just the computer and program to the point that they can't just be reproduced at will, which would probably make them classify as valuable artworks under the ease of reproduction viewpoint.
:)
You`re abslutely right. I didn`t mean to imply digital art to be limited to 2d, far from it
Whether something is valuable art, because it cannot be reproduced easily, is debateable. Economically seen there is no question about it. Scarce products are worth more than others. However if I make a painting, chances are no one is going to be interested in it because I can`t paint, but it`s still very much unique and impossible to clone. In the same way I don`t think technology has impact on the value of digital art as well, alltough people may very well spend lots of money on it to own it. But that doesn`t make something more art than anything else. Digital art is essentially disconnected from it`s medium. To use a metafor, it`s like having drops of paint in a bottle, and only if you throw the bottle at the right type/size of canvas, the picture comes out right. The canvas is replaceable by other canvasses, but only some types will be able to display the image correctly. Ofcourse this doesn`t work in the real world, but it works in cyberspace. Technology is replaceable, disconnectable from the data. If there was any bond with the art itself, it will be lost in such a process. If technology had impact on the value of art, the artvalue is subject to changes unrelated to the data that represents the art. This is paradoxal, so the technological medium should therefore not be seen as part of the digital art.
cheers,
ignace
With great power comes great electricity bills.
I d like to propose a truism: it's not the media but the artist who gives credibility to the art form. The reason why computer art is not considered a "fine art" -- whatever that phrase means anyway -- is that no artist has really made anything really worthwhile. Look at photography. It took a long while for that form to establish itself in the same manner vis a vis painting. Until there is an Ansel Adams of computer art the form will remain a graphic arts.
Created by man as art = art. The medium is irrelevant. Created by computer = math. The computer is incapable of expression, i.e. "declaring" art. Is the code that allows a computer to generate images randomly (or not) art? Yes, if it is presented thusly. I don't believe the reappropriation of medium is an issue either. Brahms was influenced by everything he heard, as was Limp Bizkit.
-= jester =-
Art is about human expression/imagination and it can not be bound to a medium, style, belief, etc. If I were you I will continue exploring this (and any other) medium as an art expression. In the past photography wasn't Art but it was accepted as time passed and the medium was explored and perfected. So be a pioneer and keep on working.
What is art?
Well, no one really knows. "Art" is one of those words that gets tossed around and argued over, with distinctions made between art and craft, art and entertainment, etc.
There are four basic schools of thought as to exactly what art is. Each have their strengths and weaknesses, their merits and follies.
1. The Mimetic View: Shakespeare said it best: "Art holds a mirror to nature." In this philosophy, art is that which is created by humans to reflect things (objects as well as ideas) found in nature. If you believed in this view, a clear, sharp painting of an apple is "better" art than a fuzzy blurry picture of an apple. This was the common view during the Renissance.
2. The Fundamental View: Art can be described with a set of rules, or properties. In painting, it might be the quality of the lines or colors, or the fineness of the brushstrokes, or something like that. So a painting that had very fine colors and brush strokes would be "better" art than a painting that had sloppy brush strokes. Of course, "fine" and "sloppy" are really a matter of opinion, but people who believe this view treat them as if they are objective qualities and argue for hours about the form and fundamentals of a given piece. This is a common view today.
3. The Expressionist View: Art is something created out of self expression. The "better" you express yourself, your feelings, at the time you create the piece, the better the art is. Of course, from this viewpoint, the only one who really knows how well he expressed himself is the artist. Still, people will argue that they can divine what he was trying to express, and then pass judgement on how well he accomplished it. An example would be if I said Dave Matthews was a better artist than Britney Spears because he expressed himself in his music, and Britney was really nothing more than the product of a clever marketing team, crafting entertainment for the masses. The point being that Britney was not an artist because she didn't express herself. This is a very popular viewpoint right now.
4. The Impressionist View: (Don't confuse this with "impressionist painting"). In this view, the greatest art is that which impresses feelings on its audience the best. If I create something that makes you feel very sad and cry, the impressionist would say I had created great art. Edgar Allen Poe was an impressionist - he crafted his stories and poems for the purpose of creating a response in his audience: usually forbodeing, fear, repulsion, horror, or something along those lines. "The Raven" really isn't about much, but is sure makes us feel creepy.
So, which of these views is right? Well, there isn't a "right" view - they all have good points and bad points, but if you understand them you can make an educated case for why your pieces qualify as "art".
I could write volumes on this subject, but this is Slashdot and I'm about to get one of those "Click Here to read the rest of this comment" things if I haven't already.
An entertaining exercise is to examine pornography from each of the four viewpoints - and see which ones are forced (or able, depending on your affiliations) to qualify pornography as art.
Hope this helps.. email me if you want to talk about it more.
wishus
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I have to disagree with this. From an expressionist viewpoint, the value of art is in the expression of the artist during the creation. After it's been created, whether people see it or not really doesn't matter - the artist made "art" when he expressed himself.
Pick your favorite "artist." He completes a new work; it is done, and ready to go to the gallery. His studio burns down and it is destroyed. Was it art when it existed? Or is it only art when someone else sees it?
My answer to that question is that it was art the moment it was created. Expression is the value, not communication.
Am I right? No. Are you right? No. Who's right? Nobody. "Art" is one of those words that doesn't have a definition, yet people try so hard to give it one.
All you can really say is what art is to you.
wishus
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But here's the problem:
Now, I happen to like difficult art, but not everyone does. The stuff that people do like (The Matrix, Norman Rockwell, singing rubber fish) gets ignored, derided, or at best admired as "pop culture." Somehow, lots of "ordinary" people liking something and spending their own money on it doesn't make it art....
Your problem, very likely, is that your images are too attractive. Try making prints and dipping them in blood, either your own, or that of a goat.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
It seems to me that most of the great artists did it for the art, and not for the public acceptance. Sure, success is nice, but greatness is achieved from the message that the artist tries to convey. Of course, it should be noted that many artists are not appreciated until after they're gone.
Let me turn the question around. What are you trying to convey with your art? Does the computer give you abilities that you wouldn't otherwise have in other mediums, much like using watercolor versus oil paints?
But to answer your question, I think new art mediums are accepted when artists use them to advance the boundaries of art, not just to "make l33t pictures".
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Your examples should be a little more accurate; Beethoven was quite well received during his time:
-from http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/beethoven.htmlI'm not sure whether "...Van Gogh (hell most impressionists)..." implies that Van Gogh was himself an impressionist, but in any case he certainly wasn't. As for central argument--some music and art forms are sneered at and some are not at their introduction. I hardly think that a cross in a jar of urine will be remembered as art years hence, and it certainly generated its share of sneers. I'm not sure where I fall on computer generated images--I'm mostly not sure how it adds anything that you can't do already.
1) Communication: Art is a form of communication. Therefore, does it reach the intended audience? via the medium that It is expressed in (rock music, sculpture in silly putty or stone, etc.
2) Technique: The quality of technique can have an impact completely aside from anything else.
3) Audience Response, also know as Participation of the Audience. It has to be interactive somehow on some level, emotional, philosophical, etc. This often means using the symbolism, etc of the culture and people your are intending to reach.
As an example, do a web search for the painting, the "Volga Boat Men". This was famous in pre-revolution Russia, to the extent that many revolutionaries made a pilgrimage to the painting and swore an oath on it. YOU look at it now, and the impact may be a bit less. It worked within that culture, probably less so for ours.
4)Social Agreements and the Opions of Experts - This is where a lot of bullshit lives. you often have a lot of arbitrary opinions, such as that art would have to involve a lot of hard work and effort. Therefore, something that a genius tossed off with minimum effort would be less artistic then something with alot of struggle. which is nonsense. Also, artistic expression can only be through familiar techniques. Which is another bit of junque.
For example, I consider Linux as an OS is a work of ART by Linus, which uses the bits of contributed code as the elements of the montage. It is a somewhat of a self potrait in that regard.
The important part is that familiar techniques usually communicate more easily than unfamiliar ones. 5) Art as a weapon: Comment: Art for Art's sake is nice, but tends to sabotage communication if carried to far. Because Art is also partly communication, you can use it to do something. You can use it as a weapon. Again, the Painting the "Volga Boat Men" was a weapon against the Russia of the Tsars.
Final Thought: Ultimately, Art is something that YOU breath life into. If it is not alive, it is not art. If it is alive, it will communicate, and it is ART. What kind of life it is it up to you.
and yes, in this regard a community or an OS or anything else can be a work of ART.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Including programming, although this is admittedly adstract.
Take for example the Saga of Mel, as seen in the Jargon File. His was a level of skill that could not be appreciated, except by a select view.
I would argue that his work was certainly artistic.
And in the case of the Linux kernel. I would argue that the structural embody a set of selective choices that are to some extent artisitic.
The words that go to make up War and Piece do not physically look like Tolstoy, for example.
This ultimately goes back to the arguments of expression that make up the DeCSS legal cases.
Is Code Art? Is it Expressive?
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
leave your workstation logged in, visit slashdot, and walk away from your desk.
...is going to come to an answer for on this for a while.
Ask an art expert, who doesn't know about computers, about digital art. He'll say it will never be fine art, and give you a thousand reasons why.
Ask slashdot, and you'll get random responses, mostly saying "Yeah... someday." and another thousand reasons why.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of any art that I liked that was "accepted" by artists, or anyone really. Trying to define art is a moving target. Just do your thing, and keep at it.
Personally, I think the pretentious artsy people are exactly what is wrong with art. It's made to be looked at, if it's on a wall with oil and canvas or out a monitor, it's roughly the same electrons, and gives me the same feeling. All the other factors are meaningless to me.
-Tom
Photography had a rough road gaining acceptance as a fine art for a long time also. Right now, computers are seen more as tools of business than they are as tools of art.
Until things stop looking "photoshoped" or "Flashed" and schools of expression start using the computer as part of an artistic regiment, it won't happen.
Chances are, computers will merely be a part of an artist's toolbox rather than as a medium in and of itself. Frankly, I don't care if it's ever considered an art form but I do see photoshop and illustrator and other apps as really important tools.
---------------------------
Pooty tweet
To be honest, there is very little of what is classified as "fine art" that makes me "oooh" or "aaah". But when a friend of mine showed me a picture that he'd been working for months on, I was in awe. It was simple, a violin, a cobblestone street, and a street light. But though it, you could see emotion, and feeling.
I read a couple people's responses that say that you can't portray feeling and the "data" is souless. What's the difference to looking at a print of a painting then? People pay decent money for prints of famous pics, what's the difference?
In some aspects I can see how digital art would be easier. One word, UNDO. In some ways, it may also be cheaper. Take the things that matter though, style, creativity, focus, and skill. You must have all of those for ANY kind of art, digital, or not. Why is digital set apart? It's not classic... Give it a few years, I have no doubt that in 10 years there will be as many flat screen displays showing digital pictures, as there are frames with paint.
If nothing else, I have seen very little digital art that looked like someone threw up on a canvas, and called it art. I think the hardest part in digital art is creating realism. Much harder to pull off on a computer.
...it's about the artist. The computer is just a different kind of brush.
New tools have always been met with controversy. The organ caused as much of an uproar as the Moog synthesizer; both are now celebrated. Photography wasn't considered an art until after people realized that it truly is an artistic medium.
Real Artists(tm) will understand that what you do with/on the computer needs to be evaluated based on its artistic merits, without prejudice based upon the tools you used to create it.
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
I get into endless discussions with my comrades on the difference between art and design. Fundamentally, computer generated art is "art" because it it is a creative act. Wether it is "fine art" is apparently up to those that call themselves critics. I haven't seen your work, but I have seen many examples of what I consider to be "fine art" both in stand alone apps and on the net. I think some of the best examples are in piotr szyhalski's work with the walker art center: ding an sich and the spleen if anybody is asking if "fine art" is possible in a computer medium there is simply no question.
I am certain someone else brought this up but . . .
I don't even like advanced wms, but, after going after an artistic deluge with enlightenment - man - I am sorry. Some of the designs IMHO were f*cking beautiful. All the way from the space saving classic Absolute-E to BlueSteel the art was fantastic even if it was not _all_their_own_ they (the theme designers) could glue it together in a way that was shockingly ecclectic.
Screw usability and contemporary art. These guys (e.g. tigert and the rest) are looking somehwere else, a place so called artists have never crossed, the line between man, machine and society and I don't know about you but the first time I unatarred Cyrus for E I was stunned.
As for your friends and general pop-art cultuure (or whatever) - screw them.
we appreciate you.
have a nice day :)
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Real artists don't ask other people if their art is really art. Maybe if you left the South you'd find that you don't really care about what people think in a place where re-enacting Civil War battles is considered an interesting pasttime.
I do not have a signature
Well, I guess we are just repeating the same question posed almost one century ago: Is the Movies a Fine Art? History repeats itself; just keep fighting, and sooner or later all the old dinosaurs will die and the new dinosaurs will acknowledge that Art does not depend on media.
Strength, balance, courage and reason. If you know what's this about, contact me!
breaking into art community with completely new
way of doing things would be very hard. It is
very hard for people to associate something that
was produced with a assistance of something very
complex but nonetheless engeneered machinery,
like computers. It will come as more and more
people use their computers to express what they
feel. However computer tools now are still very
constraining in terms of expression and putting
it onto paper. You just cannot just throw computer
around and expect it to produce some art.
Passionate waving of brush and way paint lays on
to canvas , flexibility of brushes and they way they streak randomly.... as well as abstract things
where people paint themselves and throw
themselves against walls of paper, things like
that would be very costly and hard to implement.
With compter technology now it is possible to
integrate some things like photography which is
considered as an art with computer editing.
There must be large element which can be 'winged'?
like dependent on time and emotions rather than
diligence of creator. Inablity to have this
hands on thing with computer, does turn off
rather computer unsavvy art community. It will
come.
Most likely it was a lack of understanding in computers. Some very beautiful work has been done with computer graphics, even outside the recent use of them in movies and television. Next time you want to do a show in Arkansas, come up here to Fayetteville. The UofA is based here and has a successful computer science and engineering program. We have plenty of people who will not only understand your hardware, but will appreciate your artwork.
How cares what the local art snobs think about your work: either you will continue to do it regardless of whether you make money, or you will stop. The opinions of the critics have nothing to do with it.
Well if I take an "artistic" photo of my nude body on print (not digital) it may be considered "fine art". If I digitize it, does it somehow loose it's "fine art"ness?? If I alter it, does it loose it's "fine art"ness?? Anti-art maybe :) hehe
I take pictures nude pictures of myself and then use photoshop to digitally "enhance" my penis. Is this considered "art".
Let me just put in my $0.02
Vermeer and other artists used a "camera obscura" to get the draftsmanship on the drawings they used for their paintings as perfect as possible. In fact, Durer and others used grids of strings between themselves and subject, and a gridded canvas, to simplify the drawing and make it work better. (Easier to trace a little square of a little square, rather than draft the entire thing). I've heard, but am not sure who so won't name names, that some very famous realist artists of the modern day project slides onto their canvases, and "fill in the paint by numbers". Is this cheating? Yes or no?
I'd say that given that artists used grey scale value tabs, drawing tools (plumb lines/straight edges), grids, controlled palettes and any other technology they could get their hands on to either get the draftsmanship better or work easier (consider that oil surpassed egg tempera - new technology overtaking old - just as alkyd may supercede oils...) anyone who says that technology X can't be used for art is deluded and ignorant of art history.
Art is what it is, most often than not in the eye of the beholder. The viewer isn't a passive consumer but must, as in any other media, inflict some kind of mental transform on blotches of paint and arrangements of tone and line, or whatever. If a slash of white acrylic across a black canvas evokes more from me than a Flemish painting of fruit in a silver bowl, then hey. To ME, that's art. If I can't stand Jackson Pollock and gaze with wonderment on Caravaggio, Delacroix or Courbet, that's my perogative.
If people in MS can't understand why a computer screen isn't art - or anywhere else, to hell with em. And ditto for the sarcastic remarks about 80s hairdos and bull sperm. Dilletantism and posing exists in every scene - witness any open source posedown either here or real life.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
A rung below these "fine arts" you have lithographs and woodcuts, media which aren't unique but aren't infinitely recreatable, either. A lithograph by M.C. Escher will exist as part of a limited run, each print numbered uniquely with the collector knowing that lower numbers equal higher quality. These are never as valuable as one-of-a-kind artworks, but are still considered "art" because of the above.
Rare posters and collectibles are a rung lower yet. These are certainly not one-of-a-kind, but they are also "limited", although each instance of the art was identical when it was new. Value is based on grade and "newness" of the item. Rare World's Fair posters or Hummel figurines may still be considered "art" because of this, but the term "collectible" is more accurate. This is no longer "fine" art, it is mass-produced and manufactured.
Computer-generated art falls into this category as well, then. While it is without question artistic and creative, it is not unique. Existing in digital form, it can be reproduced ad infinitum as long as the digital data exists. If you were to print it in a limited run and then destroy the original data, you might have a collectible. If you were to print it exactly onceand then destroy the file, you might have "fine art".
Pixels on a monitor, however, will never qualify as "art" to those who discuss the meaning of the term. Art, like people, needs to have a uniqueness to it in order to be appreciable.
The answer to the second question is is probably no. But this needs to be qualified. The assumption is you want to be able to display your art in a mesume, have art critics poke and fawn over it, and hopefully take it seriously. That's not going to happen. Computer art is'nt a new genre that we are going to have to wait decades for the art world to catch up with--because computer generated art is'nt so much a new genre, it's a new medium.
Computer generated art is a different medium in the same way that music, books, or movies are different mediums for art. And, like these other mediums, it will be eventually be delt with on it's own merets. A lot of this has to do with the distribution: A book will never hang in a mesume because, as a general rule, any copy of the book holds the same artistic value as the orginal manuscript. A movie is a medium desiged exclusivly to be projected on a screen, the experience only varied by the quality of the technology displaying it. Music can only be enjoyed in the first person as a performance art only once, as it is different each time it's performed, or as a replication of that performance (in an audio recording). We are faced with a few questions about the distribution and experience with computer generated art, because it is so new, the prefered methods of distribution have'nt been determined.
Triditional 'art' is static, and for the most part, rare. And so a world has grown around it to try to explain it, display it, and criticize it. So, if your asking if computer art is going to be a part of that world, the answer is no. But neither will films, music, or lititature, because the expression of that art is so different, and as a consiquence, entirly different worlds have grown around them.
Nobody is expecting triditional art critics to begin pontificating on the artistic merit of film. We should'nt expect them to start doing the same for computer generated art; in fact, we should'nt want them to. If we ever want computer generated art to be taken seriously, we have to allow a world to grow around it on it's own terms. Cowtowing to the old school is a search for acceptance that will never come, and threatens to limit your artistic freedom by placing yourself into a strict set of rules and triditions.
Which brings us to the first question, will it ever be considered a fine art? I think almost certianly yes. In the same way lititature, music, or film is. But in the world of higher education, the mistake will be made to try to lump computer generated art in with triditional art (painting and sculpture) because at first view, that's what it seems to most closley resemble.
It will take some time, but I see eventually universitys having seperate departments in their college of fine arts for computer/electronically generated art, just as they have seperate departments for film, writing, or music. And yes, it will be taken seriously.
The Internet is generally stupid
One can't really condemn all those who would criticize computer generated graphics as fine art, simply because so many of them are simply naive when it comes to the actual process involved. When many traditional artists and art critics hear the word "computer," they immediately picture works being generated mathematically or through overuse of software facilitation. Many don't picture an individual sitting with graphic tablet in hand working with a digital canvas simply because this isn't the "traditional" view of computer generated artwork. Then you have those hordes of young, untrained graphic designers who, thanks to the power of the internet, have far more voice than your casual hobbiest painter, and have acted to define the world of computer generated artwork as some massive sinkhole, acting as a medium solely for hacks and amateurs... the artistic equivalent of script kiddies one might say. Frankly I don't mind computer generated artwork being considered seperate from the general classification of "fine art." As shows such as 010101 (http://www.sfmoma.com/) have taught us, there is some prestige in the medium without forcing further classification or specification. One day the lines will blur, then bend and break, and the computer will be accepted as a legitimate medium. Of course, this all assumes that the majority of people actually want the lines to blur. For many, even those who champion the computer as a new art medium, "fine art" is a convenient classification for pieces of art specifically not generated through electronic means. If I were requested to include a piece of fine art in my portfolio at present, I would know immediately to avoid including any computer generated material.... and I've already been asked specifically not to include any works involving animal feces, so it need not come across as a bias.
Pretty accurate. The gist is right. The details are arguable. Beethoven - How about the 9th symphony? "The Ninth, however, dared to introduce the human voice to the traditional symphonic structure (up to this time, a symphony was, by definition, a work for instruments only)." Tossing a song into a symphony?!!? There were more than a few detractors, even given the surprising - to Beethoven himself - he made a soloist face the audience at the finish, so sure was he of his offenses - success of the debut. Pinheads considered it an affront. Pinheads still consider computer art an affront. And yes, Vincent was a post-impressionist, but remember, his sole commercially sold work while alive was returned to his brother for a refund.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Look, every emerging art or music form is first decried as an abominaiton, against god, trash, junk, etc. Look at Van Gogh (hell most impressionists), Picasso, Beethoven, Wagner, Miles, McCartney... it'll pass, but sadly, it'l be a generation - the people gnashing their teeth have to die first (that's a quote from Alan Kay about computer usage)
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Fear of new media is a valid issue, but also remember that if people didn't like similar art in a traditional format, they may not like it in a new media either.
One of my favourite artists John Paul Caponigro uses Paintshop effects on his photos. Similar techniques can be used in the traditional media, but the new media gives him more freedom.
If he produced these same photos on paper, people would like them. If people would not like them in the traditional format, a new media will not make up for that.
Art is about personal taste as well as tradition. Fine art can be produced digitally, but not all digital graphic work is fine art.
In this particular case, also remember that the viewers of the art were in a particular geographic location, Little Rock, Arkansas. These viewers may not like the art itself, or they may not like the format. It is also mentioned that universities take the same view of this art, but the question remains in what way did they view it? was it an application for college? was it for a review of the art?
We haven't seen a sample of this art in particular, and certain art is usually not referred to as a "fine art".
Shrek and Final Fantasy are a type of animation, and while animation is a recognised media, it's rarely called a "fine art".
Shrek is a beautiful peice of animation, but it isn't the same thing as the Mona Lisa. Some digital design is more technical than artistic, it's based on a lot of technical knowledge. That's not to say it's not artistic, but that it's also technical. Not everyone has that technical knowledge, so it makes a new genre of it's own.
What the art form is going to be used for is of primary importance. If it is for display in the home, quite obviously this will be a problem since the viewer needs special equipment. Size may also be an issue, so may the lack of tactile feedback, some artforms are made to be touched.
I wouldn't call a lot of digital art "fine art", not because it's not fine, or art, but because it is too different from the traditional genre in terms of comparison. Most critics compare, if comparison is impossible, or biased towards a traditional format, problems will occur.
If people misunderstand your art, and you believe it is of fine art quality, call it Digital Fine Art, and see if that makes a difference.
If an art genre doesn't seem to fit, create a new one.
It sounds like what you need is a printer. Preferably one with a very fine resolution.
:)
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
You should thank the academic artists for teaching you a valuable lesson: Nothing is accepted in academia until it is dead. It is only then that the Professors can swoop down upon it and nail the dried-up corpse to the wall for veneration.
.") has been stale for so long that even the critics are starting to notice the smell.
Others on slashdot, who know better than I, have pointed out that most innovative art forms (photography and collage) and artists (from Cézanne to Tzara) were not accepted by the gatekeepers of art. So take the hint and get the fuck out before they make you as tired and irrelevant as they are.
Oh, and start learning about the world so your stuff will have some content. Art that is about art ("a comment on the form of . .
To the dawn of Photography.
Is photography a fine art? Of course it is.
Was it accepted as such when it first became a popular method of expression?
No, it most definately was not.
Fast forward to now...
Do people accept computer graphics as fine art?
Well, I for one do, and other forward-thinking individuals do too... It's just takes some time before the mass market can look beyond the tools used to create art, and appreciate it for what it is.
-- kai
Verbing Weirds Language.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
If you're discussing mediums related to what is fine art you're going over the same boring debate. But there is something new to consider in computer aided art. Anybody, probably even a monkey, can easily use the right program to create something quite dazzling and hard for somebody with less of an eye for art to distinguish from a more thought out artistic work. So people are more suspicious. Also, it could have something to do with the lack of permanency in the medium as well. Even a printed out piece of art likely has fugative pigments.
Sneakemail is to spam filters what an ounce of prevention is to a pound of cure.
and tell me it's not art.
There are plenty of examples of stuff in establishment art museums that just doesn't pass any tests for craftsmanship or aesthetics or uniqueness. I really don't mean this in a bad way. Look at Jeff Koons, for instance, who floats basketballs in water, calls it art, and makes a lot of money doing it.
If you call it art, it's art. If you ask "is it art?" . . . well, it's probably not. It's the process, not the end product. Art is defined by artists, rather than artists are defined by art.
I would predict that a lot of the ASCII art, as well as some animated Java applets, common graphic sigs and the like, will eventually be recognized as the dominant form of "folk art" in this period. However, it is an unfortunate truth that folk art is never recognized in its own time. Eventually some fanatic collector of ASCII roses, who just happens to be rich and/or well-known, will start to dig up every surviving example of the genre and will publicize the whole thing. That's how it usually happens.
Tune into A&E and watch the biography of the Impressionists. Their critics were just as blunt and just as wrong.
In some ways computers make it too easy - in other ways too hard: you have to learn bits and bytes and stuff which always seems to alarm the art crowd who worry about selling their souls to the machine gods.
Photography has only been recognized as an art in the last half of the 20th Century.
So keep up the work, screw the critics, and go to town! You have my respect if you can.
I believe this is the slashdot article you mentioned.m l).
(For the goatse paranoid: http://slashdot.org/articles/00/10/17/1152230.sht
I have to agree with you there. That is a fine example of computer art.
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Art is art regardless of how it was generated; ink, oils, canvas, paper, computer, etc.
:)
On the other hand, because it's computer generated and it's visual doesn't mean it's art, either. The definition of art is vague and left as an exercise to the reader
If I were to claim computer generated art as, well, art, I'd be using it to do things impossible in any other medium. Truly push the computer generated portion. Animated 3d stereograms rendered on the fly from a filtered video sequence picked up from a USB cam. Or using multiple speakers and 3d sound generated from IP traffic modifying sounds picked up from the room itself, creating a shifting, moving, living soundspace.
My own take on art is that it's an expression of your soul.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
So what if it's off-topic, it's funny as hell!
I always wondered why performers for the mass media of TV, Radio, Film, Music, etc. are called artists. By deffinition they produce a mass media product. There is nothing unique between my CD and your CD.
The truth shall set you free!
my guess would be that there are no reputable art critics in little rock. or mississippi for that matter...
i mean what do them red-neck know about art afterall.
maybe you should do beer can art and then they will recognize your true prowess as a fine artist.
in SF on the other hand....
As close to art as photography.
Check this out.
I know this sounds like a troll, but honestly- maybe the work simply did nothing for the critics. Of course it sounds good to the artist, but if it doesn't strike the viewer in any way, it sucks, period. And yes, I speak from experience- I'm a photographer with a few showings to my name. I recently had a photograph I was simply in love with- and it was hate by review. So dont' take it too harshly- maybe what you thought was art was something they had seen over and over.... and therefore meant nothing to them.
while the arkansas art community might scoff at digital art, they probably also scoff at rock and roll. digital art is pretty firmly cannonized-- digital shows have moved from places like thing.net to places like SF MoMA and now onto places like the Whitney here in New York. while digital art might be associated with the aethetic avant garde, let's be serious: when the Whitney, one of the best funded and best regarded museums in the nation, can do a digital art show, the debate over whether digital art is art or not is about as trite as the debate over whether the car is a good way to get around or not. probably it is, maybe it isn't, but since it has been applied as such the argument is over. mass reproducable art was embraced as legitimate by aesthetic theorists some sixty years ago. if you have theoretical groundwork and cultural praxis, all you're debating when you debate whether digital art is art or not are the merits of the medium. cultures have always used the mediums which the have at hand and which define them towards the purpose of expressing concepts. while teh means and concepts have gotten more complex, the nature of remains the same.
I think we just have to wait. Photographs had the same problem and it is not long since they became a respectable art form. We just have to push it on.
A friend of mine who was an Industrial Design major had quite a few problems with his professer when he did his design drawings using a computer, but I think his professer wanted him to learn to do technical drawings with traditional mediums. I think that's totally valid.
An earlier posting mentioned Salvidor Dali, but I'll use Picasso as an example. Picasso's early art was very much traditional fine art. It was only later that he began working abstractly. The problem is that starting to work abstractly from the get-go can lead to the artist missing out on some very important techniques applicable to all forms of art.
If you are at the point where you have mastered those techniques and want to expand into using art created on a computer, then I think you will find that the art world will accept it, even if your professers don't
By extension, the term is often used to mean forms where only that definition can apply: painting, sculpture, etc. (Yeah, yeah, I know. A painting of Charles II descending from the heavens appointed by God has quite a lot of utility. But you know what I mean; short of burning it as fuel, a painting doesn't have much direct use beyond covering up a stain on the wall.)
This ends up meaning that craft-based arts such as ceramics, jewelry, printing and, by extension, computer generated art, are not fine art, even if the objects produced do meet the beauty over utility requirement. Because some other areas of these arts are used to produce things which are useful as well as beautiful, the mud rubs off and sticks. Computer generated art is in the same boat.
This is pure snobbery, of course. But, if you follow the money, then it associates status with the conspicuous consumption of useless items. Which is what humans, particularly rich, socially connected humans, do. So the people who say that computer generated art is not fine art are are sort of correct; it fails the "utterly useless" test and is, therefore, socially unacceptable.
This may not mean much in purely objective terms. But, in patronage terms, it means a hell of a lot.
One minor problem is the issue of scarcity.
Anybody can get a print of a Picasso and put it on their wall. Ok, now how many folks have the original on their wall? ok, thought so.
Fine art is hard to physically get ones hands on. This rarity makes it valuable. Now, if folks can store your art work on a floppy and make a million copies, what is an individual copy worth? Its not like the original has any value since one can never prove that it is the original. Is there even an original?
Photographs are the same way. One can make as many copies as they wish with the original negatives. However, through access to the original negatives one can increase the value of any of the copies.
So, I suggest that you do the following (similar to a suggestion by another poster who said to go and get a printer):
Get a good slide printer and then go make enlargements of the resulting film. These prints (numbered and signed) have value. Only by controlling the number of original prints made can you control the value and thus the determination in the future of your works 'value' as art vs 'fine art'.
but anyway, my 0.02 worth
I think the reasons people resist the whole computer artwork as fine art comes from the fact that you need to understand certain scientific principles in order to bring the artwork into existence, whereas, to be a decent writer you only need to drink alot. Architecture probably gets a bad rep because of this too (the science part, not the drinking part).
What constitutes a fine art is an expression of something that can be taken as a metaphor for something else. The canvas is irrelevent, and the tools are irrelvent. If someone says that you can't use hard science to create art, either (a) show them the various films out there that rely on computer animation to render entire characters in their film, or (b) show them a photographer who has to measure lighting levels for a scene to work, or (c) show them any number of sketches by Leonardo Da Vinci. In pretty much the same way that a novelist can use a word processor to generate a novel (which is universally looked upon as fine art), a computer graphics artist can use Bryce or 3d Studio Max (or, heck, even C) to create a work of fine art. In both cases, the canvas starts out empty, and the artist has to fill it. It's not going to fill itself.
Also, it's important to note that for something to be considered art, it needs to be open to interpretation. As such, drawing a penguin on the screen doesn't really constitute anything artistic (not going into abstract art or photorealism or andy warhol here). If that penguin is meant to represent something that it currently is not (ie: it is not JUST a drawing of a penguin), then you've got a potential work of art, especially if it speaks to the basic human condition.
Also, there's a certain nebulous quality to art that makes it seem less permanent than, say, Michelangelo's David. Like, change one view matrix here and substitute a bitmap there and VOILA! Totally new picture. It's hard to rally behind an artistic genre that has mutability as a built-in feature. To be honest, 3d graphics have gotten to the point that it's relatively easy to make something that's on the surface far more impressive than something an artist in another genre would have to slave over to achieve. Consider how easy it would be for a painter to add extra mountains to a landscape, whereas a computer artist might only have to change their for loop, or copy and paste something.
Also, because computers seldom ARE used for art, people tend to dismiss the notion that they CAN be used for art. In much the same way that "Armageddon" drags down an entire genre into the sub-artistic, games such as "Tomb Raider" make you forget about gems like "Myst", which could probably be considered a work of art in its own right (remember, just because you don't like it doesn't mean it isn't art ;).
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
I hate luddites with a passion. They're anti technology unjustified fear is plain lame.
Cinematography is an artform. You have to have set designers design the set, everything from the pattern of the curtains on the wall, the wallpaper, furniture ect. This helps set the mood for a given scene. Right amount of light......
There is many many elements that go into making a movie. So to many its considered an artform.
Movie=artwork
Shrek=movie
I don't think anyone at the academy will argue this point.
With computers, alot of what is considered art is done. It is done, it is marketed, it is researched and archived. If the images at the french louve is broadcasted over the internet, does that suddenly make it not art?
Perhaps, to them art is something that is one of a kind and cannot truly be reprouduced. Like having michaelgelo painting the sistine chaple today. He's dead, can't happen again so its art.
Yet it still doesn't invalidate the fact that its art when its presented on a computer.
In 3d, you set your scene up just like a movie. You build a set from props, add elements like lighting, add some voiceover actors and really talented animators to make the mouth look natural when it speaks. Or make the titantic sail again, bring us back to pearl harbor or go up against 100 foot waves.
This is my perspective on it. Thats why I consider it art. Your freind may have a different perspective, perspective is everything. Tell him all the stuff I just said, if he's reasonable, and can look at it from another perspective I think he'll be a little more ambient and less obtuse on the situation. Good luck!
--toq
Art is in the eye of the beholder... I take great pleasure in pretty pictures, whether they be gif, png or painted by a famous dead guy. I see no difference to be honest with you.
Anyone who says "it's on a computer it's not art" is basically, not worth listening to (IMHO)
on a side note, is there any site where we can take a nosey (look) at any of your pictures? I'd be interested in seeing them.
Datalas
Warhol. 'nuff said.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
Hey, if you want your work to be put up in galleries etc, then listen to the critics. They're the ones who will pay you and who decide. If your tastes don't match the tastes of the modern rich, then maybe you should be making money doing album covers instead.
Phew. Lots of viewpoints.
However it might be wise to take into account the actual amount of work done on a piece of 'art'... Consider a DaVinci original cartoon (not funnybook cartoon) - worth a fairly large amount. A fully painted DaVinci original would obviously be worth much more, whilst an original DaVinci concept that was painted up by the apprentices in the studio would not fetch quite as much as one painted by the master himself.
As demonstrated, the value attached to the creative portion of the work has traditionally been greater than that added by the rendering of all those brushstrokes. Instructing a computer to render a 3d scene (or paginate text, or whatever) would be similarly add less intrinsic value than colouring every pixel or postscript or what-have-you by hand, regardless of the amount of creative input. True snobs may care to invoke the "no take-backs" rule, which the artist may avoid by discarding every document with a mistake or revision and starting again from scratch.
Of course, this argument doesn't hold much weight in the modern world (given the advent of moving pictures in particular – who has the time or manpower to hand-render 24+ frames per second?), but the Art world has shown little interest in the present and the future, choosing instead to refine the definition of Art into a nebulous heurism that achieves definition more by exception than inclusion.
The Artist says, "Whatever I DO is art."
I say, "Art is anything created with the intent of causing an emotional response."
Notice the difference between the definitions. The first two cannot be tested or argued. My definition, can be used to test to see if something is "art." Although my definition may well be crap, at least it can be tested.
So, I bet that by my definition of art, your work is ART.
Trouble is, that MY definition is highly influenced by rational scientific thinking. On the few occasions I have tried this definition out on "real" artists the reaction was either bafflement or extreme rage. "How dare you try to quantify the eneffable! Next, you'll be trying to define God. Or the trying to understand the origin of the Universe!"
On the other hand, a good friend of mine got through his MFA by doing paintings in which he recreated the "glowing" colors seen on computer screens. It seems that a painting of a computer screen was accepted as "art" while an image on a computer screen was not.
StoneWolf
I'm not really an artsy guy, and I claim no expertiese in art (or spelling), but the question of "what is art" seems absurd to me in this time in history. Many folks said that pictures of Campel's soup cans wern't art, but others disagreed.
I have never really made up my mind, but if a pile of elephant dung can be art, why not fancy graphics algorithms?
Ask your profs to say why your stuff isn't art, but Andy Warhol's is. (I'm not saying it isn't, mind you)
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
... the first guy to chip a rock in interesting shapes and call it art must've been a laughingstock. Everybody *knows* art is the deer paintings on the cave walls...
The opinons expressed are those of the voices in the author's head and are not necessarily those of the author.
Actually, it could.
Cartoonists have been fighting that sort of fight for ages. Is cartooning an artform ? - heck yes! - (read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud if you think otherwise). These days a few cartoonists (including myself =) ) use Drawing tablets and a variety of software to create what we like to think of as "art" (as well as the traditional tools). Even Scott Adams scans and cleans up his drawings on the computer.
If you created a piece of art on a A4 sheet is it art .. - is it emphasising the form? What about if you had it printed on a 20mx30m board - process and form? How about if you took that same image and painted in in oil on canvas - emphasising process ?.
They will need to realise that the computer is the tool, the process, not the form.
--
Jon - TheSpork
Similarly, if I am using GIMP to develop tiles for my favorite oipen source strategy game, that is not fine art either-- it is graphic design.
Yet, if you go to art galleries devoted to computer generated art, you see art for art's sake, NOT garphic design towards some end. The aim is to express an emotion not because a an advertisement, movie of video game demands it but rather because it is worth expressing in its own right.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
His answer was simple and elegant: "Everything man-made is the product of technology, even a string stretched across a hole."
People who similarly deride art that uses Photoshop, The GIMP, or whatever should take this to heart. The airbrush, the paintbrush, and even the simple reed used to inscribe characters in the wet clay of cuneiform tablets could be considered "technology."
People believe that the computer does the work for you, and that it doesn't take much effort at all. I have always met this with contempt, the computer doesn't do much for me except what I tell it to do. Nothing would be on the screen if I hadn't sat down and crafted something. Every element I put into my works were put there for a reason, and the effects I run are for a purpose. The computer is a tool, a brush fo the new artists, for I believe that computer art takes not only artistic skill, but also, technical skill. Most anyone can pick up a brush and paint. Their result might not turn out to be anything good or remotely artistic, but far fewer people can sit down in front of a computer and create anything artistic.
Be your own judge, view my homepage here.
Contrary to popular belief, I don't actually make my website for other people to look at.
I'd ask Bill Gates if *he* considers computer graphics eligible as a category of art. :-)
IMNSHO, what you're experiencing is an offshoot of neo-Luddism, where the art snobs are desperately trying to cling to whatever control they can over what is defined as art. It took a long time for lithographs to be acknowledged as art because they could be easily reproduced. I think computer graphics fall into the same category.
IMHO, one man's objet d'art is another man's junkpile. I liken art to the Supreme Court's ruling on pornography, i.e., I can't define art but I know it when I see it. (I also recognize merde when I see it...)
I've always heard that art should speak to you. Unfortunately, bad art speaks to me as much as good art does, just in a somewhat different fashion.
Does this help or should I ramble on?
At last year's Open Source Convention, a talk was given by a gentleman named Larry Cuba on creating digital art with Python. Mr. Cuba has been working as an artist creating computer generated artwork for his films for some time now and could probably answer many of your questions. His web site has info on some of his films.
"jpellino" hit it on the nose, but he left out other examples of academic narrow-mindedness, such as the Bohr theory of the atom and the theory of plate tectonics. Both were rejected by the long-hairs until a generation had died. And they were SCIENCE - which depends far less on "interpretation" and opinion than art. I'm afraid you are up against human nature and will have to tough it out until about 2020 or 2030 AD. Pity. I kinda like some of the CG stuff, such as Scott Moore's very interesting work.
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
Actually, even ASCII art, in its stark minimalism, could be 'fine art'.
Who knows? Time knows. If the work still has impact in succeeding generations, it's art, IMHO.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
The nastiest thing an art critic *should* be able to say about computer art is that it is not a real 'painting'. (no shit eh?)
Here is my definition:
'A work of Art is the end product of *any* attempt to express a creative idea.'
(In fact, I consider the actions involved in creating art to be an artform in itself, but that will never fly here.)
Notice there is still room for disagreement in my assessment (ie. Is that a creative idea?)
I do not dwell on what format the end product must exist in for it to be art. An enlightened critic should take the same approach.
Art critics are typical bastards, and you will often find that many of them do not create anything, so I consider them to wield the least authority on the topic.
I would package all music/theatre/literature/canvas/computer critics onto a ship and send them to the centre of the star Sol...
When I was shopping around in 1995 for a school to attend for a BFA in Computer Art, there were perhaps 10 in the US. Now there are significantly more, although the concept is still evolving. I have a BFA in Graphic Design with emphasis in electronic media. I hate to say it, but perhaps the more rural areas are still catching up to the cities. Electonic art is just as valid as any other art form. Marchel Duchamp and his readymade pieces of art were debated for years on this issue of "art vs. non-art". Photography was also debated as a fine art for decades. The real issue is the "hand" of the artist. I don't know how many of these "artists" there are out there that say electronic art is not "fine art"... but they are simply wrong. One of the first things I learned in Art School was that ANYTHING can be art... it simply needs an artist to present the work in an intelligent and meaningful manner.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
Though nearly anyone would look at works by these people and see true art and beauty, critics have long derided them as simply crafts, not true art. But check out the pottery at the Chicken Farm in Texas, or any textile artist, or even good Amish furniture and compare it to say say "Umbrellas" (Christeau maybe??) and you tell me which has more artistic value. But you could be in my place; Trying to convince the Dean of the Fine Arts that a final exhibition working solely with lasers does count as fine art and I should graduate (plus get me some grants)
I am an artist. I say it is art. Therefore it is art. Good art is what I like. Bad art is what I don't like.
Tell you friends to look into lisp and smalltalk. Lisp has had a lot of powerful graphics and interactive applications written in it. But, currently the free lisps lack a comprehensive environment of content tools. However, Allegro CL from Franz (www.franz.com) should meet your friends needs if they can afford it. And to people who say lisp is outdated, well look at how AllegroCL is being used in the case studies at Franz's web site.
And if functional programming languages with Lots of Irritatingly Silly Parentheses isn't there thing, have the try Smalltalk, specifically, Squeak (http://www.squeak.org/). Among places that use squeak is Disney. Squeak has many authoring features, plus on Unix systems it is easy to use extra devices (since virtually all devices are files, and any programming language can use files, even if it knows nothing about the device the file represents).
Actually, everyone who wants to program should learn one or both tools fairly well. I am convinced that the path to being a great program lies in understanding the machine at a low level (IE, understanding how to do stuff in ASM), and in learning the great programming languages of history. Further, both lisp and smalltalk lend themselves to spike solutions which is important in maintaining the mental state called flow. Which is to say, they support creative thinking. Once familiar with the environment, you can just do things, and then if they work, refactor them into proper structures.
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
That said, the critics may be talking about the distinction between fine art, folk art, and pop art. Fine art is founded on a long tradition, and requires extensive study to fully create or enjoy it. This is because there are rich unwritten symbolisms in every stroke of fine art. In the same way, classic literature is full of references to Greek and Roman Myths, and other traditions, which is why you study them in school.
Folk art is similar, but the traditions are more regional. Pop art requires no such depth. You simply paint by the numbers :-)
Computer art is laboring to establish those essential connections to the past. They are tenous because it is new. And also because the computer art derives a great deal of its heritage from the computer culture. This is a culture that has attained at least the level of "Folk Art". But art critics are ignorant of computer culture - just as I am ignorant of most of French Impressionism.
If you are inspired by it...it is art...it is an age old dispute, whether or not those who define public opinion of art are correct. Why did the impressionists have their own showings??? Because they didn't agree with the popular opinion of what made art ART. All of that plays into their work, their cause, their emotion, their style...not their process...it's what they meant to say...do...mean. Do you consider a replication of the Mona Lisa fine art??? Does the content, context, or meaning change because it wasn't straight from the hands of Leo? The original wasn't even from the hands of only Leonardo...he used a whole team of assistants to create "art". I only use this as an example, because I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who would agree that the Mona Lisa was not "fine art", in any form. Undoing, process, effort...all crap...art is a look into a brief moment in someone else's mind...shut up and look...you might learn something.
I truly believe this one is funny... if you agree please spare a score?
...and his soup can. He ran a mass-production shop, with an number of people working on projects for him, that ultimately had his name put on them. The fact that it was practically "assembly line" production was part of the art. Its all about the artist and the work. If it is your creative vision, how you get it out there doesn't matter.
What?
I'm a cartoonist and graphic artist. Years of using computers to create art has taught me one thing; computers suck camel sweat when it comes to art.
Sure... CG realism, animation, etc, are all pretty neat. But working with Adobe (or GIMP you Unix boy) and the other software professional artists use everyday... is a nightmare. The software is crap. It's always a struggle to get all this "art" software to do even the simplest projects. It's like painting by numbers for someone like me. An actual artist! *gasp*
I thought this computer crap was supposed to make it easier!
But the truth is, this software was dumped onto our industry just like everyone else's industry. I'm old enough to have had a traditional arts training (something that keep me from getting a job through the early 90s) and I can tell you with complete confidence that I could do a far far far better job and in less time.
Done even get me started on the printing problems.
Look, you wanna make art? Try a brush, ink, and paper. They work far better than those stupid "Filters".
wtf are filters? I don't fuggin' know...
______
jeff13
Maskirovka
--
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
-- William James
IANAAC... However, I do have opinions... "Art" should present an asthetic that is suprising to the viewers expectation of the medium. "Art" should evoke a response beyond the mere representation of the subject. "Art" should reflect an originality and skill beyond what current "craftsmen" of the medium are doing. That said, "ART" is rarely accepted as "ART" right away, because the skill of the artist, the message of the artist, or the meaning of the artist is not understood. ART that is even "accepted" contemporarily is often controversial and scorned mearly for being contemporary. The only defense to that controversy is an unwavering exploration of the medium and the message by the artist. Whether it gets recognized, ever, is an intellectual exercise of the Critic, Historian, Public, and Scholar. That said, contemporary art, is often a matter of acceptance that SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE, felt that it was art. And that SOMEBODY has the financial wherewithal to set the price of the ART, and are well known enough to determine the acceptance of the ART. Often times this is done by selling a piece to a person that has the ability to control purchases in large private or public collections, and is often just a game of greed and ego, and little to do with "ART"
And why wouldn't they be considered forms of fine art? Who are you to judge whats art and what isn't based on mere morals?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Does having a paintbrush between a painter and the paper somehow detract from the results?
No, of course not! I've seen some really good computer art; I don't see why no one appreciates it.
Also, I just finished an "Art" class at my school; I hated it. Several of my friends agreed with me - and we all decided that we would have eagerly taken a computer art class. Oh well...
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suwain_2
Before Ansel Adams hit the scene, photography was not considered to be art. It was something unique, but there was no way that it could be considered art. There were many that called it art. The photographers did. The "artists" didn't. What we need is an artist to render his work on computers and it become so popular that they can not help but call it art. Wait, we already have many of these. People just don't know it yet...
Give them time. They will learn. If they don't accept the truth, they will eventually be the outnumbered like we are today.
My name fits again.
If the only way the 'Art world' can tell that something is Art is that the artist had to suffer to make it - the "Art" world is badly in need of reformation.
I reminded of the First Prize awarded for an abstract salt sculpture done entirely with the artist's tongue. There were a few red faces when the artist was revealed to be a farmer's cow....
Medium and tools are irrelevant. And elitists to the contrary, is is ok for Art (yes - capital Art) to be 'merely' pretty.
Now I am wondering how the elitists manage to reconcile their artificial requirements for 'thought out' art with the recent trend to 'egoless' criticism (where _even the artist's opinion_ on the Obj'd'Art is not considered definitive as to its 'meaning').
Take the frozen 360-degree action shots from "The Matrix". That movie's cinematographers created the technique to capture the essence of a turning point in the action. It turned into a very "art"ful shot, giving new meaning to the sequence.
Today, you can see that same basic technique showing up in action sequences almost everywhere (like TNT's new "Witchblade" TV show), but in canned form. Something a non-artistically-inclined director can pull from the shelf in canned form and insert where he pleases. The result: an overused gimmick that, if anything, detracts from the overall drama of the sequence. In simple terms: The Matrix's shot felt slick, but Witchblade's shot feels hollow and cheap.
I believe CG can be used to create worthy art, and detractors be damned! The real artists always struggle against established thinking.
USNG: 14TPU4605
I've recently been submerged involuntarily into this debate in real life; the art department at school doesn't recognise digital art as 'acceptable'. ..it seems to me that for a person who has never created, or attemped to create art on a digital medium, it is assumed that it isn't art for one reason- computers make things easy, 'it's just a case of pushing a few buttons'.
It's hard to impress people with digital art, because they are immersed in a majority of brilliant digital art - such as film effects etc.
For me, it's just as challeging a medium as paper- the only difference b/w pen and paper and my Wacom and I is the undo button.
It comes down to the extent that your chosen medium "does it for you." Whether it's with numbers telling you what colors to choose or pull-down menus selecting a filter to provide a technique you couldn't achieve on your own, you're simply riding bitch to someone else's creativity.
Nice computer-assisted graphic design there. But sorry, not fine art.
Remember, it is the artist that creates, the computer is just a tool to create it with.
Calling computer-generated art a fine art is like calling Moog music, "Classical." There is a difference between having an artist synthesize an expression and having a machine synthesize the expression (to which the audience then merely reacts). I've seen a lot of computer-generated art; it may be modern art, but I don't see it as a fine art.
I would say that the difference between graphic art and fine art is that fine art is intended to say something significant in itself, whereas graphic art is intended to attract attention, first to itself, then to its object. I believe that it is important that the artwork not overshadow its message; this would be difficult for computer generated art to do.
http://www.ijele.com/ijele/vol1.2/enwonwu2.html
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
Of course, it may be that your real problem is not your medium but your subject matter or treatment. If your stuff is cartoony or techy you'll have a hard time finding a serious art audience for it. It's basically a cliche that you can argue until the cows come home about what really makes something art, so don't waste your time trying to figure out whether what you do is art or not. Do what you like and seek a venue and audience that appreciates it.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
the school didn't have a formal major so through the help of two professors, i created my own major and worked on hacking up cool interactive pieces for the last two years of school!
i would program sound synthesis in a program called CSOUND and in Common LISP that interacted with realtime video signals...
it was wacky for sure but it 'twas Art!
fugg those small minded fools, move away from the stix, head for NY or LA where they love that type of shit.
.cig
I think they are concerned that the computer does too much of the work when creating a peice of art. I can spend a total of 5 min creating a nice looking "planet in space" scene, for instance. However, its this same powerful tool that lets us do amazing things. Some of the most complex and beautiful images I've seen come out of a computer have taken the artist days, weeks, or months to complete, even if it is just a still image. I'm not sure how they judge what "fine art" is, but they need to keep in mind that the computer is just a tool. Weather you're using something like SoftImage or programming a script to generate pretty colors, it should be the effort and emotion that goes into the work that should define its value, not the medium that created it. After all, are statues better then paintings?
"A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one."
What is it exactly that precludes computers and "fine art"? Medium mostly. Much of the art we consider "fine art" today is the result of a change in the fundamental philosophy of art that took place around the turn of the century. Art began as simply the creation of aesthetically pleasing designs.. later it became more (i.e. michelangelo -> who proved that art was in itself an intellectual pursuit, a humanity, not a craft). Many modern artists subscribe to the ideal that art is in essence the 'idea' not the actual work itself. One could argue that there should be no prejudice against digital art because art is really 'the essence of the idea' and not how you make it.. but you would be wrong: Art is irevocably tied to medium (marshall mcluhan). A subtle change in materials changes the meaning of any artwork. Computers (unfortunately) have a stigma against them as a medium. I believe the reason is in part associated with the desktop publishing explosion. Too many people create "art" without any substance.. a couple of filters in photoshop and its 'art'? Additionally, with the proliferation of the internet, there is a nauseating abundance of computer generated art out there that has no redeeming value other than "it looks nice". Computer-art often isn't art because there is no thought. However this doesn't mean that there isn't Fine-art that use computers as a medium. There are some artists that use computers, but distinguish themselves as fine-artists because they challenge the materials; they don't use the computer as a graphic artist or illustrator would (to create an image) but in a manner that challenges the user conceptually. In this way, Computers become more like interactive sculpture than 'painting with pixels'.
Don't be discouraged, the medium you use is not a factor whatsoever, nor the fact that it may or may not be a commissioned work. On the other hand, don't expect a knowledgeable art critic to applaud something on the basis of 'good technique.' The piece must have some significance and meaning which will distinguish it from craft.
-Koji
I have a hard time believing people are so dismissive of the possibility that computer graphics can be art. A urinal can be art (Marcel Duchamp); a set of instructions for drawing lines on a wall can be art (Sol LeWitt). It's not really a practical exercise to try to draw lines that separate what can be art and what cannot be art. Whether the art is any *good*--whether the art you were showing is good, and if not, whether computer graphics can be "good" art--is another question altogether.
I'd define art as anything where the creator was guided by emotional influences rather than cool logic and reasoning.
For example if I were to make a still life painting, were I to take measurements and accurately transfer them to the canvas I
wouldn't consider it art, but if I do it free handed and feel the apple/pear/whatever in my mind, imagining its shape, its taste etc..
that I would consider art.
I will stand firm here, and I will repeat it again: code is not art.
Bury your perl script, and dig it out in 200 years, it will not elicit any emotion, and the only comment I envision is "what the hell is that?".
Art needs to communicate human emotions to other human beings, regardless of time and culture.
Code completely fails to do so, and if it does not run or compile it is not code anyway, meaning that its only reason to exist is an utilitarian one, which is the exact antithesis of what art is supposed to be.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What I suggest is that you try to create things that cannot be created in any other medium. If you create flat pictures that can be printed on an Epson color printer then you're using the wrong medium. If you're creating 3D images that can only exist in a computer, and a printout is equivalent to a photograph of a statue (a representation, but not the same as viewing the actual item), then you're on the right track.
If you create something dynamic that is a different experience for everyone who "views" it (via interaction with a mouse or via a complex algorithym based upon a webcam image of the viewer or whatever, as long as it somehow changes with each viewer) then you're going to start impressing people.
Also, consider a sculpture where a computer and monitor and software are all components of a larger work. "Foot in the door." Feel free to reject this out of principle :-)
I think you'll also have a stronger case if you write the software yourself, and the software is unique to each work, as opposed to using a commercial off-the-shelf drawing package to create a picture on a computer. Sort of the difference between mixing your own paint and paint-by-numbers. The software, while unique, could be based upon shared libraries with code re-use; just because each work is unique doesn't mean you have to start from scratch each time. Even Picasso bought commercial, off-the-shelf paints, but he then mixed and used them himself. It's still a Picasso, even if he worked in Sherman Williams house paint on a rusty saw blade! Your work is still your work, even if you use MS Paint on an IBM PS/2.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
You have obviously never lost an entire piece of art to a Photoshop/Windows crash or 5.0's tendency to not always completely save a file. When several hours/days worth of work vanishes before my eyes, never to be seen again, I consider it to be well and truly fucked up. Maybe this isn't the exact sense you meant but I would like to point out that all is not happy puppies and sunshine in the CG art world. The CG medium does in fact have limitations greater than or equal to what you'll find in a physical medium. For example, don't you think sculpting would be a 100X more difficult if marble was powered by Windows Technology?
Has anyone considered that digital art might become the predominant form of art in the future? I can imagine meatspace art becoming extremely rare. A lot of the meatspace mediums are prohibitively expensive and, once created, take up a lot of space. On the other hand, if one has a computer and an art program the only further expense is electricity. Also, unlike canvases and sculptures, files don't take up much space and are easily transportable.
Both of these have been and continue to be important issues in my life (as soon as I finish this post I have to cut up one of my sculptures for shipping) which is why I'm doing as much art digitally as possible. Can't wait for electronic paper and/or a full featured tablet pc.
Is this a problem? I thought we weren't fans of the "Economy of Scarcity" here?
Personally I am OVERJOYED that I can create art without an "original." If an artist becomes famous, the work is snatched up and squirreled away by the well-to-do as yet another status symbol. Something meant to be seen, to convey a message/emotion, can then only be seen at the pleasure of an irrelevant third party.
CG art is inherently egalitarian, and that is a beautiful thing.
Also, the work is much less likely to be destroyed. IIRC, H.R. Geiger ended up buying back a number of his pieces out of concern that the owners wouldn't preserve them and they would be lost forever.
My friend was just released from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) with a Bof Fine Arts in Graphics Design. So somebody thinks Flash is a fine art... Not me.. :-)
"Does having a computer between artist and object somehow detract from the results? "
yes! in fact, it does. little did our friend know when s/he started out in the world that the rules would be changing so soon...
recently-enacted federal regulations require all "art projects" and "other fancy stuff" to be created without the benefit of ANY intervening medium whatsoever. this means elephant dung can, in fact, be considered art, while such disciplines as painting, photography, illustration, statuary, scrimshaw, and anything by christo (look him up) no longer qualify.
a senior washington official, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed his hope that the sweeping legislation would "cut right down on the number of whiny-ass letters to the NEA askin' for handouts." inexplicably, performance art, including pantomime, remains unpenalized by the bill.
the official also noted the bill's rather curious wording, syntax and spelling, saying that, although brought to the floor by jesse helms, there is little doubt as to the identity of the bill's true author.
every good
"those who can do, those who don't understand bitch about it." anonymous
"Make art" -george cramer
I now understand the line you were upset about. When I said anyone can just crank out something out of digital program I should have clarified. Almost all software programs can give you something quickly as demo or test or have defaults that let the unpracticed "crank something out" which we see a lot of on the web. Forinstance I-movies can very quickly make a movie of anything for anyone but is not representaional of what can be done in said software program when it is used well. Sorry about the misunderstanding.
I know in the Uk at least from the above mentioned magazine that many art collages in the UK at least consider computer art a valid form of expression. They recently had a supliment from a number of art students from around the UK including real pictures (the kind from fractal/corels Painter app) , CG renders and graphic design. I lot of work can go into a good computer generated image and the undos are vaigly similar to the way in acrylic and oils you can repaint.
I don't have much art training other than school level and many visits to art galeries but maybe in the future we will see images from painter6 in galleries along side traditional images. It takes time for any new media to be accepted by the establishment.
I am a more traditional visual artist (I work primarily in coloured pencils, pen and ink, and oils), but I have done some digital work, ranging from completely Photoshop creations, to hybrid hand-drawn/digital pieces. (Shameless self-promotion: If you're interested, the URL is www.jinwicked.com/portfolio/ for a quick glance at my stuff.)
I think it's difficult to distinguish whether computer-created graphics are artwork or not. The main problem here is that so many powerful visual-creation tools (particularly filters) exist for programs like Photoshop, that anyone (even me) can sit down and with a minimal amount of practice learn to create sophisticated and impressive-looking digital imagery. I think the detail to remember is that just like much traditional imagery is not considered art by the establishment, much computer generated imagery will not either. I think the content, method of creation, motivation, and any possible meaning will have more of a say than just the fact that it happens to be digital. There are many photographers and artists creating "digital" work that is collage and enhanced photography on computers, and it is not only beautiful but can be quite popular. These are blends of purely digital work, hard photography, drawing, painting, and more.
I am interested to see the long-term effects of computers on the art world. I myself tend to blend machinery and digital themes into my images, expressing the interaction between technology and humans as individuals. My web graphics have also historically been either Photoshopped photography or altered artwork. (I consider my sites to be functional art.) I don't really care for strictly computer-generated images because they tend to sometimes have a blocky, cold feel to them that lacks emotion, but I'm sure with the growing power of personal computers, eventually someone will be able to duplicate the textures and warmer feel of physical media.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
"A lithograph by M.C. Escher will exist as part of a limited run, each print numbered uniquely with the collector knowing that lower numbers equal higher quality. "
Maybe this was true a few years ago, but it does not apply today.
I would defy anyone to compare two prints that were run on the same high-quality offset press and determine which was run first. The technology is such that the quality of the output does not degrade on small runs (small = a few thousand).
The lower sequence number is just snob appeal anymore.
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
...With or without the precious connection to movies, which are probably (in bulk) the sloppiest, least-moving (npi) art form ever created.
Paint vs. PhotoPaint? Paintbrush vs. Mouse? Plastic disk vs. electronic palette? Let's not be ridiculous. ALL artists use tools; and most artists use DIFFERENT tools. Used to be we called those using some funky method of making art "visionaries", now it isn't art unless a company is doing it, like DreamWorks? Bah, I say! Art is a human endeavor, first and foremost. I think a human using a computer to make art is TEN times more artistic than a suit using a Hollywood agency to make it is.
ST
that arg is just plain wrong. art is what the expression and act of art creation, not the tools used to create it. sometimes is is just the intention, not the physical results. take the Ducahmp or the whole Dada movement, he displayed found objects, with ZERO involvement or alteration and displayed them as art. (a bottle rack, an old mens room urinal) I recall in the 70s (maybe the early 80s) that a CONCEPT of art was sold at auction for lots-o-bux It was an instruction set, to be followed at a later date (I believe it was something like "draw 50,0000 one-inch line in pencil, 1/8 inch apart, in groups of 100" ) you may not like it, but the general concensus was Art.
viral games, contageous fun. http://www.DaddySculpin.com
Just remember pigment mixing, stone carving, glazing, weaving, ad nauseum, were all "high tech" at one point. Does it matter, since we are tool users anyway, what tools we use? Is acrylic paint art? Or should we all use egg based tempra? If you don't mine the cobalt, is it cheating?
By your definition, pr0n, S&M, beastiality, torture, murder, brutalization, etc would all qualify as fine art. There are those some who view demented and perverted forms of expression as "beautiful" (just look at the lead character in The Cell, though he does not go nearly so far in as some). You may want to rethink what you define as art.
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Bow before my sig, for it is good.
The art critics there claimed that computer-generated art was not a 'fine art' but more of a graphic design, regardless of the quality of the work.
As a graphic designer, I'm offended by this remark.
Seriously though, I don't see how the medium should be any consideration in whether or not something is art. Any sort of self-expression is art, IMO. While it may be a valid criticism that computers and the net have made it easier for random morons to create and distribute bad art, I can't imagine how any reasonable person can argue that something created on a computer isn't art at all.
The graphic design remark is just asinine. Design is about problem solving. Art is about self-expression. The distinction has nothing to do with quality, and everything to do with purpose.
Most new media go through this. It took a while for photography to be accepted as fine art. And today, very few people would argue that point. Computer art should have an easier time getting acceptance, given that it doesn't steal your soul they way photography does.
Coincidentally, there's an article on CNN today about digital vs cel animation. They quote Jules Engel, who worked on Bambi and Fantasia, and he seems to look down on computer animation. He seems to imply that computer animators can't draw, which is ridiculous, and even if it was true, he doesn't seem to recognize CG as a medium onto itself. ("Sure, McGwire can hit, but he sucks on clay courts." WTF?)
Ok, I've rambled enough.
If I could somehow buy a brush that was preprogrammed with Renoir's brush strokes and I pointed it at the canvas and told it to paint a picture of a tree, am I an artist?
That's not to imply that computer artists are doing that, but the fact remains that they can. The computer can draw circles and squares, you might be selecting clip art from pre-made libraries, you could even have the computer place random lines on the page until you see something you like.
I'm reluctant to term it a fine art when it's so difficult to tell what was produced by the artist and what was produced by the tool.
-Coach-
Perhaps the world's greatest tragedy is that ignorance is not impotence.
I think that what you have seen is a case of people that think the computer is doing the work and not the artist and therefore they think it is not art.
One question to ask is at what point to they consider something art and something not art. For Instance my dad does black and white photography. He uses machines (camera & enalrger) to make his photos. No one would argue that that is art. Ansel Adams is perhaps the best known black and white photographer in the world. No one would say that he is not an artist. So therefore you can't say the use of a machine to help create your work makes it not art.
Just my $0.02
Art critics are part of a corrupt cabal only interested in making themselves feel important, and increasing the profits made at select art galleries. Any group that thinks geometric abstract painting is 'art' isn't worth consulting.
Anarchists never rule
Just as not everything done with paint is art, not everything done on the computer is art, but art trancends any tools - it is human creativity and expression.
Anarchists never rule
I'm not at all knowledgeable about art, but used to attend the University of Waterloo, where the Computer Graphics Lab (part of the Computer Science department) gives some courses jointly with the Fine Arts department, and even offer a joint degree at the graduate level.
All of students and faculty in the Computer Graphics Labs should have public web pages, so you can get some idea of the sort of work that people are doing in the combined area.
If you ask people what do they think about the making of a certain computer application they will probably say that they thing you "told" the computer what to do and it went ahead and did it.
Same goes with computer graphics. They think you say "get me a field with such and such things in it" and it does. And while in some cases that's true it certainly isn' t the general truth.
I've seen some really fantastic fractal art, which someone posted a link to on Slashdot a few days ago. Some are so good that they are indistinguishable from traditional styles except for the unreal precision of it all. Still, I can't wait for the day with code is considered high-art!
"Leave the strategizing to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho
"Leave the strategizing to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho
I don't understand art and can only say what it isn't. It isn't something wich can be described with examples. Sure one can tell that a painting is art but that won't tell anything about how to do art. Art is something one can never master, it's always new because it has to. New to the subject not new to the world necessarily. Art is personal, one can only have opinions about art, not facts.
It's weird world to an artist. There's critics, professors, collagues all bashing new ideas, that's nothing new. But in art world, it's like they all somehow hope you to overcome their criticism anyway, make something totally new and surprise them.
Uhm, I'm sorry but I can't help thinking that those people putting down your medium either didn't saw your works or did saw them but were not impressed. Even if they say computer graphics aren't art, they don't mean it. Believe me. They just haven't seen anything impressive yet. You have to make something possible only with computers and it has to be impressive, appealing also to people not familiar with computers and their capabilities. And I believe it has to be presented on something other than monitor screen.
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
Or at least you can get a Masters Degree in Digital Arts at the Maryland Institute. You should look into the works of Vasant Nayak, the former head of the department, and check out some of the instructors at art schools offering digital programs. It is most definately fine art, but digital art is also not simply defined as pure computer graphics, there can be much more to it than that.
As with any change in the arts the entrenched poo poo the newcomers. At one time Monet, Degas, Renoir and the Impressionists were reduced to poverty and starvation before their innovations were accepted. Of course now...
What about the fine art of proggraming? Maybe art or "fine arts" are in the eye of the beholder more than anything.
My university, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, offers a Computer Art Degree through the college of arts and sciences and the school of art that is completely independant of a graphics design degree. Check it out: http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/art/computerart/de scription.html
Do you chat your mother with those fingers?
when philip glass and others started using computers to make music people were appaled. following in the lineage of already despised minimalist music (eg erik satie) was a bad start. but horrible LOOPS? you must be kidding! it has no real developing musical content. today electronic music is all over the place and has even begun to be accepted as a genuine art form. sure 90% of "techno" is, admittedly, crap musically. but there are some very interesting things happening at liberal arts schools. like at CalArts a few years back there was a project done with a harpist and a computer with light/motion sensors. the harpist would play and the computer would pick up hand movements and play back pre-programmed sounds in response to the harpist's movements. the harpist would then improvise and play with the noises the computer made. very cool stuff. so yes, one of these days computers will be an accepted art medium. just as they are for recording/producing music today.
Shouldn't You expect more from your DJ?
If Manet had asked his contemporaries what art is, and followed what they told him, he would never have been the nexus of the Impressionists. If Picasso or Warhol had asked their contemporaries what art is, they never would have pushed into the realms they did.
So, when you're getting ragged on by another post-modernist hack wannabe, (or even worse, some neo-realist, or neo-classical moron) think of the absolute uproar that Manet's Olympia caused at the Paris exhibition. Think of a true "artist" like Marcel Duchamp, who did everything he could to show how ludicrious the whole idea of an artist is.
Art is what you believe it to be.
If you want to be a craftsman, go buy a book and follow the instructions. If you want to be an artist, throw away the book, the critic, and the "artist" too.
Do what feels right.
But IANF"A"
The Thinker is copied. The real one is in France, but there is a copy of it at the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, PA.
Ever hear of the Ballet mécanique?
This guy named Anthiel wrote this weird piece of music with 16 player pianoes, airplane propellers and mechanical sirens... very weird stuff... when it was played in Paris in 1926, it was lauded as pure genius... the next year it was played in New York and he was met with derision and laughter.
So what?
I'm just saying that the art world is so damned fickle about anything new and different you can't peg any neutral observation to what is great art and what isn't... it's almost random really: en vogue one season and out of fashion the next.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is a pretty subjective question, so I've got a pretty subjective answer.
I've always had a pretty simple on what "art" really is. If someone at all enjoys it or thinks it's nice/beautiful, then it's art. I don't think there should ever be one person or a group of people to define whether or not something is really art. If you think it's art, then that's good enough: it's art.
I spent 4 years in a art school that had an entire
major dedicated to Electronic art. When it started it was analog signal processors to effect video, Its current concentration is Virtual Reality. If you are stuck asking the question is it art. You may not grasp what art is. Its OK I haven't been able to define art either. My point if you really want to create the meduim you choose should not be an issue to you. It may for others but it should not be for you. If you are conflicted over the validity of whether you use a paint brush or Maya then you are missing the point. It is not the tool which determines art it is the artist.
Art = The creative expression of an idividual's world view or sense of life.
I think most computer-generated art would fall under this definition. Graphic Design probably wouldn't.
Aside from the issue that graphic design is less creative and more restrictive (no flames, please -- graphic designers work with a common body of elements to produce output, whereas computer-generated art starts with a "clean canvas") there is more of a sense of graphic design being restricted to an application of technical skills as opposed to purely creative skills. [Although they both have creative *and* technical skills to some degree, each one favors a different side of the fence.]
Add to that the notion that art in general is about the expression of the artist's sense of life while the graphic design is about communicating the message of,... well, what ever is being designed for, be it an ad for soap or a corp. ID.
*However* people seem to think that putting up several thousand umbrellas on two coasts = art and I don't think your "art critics" are going to advance the argument that Christo isn't an artist. (They would be drummed right out of the guild.)
______
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Once: you're a philosopher. Twice: a pervert.
Generally when I run into people concerned with the "fine" arts, they are referring to an artform they believe has no room for growth or development. Stick to your ideas and maybe in a hundred years some unambitious dolt will call your work "fine" too.
you can get a bfa for computer art here in NY
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Christopher 'rhino' Morrissey
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rhino@badlandsgames.com
www.badlandsgames.com
- MOSKIE
They are judging your work not your medium. If your work truly moves people, they will not walk away saying "too bad it wasn't on a canvas".
Communication is what matters.
The only problem is when the lines cross, and the computer is the artist, and you're just someone pushing the buttons. But even in a case like that, it still can be art.
Art is a very subjective thing. When people try to discuss what art is, they can never agree what qualifies. SOme people will disagree because they don't like a particular kind of art, it's ugly, or it didn't seem to require much skill. My definition is: "If the artist says it is art, it's art". Kurt Vonnegut had a somewhat stricter definition in one of his books, but I can't remember what it was, but it had something to do with putting your ass on the line.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
Wear black, and behave like an artiste.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
I spent four years studying English in my undergrad, and the one class that really spoke to me the most was my criticism class. Once you get to Derrida, the deconstruction guru, you learn that in this day and age, there are no new ideas, merely new spins on old techniques and ideas. While this is largely attributed to literature through the idea of free play, I think it applies to the arts as a whole. Essentially, free play is the "riffing"(learn about jazz if you don't know what it is) on ideas of the past. Spreading art into the medium of computer generated art is just the free play available to us at this time. Without this quality within the arts, we're doomed to a life of boring, stagnant art and the death of creativity. Don't let dilletant nay-sayers steal your thunder...what you are doing is integral to the overall development of the visual arts.
"I do not regret the things I have done, but those that I did not do."
A painter has his brush. A musician has his instruments. A sculptor has his chisel (or welder, or blowtorch or whatever). An actor has his props. All artists use tools.
You have a computer! This is your tool.
Art is not a picture, or a song, or an act. Art is the effect that such things can have on the audience. Art is the emotion or thought that the artist wanted to convey. If the feeling is significant enough, and the technique is powerful enough, we say the art is good.
The media is irrelevant. Any one who says otherwise is an old-stick-in-the-mud and does not know what true art is.
Not A Poem
By Matthew Scouten.
This is not a Poem.
Not these cold words printed on a page.
This is a reminder,
Of the shape of the poem.
These are not a Poem.
Not these words that I speak,
v They are a method,
To transmit the poem.
This, this is the poem.
This Idea,
This Feeling,
This Thought that I wanted to share.
This is a poem.
That is my 2 cents.
------- I saw a VW Beatle the other day. The vanity Plates said "FEATURE"
it's just going to take time before people stop thinking of computers as one of two things (either BUSINESS USE or PLAY THING). take the new album art by radiohead, for example. it's the same guy who did both Kid A and Amnesiac, and it's unquestionably digital. it's also a very strong example of artwork, creative expression, and form.
by the way, if you're in a conversation with an art snob, bring up the tasty little bit about "form defines content". this includes the media used. talk more about the form of the work, and less about the computer part of it. it's art first, media second, isn't it?
I agree with the part about new art forms being poorly accepted because of them being new, but the medium is probably more under question than anything. Society as a whole views computers as magical boxes that can produce anything you ask of it. Most people don't know how technical and intricate these works can be. It is looked down upon because the artist doesn't make a physical stroke of a brush, but rather a mental one. Regardless of how the artist makes the stroke, the creativity must still be there. The creativity is the true heart of the work.
This signature thing isn't working. The ink won't stay on the glass.
I worked for an advertising agency in Little Rock until recently, and although I didn't see your show, I wish I had. I have to agree with you. Fine Art pretty much defines itself. Computers are to a printer what brushes are to a canvas -- a medium/tool. I think the issue lies in the fact that everyone and their mom owns a computer and MS paint. But also, you are trying to create in a medium that is associated with throw-away commercial art. Another thing is that there are so many WYSIWYG programs out there that do a lot of stuff for you. Photoshop has become a verb. My advice to you is to keep pushing the envelope with your art, and don't give up on this medium. Let me know when you show in Little Rock again. I'd like to see the show.
as discussed on slashdot before, I think that this computer generated art can be considered 'art'. It conveys a message..
I think the main reason they don't accept it is because they don't understand how computer art is made. They probably think most of it is just dots/lines/circles, sections of images taken from screencaps of a TV show, cutting and pasting photos, etc.
Computer art will most likely be more accepted when more artists start using it, and the critics know enough to tell if something was "painted" or just slapped together by Joe HomeUser.
"Good Art", meaning the kind that sells in trendy galleries and gets written up in Art rags is invariably Abstract Expressionism, and it doesn't hurt to have a social commentary, preferably one that seeks to raise consciousness WRT one or more marginalized sub-groups (subalterns) in a given society. You can also go with the "Art for art's sake" approach, which will result in sales, but lessens the likelihood that your work will live on.
"Good Art" doesn't have to have this, but it helps. You can also make your art "good" by utilizing controversial themes (people having to step on the flag to sign the guestbook, etc.) and/or materials (feces, urine, etc.)
However, just because you follow those guidelines, it does not guarantee success, nor does it mean that you are an artist. Robert Mapplethorpe *is* an artist, some of his work was controversial at one point, but his work lives on. Robert Kostabi was a flash in the pan, and who's heard of him?
Art is subjective, true. It is also a business, and artists are encouraged to make the meaning of their work obscure or, better yet, inscrutable, so wealthy people will furnish their homes and offices with intriguing yet non-confrontational pieces, and the buyers buy it because it's an investment, generally not because they grokked what the artist was trying to say.
"Edgier" art, like performance art, installations, and video/film work is not really hangable on a wall, so you may get props for your cutting-edge one person performance complete with plenty of references to sexual organs and alternative lifestyles, you probably won't be considered "Good Art" because you can't sell that.
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself. --Billy Bragg
Whether you use a computer or not is irrelevant. The art comes from the person.
-- -Keith
All those art people are afraid that more people will become artists making masterpieces with the help of their computer. I agree with you, it is not any easier to create artwork in Photoshop than on paper.
-OR_BraveHeart "there's nothing certain in life except death and taxes"
..is a fine art. Even simple little buttons that just say "home" on them..
I am Jack's creative sig.
Yes.
In more words:
This is the same argument people have about online journalism being a valid form of media. "You can't trust everything you read on the net" we hear. No. But you can't trust everything you read in the paper-media either.
The same goes for computer graphics. Sure, you don't spend years mastering the fine art of blending lighting using different paints and all that. Instead you may have to go to school for a few years to learn how to get that same effect by mastering how pixels work together. You're simply using a different canvas, but you may put as much time and effort (or more) into any computerized art than you will with sculpting or painting or whatever other things may be considered fine arts.
As a society we're migrating to technology, as readers of slashdot will easily vouch for. Why should we be stuck in a different age of art then? As pictoral art and poetry start to mesh, are we going to deny the genius there because it's not the same as something Van Gogh would have done? It makes no sense to deny that computerized art is a fine art simply because it's new and not established.
The medium has so much value to artists, if only those who are stuck in previous centuries would give it a chance. An artist will still work endlessly to get the desired look from something s/he creates. They'll still labor to make it perfect.
Frag the critics.
That's Beautiful.
-Eric Dizkord
-Eric Dizkord
"I always thought Dark Futures had to be in the future
I think its intersting, since I believe there are two aspects to the production of art and since they can be seperated by computers that some(maybe all but a few) art critics would consider it to be design.
1.) The idea that is dereived from inspiration, or a fellow person that is only in your mind, or a week sketch. Its the blue print. It has not been adequalitly depicted to be called anything. But it still required imanganation somewhere to come up with it.
2) The production of the art it self. Critics might not consider this stage art if you don't use your hands, since using your hands is could be considered an art in its self. Are they saying since you can tell a computer to draw a circle of some diamater, and then since you manipulated that more, its not art? I beleive thats exactly it.
Now, the only thing I would like to be seen done is that slowly and steadily as more and more of supposidlly graphics design people increase, that a new standard will be created by the critics themselves. Or if they won't do it, there will hopefully be enough people intersted in it that a whole new group will start up and create the standard themselves. As long as it has awe and can be admired, more and more people will be drawn to it and their is where the critics will come from.
-------------------
Insert Witty Remark Here ===>____________________________
There is a bit of a backlash at the moment against the damien hirst method of developing art. He has an idea, and brings in a team of technical experts to bring it about - be it cutting a cow in half or producing 20,000 fake pills that won't turn to mush in a couple of months.
The same deal will, I think, ultimatly decide computer arts fate. If your simply playing around with photos in photoshop you'll have to be particularly talented at composition to stand out. If your developing some semi-organic generation algorithm code as part of your art you'll need to be good at that AND have the ideas to make it sparkle. Just like even the best scripts need good lighting and actors and stuff.
Personally, I'm unsure if it counts to have a team developing your software within which you just 'dump some ideas', but I suppose it depends on the ideas.
Good old 'llama' Minter was doing some fine computer art on the old ST back in the day - that and Mr Potato Head from Toy Story are the only 2 examples of computer art I can think of.
art is whatever the heck you want it to be. some people take a dump on a piece of paper and get a fine art gallery to show it... the computer is simeply a different medium which, like oils or watercolor or pencil, takes some skill to create artwork with.
is it simply pasting together others' works? if so, then what do you call a collage piece that is hanging in a gallery. what about scribbles by some of the most renowned artists in history that look like something my 2 year old niece created?
i say screw what they say. if it is a creative outlet to you, then run with it... it's art.
I think the reason a lot of these arguments just go back and forth is because they're based on the premise that 'art' means something like a painting, or other accepted form. Sure, you can make a pretty picture with a computer, but is a 2D image really the computer's native medium?
I suppose you could argue it's one of them; certainly, you can create photorealistic images on your monitor, print them out with varying degrees of quality, and have been able to do so for quite some time. But what about 3D modeling, or hypertext fiction, or website design, or game programming? I think most people would agree that a virus detection program isn't an artistic expression, but so many other forms that computers make possible are far less clear.
I think if you want to talk about 'computer art,' 2D images are really just the legacy of a transition to much more 'different' media. I myself love to do 2D work on the computer, mostly with photo manipulations, and I see no reason this form couldn't become accepted. But I don't think these kinds of products are what people will look as the computer art of this era; I think they'll be looking at the more sophisticated hybrid forms, like entertainment software (and perhaps the 'artwork' within it), animation, etc.
The issue isn't that 2D computer-mediated art is too far from convention to be accepted. It's too close!
-Bako Bitz
I'm an artist. My art is software design and implementation. You have no idea how giddy and proud I get when I write some great code... :)
Once again, we are challenged with the defining what art is. Not all that long ago, Photography wasn't considered art; and as a result of trying to get it defined as art, the photographers tried to make their photos look more like paintings. Do I see this happening to Digital Photos and Digital Art? The quick answer is no. I think we all can see that it does take skill to pack a great picture into that 32x32 grid for an icon. It takes just as much skill and insight as a photograph, just you get an undo button.
(Apple thinks different, creates the iMac)
Yahoo Finance--
Company: Apple
(Apple thinks different, creates the iMac)
Yahoo Finance--
Company: Apple
Surprise: 100%
What is considered fine art is decided by big wigs who decide what should be considered "fine art." It has absolutely NOTHING TO DO WITH QUALITY. Lemme say that again.. NOTHING. Look up Jackson Pollock. "The Great American Artist." Yeah, right. Some fine art is very good quality (IMO, of course) and has taken enourmous skill. I wouldn't spend one minute trying to convince someone computer art is "fine art." Personally some of my favorite art is those old amiga/PC demos (i.e. Future Crew). Then there is the old BBS art.. ANSI/ASCII and the like. Most people don't have a clue it existed.
Dijkstra Considered Dead
Computer art will not be regarded as such until several generations have passed and the field is not so new. Traditional artists have a hard time with computer art because the field is not yet codified - there are no breakdowns of style and influence and no clear terms by which to dissect the material at hand. The same applies in just about every field of endeavor. Literature was not "literature" until somebody sat down and made a serious study of existing writings and began to codify the rules of the medium. That is not to say that these rules always have been followed (most great artists make new rules by breaking old ones). It's a young field, so don't get discouraged, but don't expect any reward in this lifetime either. Don't get too upset about being called a Graphic Designer or Graphic Artist, either. Usually, that means you get paid for your work as opposed to someone who just does art on a computer for it's own sake. At least in that manner, you won't starve.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
When I was traveling through Australia last summer I ran across a display of very impressive computer rendered art in Brisbane. Art is a reflection of society; computers are now a major part of that society. I just have to say don't be discouraged by what the credits say. Remember, it took a long time for that past two major changes in visual art to be excepted as such
Thanks for bringing up a subject which I struggle with constantly. I'm getting a cs degree concurrently with a fine arts degree, so I feel ya. It's great to see so many people out there supporting technological art. Check out: http://www.f2fmedia.net for some artists who are pushing the envelope.
I think the notion that certain things are "art" and certain things are not "art" is rediculous. Let me explain... To some, gardening is art. Some people are absolutely addicted to the art of gardening and spend their entire lives doing nothing else. But Joe Blow off the street, or really anybody from a city IMHO, doesn't give a flying fsck about gardening as an art form. But it is. Gardening is an art, no different than sculpture, photography, glassblowing, acting, or mad photoshop skills. All of these require different skills, all require an incredible amount of time to master, and all can, under the right circumstances, evoke emotion in the viewer. But just because photoshop has only been around from the last decade, using it to make great pieces suddenly isn't art? BULLSHIT. So maybe the critics are behind the times. I'd certainly believe that. Most artist's work is never truly recognized until they're dead anyways. My history teacher in high school happened to be addicted to collecting art. Every spare penny he had went to increasing his collection. He had to move into a bigger (albeit still one bedroom) apartment just to hold it all. When a good friend of his died he left him his entire body of work, almost 2,000 paintings. At the time, it was worth nothing... Now the collection is valued at a few million dollars. Needless to say, he no longer needs to rely on his teaching salary. So (and I'm getting to the point of the anecdote here) maybe it isn't important what critics think right now. Maybe you won't be able to make any money off your wacom tablet inspired doodles over the course of your lifetime. But who knows, 50 or even 100 years from now it might be the "next big thing". Art is fickle, and you can't always count on it for income. But if you're making great art, independent of what its worth or what critics think, you'll always be doing something amazing, and certainly nothing can change that.
i have spent a lot of time in both design (went to school for architecture) and cg as well. when i first started getting interested in cg i found myself naturally pulled towards computer science, and then learned how to code. in the end i found that i could create things that i (as well as others) perceived as art.
i think what it boils down to is this: if you have an innate talent for design/artistic expression, then the tools should not matter. if people cannot see past the medium you choose for your own expression, then they are mapping their own personal biases onto your work. whetere you choose to help them work through it or not is up to you, but i found this is often harder than soliciting other criticisms.
if nothing else, check out the book 'Maeda & Media'. john maeda is probably the most extreme blend of mit hacker with classical art training, and his book sheds light on the difficulties and the rewards of working digitally.
Does anyone else feel like they've been magically transported to 1983?!? Having been involved in computer art (both fine art and graphic design) I thought this discussion had been wrapped up years before Mondo 2000 and Wired rediscovered it in the mid-90s! The answer to this man is simple - yes, computer art is generally considered by most professionals as fine art. Some academics who got trapped in the same time warp that got Marshal, Will and Holly in "Land of the Lost" might argue - vehemently - that computer generated art is not fine art, but that certainly doesn't make them right. However, since the acceptance of computer generated art is fairly universal at this point (I live in LA and see computer generated work right next to work done in traditional media all the time) I would suggest that those telling you that your work is design may in fact be correct. Logical distinctions have already been outlined by many posters so I won't go down that road. I will give you this as a reference point: look up Toulouse Lautrec and compare his work to yours. His work has been accepted as graphic design for years. Yes, he's been in fine art manuals for most of this century, but he's held in high regard as a graphic designer. What about his work, in terms of function, style, materials used, etc. are similar or dissimilar to your own work. Be honest. Find other artsists and go through this same exercise. As you begin to work through art history, you'll begin to understand your own work and see how it fits in with the whole of it. At some point in this process you'll find your own voice and distinctions, schools, media, etc. will either no longer matter or become the reason for your work. That's when you'll know if your work is fine art or graphic design. ego.093
Andy Warhol once said(paraphrase possible due to questionable memory):
"Art is short for Artist"basically, I agree with what many, many others have posted previously; It's art if you think it's art.
if you are bent on convicing 'them' that what you do is art, then do something outrageous. There's lots of 'art' in museums that doesn't 'feel' like art to me, but were outrageous and made a statement about art itself; somebody painted a black square on a black canvas; not difficult, but it flaunted the whole "what actors do we see in the frame here? and how do they relate to each other?" elitist-psuedo-intellectual-let's-pretend-we- can-get-in-the-artists-head mode.
on the other hand, there's alwys the 'aesthetic' aspect - some 'designs' i consider art because it/they have an aesthetic quality(or anti-aesthetic) that conveys more than just the amount of time/work/effort/etc, it goes beyond utility, etc.
anyway, follow your muse and be happy you're an artist, the stuffy folk hate creative types and we all know how much more fun it is to be creative.
"That's as white as it gets; all the bits are on..."
Before I start, let me say I'm a little biased. I'm in my last year in the Computer Arts: New Media department at the Academy of Art College.
It's not that computers can't make as much of a visual impact or show the expression or emotion of older media. After all, look at communicative art in magazines, on billboards, or on TV. The most popular media have already chosen the computer.
The problem is that in fine art circles it's all about quantification. Digital art can be reproduced infinatly without any loss, so it will never, ever be as valuable as a Picasso. And if the art itself is not valuable it doesn't fit into the art gallery and patrons model used to sell most fine art. No one will pay for it.
The only way to make money as a digital artist or graphic designer is on comission, and that means ads, layout, and generally selling stuff. Less room for that free expression.
I say that the computer is definitly a tool for art, probably the most versatile. But you probably won't see computer artists producing fine art type pieces any time soon unless your paintings start coming with licencing agreements =)
GPL that Worhol!
the shining is kubrick's worst film by far, and aronofsky's a fucking hack.
technical skill does not make an artist.
is reading what you people have to say about art.
After fighting my way through design school trying to argue with old-school profs who felt that CAD was a watering down of design, it is just as frustrating to hear comments about the non-art status of computer generated art. When it comes to art and design (the two of which are fairly finely intertwined), the computer should be seen merely as a tool. It does not make you a better artist or architect or illustrator or graphic designer. The bad name that has come from computers in the art and design fields is from those attempted artists and designers who were bad artists and designers before they touched a mouse or tablet. I could blab for hours on this. If i had to guess, it was some pointy headed academics who made these comments. Remember - those who can, do. Those who can't teach. We criticize that which we can't understand or do. signed, just another computer artist who isn't producing art, vizualizr
anything i tell you will cloud your opinion.
Try to define art. Now try to define computer art. What's the difference? In my mind, art = art, and it doesn't matter what the "object" that was used to create the art. Sculpture, painting, computer screen, printout, file, etc. Whatever. I have family from Arkansas, and the family we have that live there are technology limited due to lower availability of computers. So the fact that "computer art" is not taken seriously where computers are higher priced, or more rare, does not surprise me. In addition, it always takes time for "human culture" to come up to speed with technology - or vice versa. I think your thoughts and feelings are correct that something is wrong with being told that your computer artwork is not artwork. Keep doing what you enjoy and believe in. - Chris
I have always considered them to be a fine art myself. To me, saying computer graphics are not an art form is like saying a poem is not art because it is printed in a book and not hand written on parchment.
e =artwork
I've actually put some of mine up on the internet listed as an art.
http://esolart.com/users/elfire_sol/index.php?pag
And to any critic who thinks creating images on a computer is any less difficult than creating images with paint, you pick up a mouse and draw a face with it.
-Elfire
your situation is hinged on this idea that you have created art and everybody is keeping you down just because you are using a computer? The computer is irrelevant, it's just this big, dumb, expensive pencil. Of course fine art can be created on a computer. What is in question here is the value of the specific piece and your terms and conditions.
My primary definition of Art is: any original manifestion by a sentient being which was intended to at least be a candidate for aesthetic valuation.
the valuation being the real topic.
For instance how strong and fully so is your creation considered Art? Seeing how many things created by humans are art, ask your self what makes one even more so? Pleasurable Aesthetics? Expressiveness? Excellence of Technique? Originality? Meaning? Clarity of Aim?
I believe all of these can add to it.
How did your piece take these aspects into consideration? Where along the vast spectrum of creation does it fall? As you can see, this is more than just an on-off, win-lose judgement of: this is art - this is not. This is a matter of realizing the subtle gradation of RICHNESS in all its facets and becoming more able to symbolize this in a work.
imo digital art is a completely legitimate art form. from image manipulation by well respected photographers who have embraced new technology to enable them to do what would be impossible in the dark room, to more cutting edge digital pieces created by young artists, it covers a wide area. but if it's good, it's good. there is no point in gettiing into the whole "what is art?" argument. i'm from bristol, in south west england, and here there is a whole digital art community. the university of the west of england, which is based in bristol, runs a time based media/digital course, and the use of new media technology is expected and encouraged. we have two arts/media centres which exhibit a diverse range of digital art so, it obviously depends where you go. it is "proper" art, it just depends on whether it's any good or not.
The Whitney Museum of Art recently had a well-received display of digital art.
Since about 1650 (Montaigne)it has been generally accepted that academics are afraid of anything new. In fact, their job is to preserve our past. The ones mentioned by wduffee are no different. Computers were not advanced by academics, only used by them after they were proven to be useful. The same goes for the academic art departments. Although I personally am not a great fan of movies, there have been some good computer graphics in them (certainly the movie buffs in those art departments will like that form of computer graphics, if not today, then tomorrow).
I don't understand why people equate the quality of something with the media on which it is produced. I had the same problem when I was making video art in the late '80's -- now it is taken very seriously. Before that, people said film couldn't be fine art. Before that, they said photogrpahy couldn't be fine art. People need to get their heads out of their asses.
The trouble is that you are trying to join a club whose membership is subjective.
The definition of "fine art" is in the head of the beholder.
As far as art galleries go, "fine art" typically means art that has been produced using traditional, classical media. That means that they will never let new art media enter the club. Photography is still not truly considered "fine art", though it is shown in some, but not all art galleries.
Don't let it get you down. There are increasingly more galleries in larger cities that are beginning to have purely digital showings. Just get your stuff out there. People who want to see its merit will certianly do so.
"Follow your Bliss." -- Joseph Campbell
CG is in no way a fine art!, photoshop, maya, hell, microsoft paint if you use it, nothing you make can be a fine art for one simple reason. there is no such thing as fine art. I am a DA major w/ a CS minor, and my DA dept was very fine art centered. it was a rather unique program in this way, but instead of making me see what a wonderfull thing art was it made me realize that art is dumb and artists for the most part are dumb. have you ever noticed that most modern art looks like splatter painting by a two year old, that the famous artists or the 20th century don't hold a candle to the renisance artists? fine art is a fictional world, a bubble created by those people that claim to be artists. it is an entire world with nothing that supports it but hype and the littlest amout of effort and talent possible. it is a group of people puffing themselves up to others of their kind and selling peices amongst themselves in a little self contained non-productive community, but at least some of them actually paint w/ a brush. the crap i have seen people make in photoshop... ooooo! five filters, hey its art! i have seen it hanging on the walls of galleries and its sickening! like seeing a giant blank canvas with a smudge in the middle... the patrons will discuss the meaning of it while the artist is in the back, drunk or stoned, the state he made the thing in, and then he will come out and feed them some line of bull and they think he is brilliant. i know thats how it works, because i convinced people that a line i made in photoshop, yes thats all it was, a long line 1 pixel high and the photoshop max length long was art! so any of you who want to think things are fine art, know that you are the worst kind of evil, and to those of you who make CG for moves and photoshop images for the web and or page maker layouts, know that you are really doing something. something that makes a difference in real peoples lives, not just some phoney rich guy who doesn't know better.
:)
those who can, do. those who can't are artists.
in truth everything that man makes should be considered art. hey some guy designed the way tyour PDA looks, and that was a matter of creativity, and thus art, but to make the division that there is high and low art is what ruins it all and what degrades talented people. but remember, high art is just a manifestation of a bunch of lame people who think and want to be better than you, because they put the lable artist on themselves. everytone is an artist in their trade, but least of all are those who hang pictures in galleries.
sorry about any above spelling errors...
i spilled coke in my keyboards an sometimes it sticks.
PS there are a few secrets to art i will pass on to all now, in case you want to make a livving ripping off the rich in the name of art.
1) it helps to be gay/lesbian (lesbian/PMS art is almost all black and white photography by women, i had to live w/ a DA dept that kept letting all the girls forgo using computers for brining in the latest photo image of a shoe or girl covered in red paint oooo... i wonder what that represents)
2) art is something tangable, peopel need to be able to buy it and put it in their house. remember, fine art is expensive, thats what makes it fine.
3) the more stoned you sound, or the more drugs you actually use, the more brilliant you are as an artist (this is a working and historical fact) the merit of art is inversly proportional to number of brain cells the artist maintains.
I completely believe that computer generated graphics are an art form. When an artist is designing a painting, they must include many important fixtures such as lighting, shadowing, blending, etc.
The same applies for computer-generated graphics. Now, I'm not talking about simple graphics intended for web-development purposes. I'm talking about graphics that are intended to be artistic, rather than buttons, headers, etc (anything that can be applied to a typical web site and layout).
One exception to this rule is possibly Eyeball Design. Check that web site out and it will make you appreciate computer-generated graphics and fully accept them as an art form.
While I respect an artist's ability to create works by hand, computers are going to play a significant role in the technological development of art forms, especially graphical design. It's time to gain some respect for designers because they work just as hard as any freehand artist could ever. It's the same exact modeling techniques but, given the abilities of computers, some automation occurrs. Just because the designer doesn't have to create every single pixel by hand, doesn't mean he/she isn't an artist.