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?"
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!
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.
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).
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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
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.
...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 take pictures nude pictures of myself and then use photoshop to digitally "enhance" my penis. Is this considered "art".
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.
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."
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
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.