Wednesday, January 16, 2013

christiane paul reading response


INTRODUCTION:

Christiane Paul discusses both the shifting terms used to describe digital or computer-based art and the implications of it as a new "type" of art -- after all, digital painting and even 3D modeling rely on age old techniques and standards. She defines digital art as "art that employs [digital technologies] as its very own medium, being produced, stored, and presented exclusively in the digital format and making use of its interactive or participatory features." This definition immediately makes me question whether digitally created art is still "digital" if printed. She introduces the term "bitmapping", which I've never heard defined before, and her claim that digital art was influenced by Dadaism and similar movements is interesting, especially in regards to the ideas of "randomness" and "control". The examples she pulls are mechanical installations and kinetic sculptures -- both of which require a working, controlled technical framework to support conceptual randomness, although I wouldn't say that "control" is a prevailing theme in the Dadaist movement at all, but it did expand the grounds of what can be considered art, and what "readymade" material is acceptable -- if paints, brushes, and canvases are factory made as well as Duchamp's Fountain, then digital art must be accepted similarly despite its reliance on technologies produced elsewhere.

Nam June Paik's "Random Access" was especially intriguing to me, as was the hypertext concept/system "xanadu" which has a remarkably humble (yet cryptic) site. 

It seems funny today that, in 1977, recordings of what were essentially prototypes of mundane webcam interactions were wild enough to be considered art -- though as Duchamp proved, what we regard as cheap or mundane can always be retooled through an artistic lens to great (or greatly critical) effect.

What amuses me about Paul's thinking on the difficulties of exhibiting digital art in real-world public spaces is that, today, physical paintings and drawings have also be converted into digital art, and the vast majority of people will only experience famous paintings in that medium. She acknowledges this inevitable "integration" of internet technology and daily life, as well as its upheaval of "scarcity" as a concept (which, of course, is equally as fraught a topic in film and gaming industries).


CHAPTER 1: Digital Technologies as a Tool

I have a hard time envisioning what a "digital art installation" entails, as digital art -- in my mind -- represents 2D computer paintings or animations, while video games occupy another area of computer generated art. Thus I can only envision a computer program as fitting Paul's concept of "digital art", one which runs with little to no outside interaction. She remarks on the confusion of the concept herself, mentioning art installations that do (or don't) use digital technologies, but seem not to (or to). I can understand "digital" as a new era of art, but not as a category, as more and more digital technologies become more fundamental and integrated into our creative processes. We wouldn't call all work that relies on camera work "camera art", nor all work that uses industrial spray foam "industrial spray foam art".

I had no idea that facial overlaying was even possible in 1982, so Nancy Burson's "Beauty Composite" and Lillian Schwartz' "Mona/Leo" are exciting to learn about. I'm also interested in Annu Palakunnathu Matthew's art, which parodies (Indian) movie posters (I'm taking poster design this semester) with a focus on gender and politics. 

I tried to find Craig Kalpakjian's "Corridor" online, and failed -- his name brings up only ONE result on youtube, which is ridiculous considering his digital and video artwork (which, from the photo, looks impressive for its time). Some of his stuff is currently on exhibit at the Met, which is only more upsetting to learn, because someone should be recording it so I can see it. 

Now I found this Peter Campus movie and it's totally fantastic. I got pretty distracted from the reading.



Anyway, William Latham's fractal art, which Paul describes as based on genetic programming, brings to mind Conway's Game of Life, and the seeming limitlessness of a digital plane in which complex images can grow and reproduce endlessly according to simple code. I love Casey Williams' decision to use a cheap inkjet printer on a professional canvas and Joseph Nechvatal's deliberate degradation of his own art via corruption and remote execution. 

2 comments:

  1. Peter Campus' video is really awesome and visually stimulates the viewer's mind. He really tries to trick the mind with these illusions that he creates and I think he successfully does that. It took me a moment to realize what he was doing in the beginning and the face painting was amazing as well.

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  2. She defines digital art as "art that employs [digital technologies] as its very own medium, being produced, stored, and presented exclusively in the digital format and making use of its interactive or participatory features."

    In regard to your question,
    Is digitally created art still known to be digital if printed?, i would say yes.

    Any art can be described as digital if it was made with any type of digital technology, or if it were printed. A laser jet printer is a type of digital technology. Even if the image was printed through a chemical process such as super sauce, that image is still considered to be a digital image because a digital camera created those colors, or pixels.

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