|| ART / DESIGN ||
.Does it amount to cheating? The ETHICS of Digital Art.
.How I use Composition and Space allocation in my Artworks.
.PLAGIARISM and ART THEFT:: .Future Trends and The End of CG Art. ?? .
|| LIFE ||
.What will be your LEGACY after you die ?.
|| FUTUROLOGY ||
.Why DIGITAL Art ??.
There are artists and there are artists, most of them are comfortable with one particular Medium and persue that to the extent they almost reach perfection. Now, How they come to the conclusion as to what is and what is not suitable enough to be pursued and what they can handle the best to their capabilities is a matter of education, conditioning, comfort level and practicality to the target market. NO medium is inferior to another, its highly subjective. I chose Digital art NOT because its easier (believe me! its not!) or because it gives me more options, but because I feel I can express myself to the best of my capabilities through this medium.
When art critics stand in front of a painting by Salavador Dali, they never debate Dali’s existence as an artist. Perhaps the critics debate his style, his colors, the lack of visible brush strokes in his work, but never his place in history as one of the world’s great artists. The reaction is completely different when you place the same art critics in front of work by David Ho or Dave McKean, two of the most recognized digital artists in the world today. The typical response from many critics regarding art created in digital media is, “That’s not art, it was created on a computer,” thus dismissing it as a piece of art not worthy of further discussion or placement in an art gallery.
The debate of what is art and what is not is as old as the art world itself. I’m sure when Og carefully carved out on his cave wall the imagery from the day’s hunt, he was met with aversion from more than a few cave-persons regarding color accuracy, realism and the age old, “This just sucks,” art critic. The issue now however, revolves around the acceptance of an entire community into the world of art and not just that of one particular artist. Is art created on a computer a viable form of art? Perhaps we need to break the components of the debate down and address the arguments one at a time.
The most common argument seems to be that art is skill based and that computer art requires no learned skill. Perhaps in the beginning of the move to digital flow in publishing and the work place this was true. A secretary down in Texas adds an image of “ready made art” known as “clip art” to a barbecue flyer. Does this make her an artist? No. No more than a teenage girl drawing flowers on the envelope she is sending to her pen-pal in Italy. Neither of the latter cases shows any measurable level of skill in either digital or analog art.
The fact of the matter is digital art does require great skill and knowledge. For a digital artist to create a successful image the artist needs to have an understanding of light and shadow, color theory, volume and blending, the same basic elements an analog artist needs to have to create a successful oil painting, drawing or sculpture. Just as a painter will learn and grow with each painting they create so will a digital artist, thus building their knowledge base.
Creation of prints and what is considered the original in digital art comes into play in this debate. Which is the original, the print from the file or the bytes of information that make up the file? When we look at a painting, is the canvas the original or the paint applied to it? Perhaps that’s splitting hairs but the point I am trying to illustrate (no pun intended) is that it is the sum of the whole that creates a unified piece. In Intaglio printing a metal plate is etched to print from. Is the true piece of art, the etched plate or the print that came from it? Without the combination of the plate, the printing press and the paper does the plate not stand alone as a work of art?
Another argument in the debate on digital printing is that you can continue to create an unlimited number of prints from a graphic file. This simply does not have to be the case. If a digital artist chooses to create a limited edition of his or her prints, once the prints have been completed, the file may be destroyed so it may no longer be used to create prints from. The procedure of disabling plate usage has been practiced for years by fine art printers, once the print edition number has been met, the plate is gouged into with a scribing needle, destroying the ability to use it to print from again.
Also at the heart of the debate is the question of theft and misrepresentation of digital art. In 1996 Hank Buffington won second place in the “Federal Duck Stamp” competition. Each year the United States federal government holds a contest for artists for their artistic renditions of various ducks, the winners then have the honor of having their art on the infamous duck postage stamps. Hank Buffington’s winning entry was created with a digital stylus and tablet in a computer program. The first place winner of the contest argued that Hank’s entry, being created in a digital medium, was not truly art.
The Federal Duck Stamp Office has now added a new rule to the Duck Stamp contest stating that no digital applications may be used in the creation of the entries. The Dick Stamp Committee’s argument being digital art can be stolen much easier than a painting or drawing and they could end up in a copyright battle. This is absurd. For this to be true, the art would need to be accessible to many, for instance on a web site and would have to be in an appropriate resolution for print to be successfully stolen. Because print resolution is much higher than web viewing resolution, the thief would be forced to up-size the image creating a blurry, unusable duplicate. Analog art can easily be stolen as well. I know many high profile analog artists who could duplicate work of lesser-known artists and publish it as their own, so who is not to say that an analog artist could see a duck painting, duplicate it and enter it as the artist’s own work in the Duck Stamp Competition? Yes, it would be an original painting so much as in and of itself it is original but the idea behind it was stolen.
Perhaps the question should be not is digital art truly art, but what is art in its purest sense? Art is an expression of one’s emotions and or reactions to the world they live in. It is different for each and every one of us, as different as the way in which we chose to display it to the world. With that said is digital art truly art? The answer is obvious; yes it is and it is here to stay.
