[AliasMoze]

I think the thing that keeps people from seeing digital art as an artform is the lack of any standard format. In painting, you have the painting [on canvas]. In writing, the novel or play or poem. In music, the symphony or song. In cinema, the movie. In digital, what do we have? A psd? A JPG? So a standard way of viewing and/or collecting the form may be necessary for the public to regard the form as art.

And that overall public view IS the difference. Whether something is art is purely perceptual.

Notice the influx of memes onto the web. If you can't get a massive amount for people on board with your new form, then others won't be able to compare and evaluate one work compared to another [in the same medium]. I think we know it instinctively, and that instict is the reason we turn every new thing into a club or artform. What, for instance, is performance art? It's an anything-goes, unstructured performance, the theatrical equivalent of free-verse poetry. But those who do it need the label, because without it, they're just people doing weird stuff in front of an audience.

[IDrawGirls]

But the public says: this is not art when I'd say I don't like this particular piece.

Why should people who don't know anything about art define what art is?
Personally I think something is a piece of art when the creator intended to create a piece of art.
Even if it is bad it is still art.

It gets more complicated when it comes to found art or stuff like that though.
Photoshop is not art because it was created as a tool.
But all this is just my humble opinion of course.

[gekitsu]

well, i'm a bit ambigous about the term "digital art", as it implies several kinds of art, one of them being digital.

i know a bit to say about digital painting, though.
the computer as a painting medium is just as valuable as acrylics, oils, pastels, mud or pizza.
speaking of "imitation" of traditional art seems a bit off to me, too. do you find that acrylic painting is an imitation of oil painting, just because they both share similarities? (they're both methods of painting after all)
i'd say that everything called painting share those issues, aside a few physical/technical limitations.

just as every medium, the computer has its drawbacks and advatages. huge advantage is that you can rework endlessly. you don't have to clean your studio and tools.
your gamut of color is a lot larger that everything you could achieve with traditional paint (your primary viewing device, a monitor, actively emits light, while a painting only reflects light).
drawback is that you dont have a tangible original painting but mere 1s and 0s on some storage medium.

besides a few technical differences, it's basically the same as every other kind of painting. to not make things too complicated (photoshop painting, painter painting, opencanvas painting etcetera...) its just more convenient to call it digital painting. youdont call your oil painting a ozog painting, old hollandse painting or blockx painting, according to the brand of paint you used.

[Drew]

The computer is just a tool. Being able to save versions and use the "undo" function is the main reason to use it. Seriously. If you don't think that that's enough of a reason for the computer to be considered revolutionary to art, then you either paint perfectly or not at all.

[Les Watters]

As far as the computer being helpful, I say YES!

As far a the quality of the work that is totally digital I say NO!

I am an inker. Storyboards mostly. The quality of line that the computer offers, does not compaire to that of the brush. The lines on the computer are jaged, the Wacom tablet is clunky and you don't have the control you need.

now for corrections, and color, the computer is great.

I think that you all are getting close to having to define ART. I have read some of the other "discussions" and I don't think this group of people can settle on a definition.

Programming language as art? only to the programmer. Code is behind the scene and is not supose to be seen by the user. Technical manuals as art? No they are tech manuals. There is a differance. And untill you settle on a definition, you will never know the differance.

Wait for one hundred years. Well thats nice, but what about Art right now. Are we going to let people a hundred years from now tell us what we thought art was?
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When in doubt, black it out.

Wally Wood

[Les Watters]

Not to start a yelling match but isn't this what you guys are needing to figure out?

Are theses some of the questions that need to be answered?

If I'm wrong sorry.

I found this on one of the old "What is Art" discussions.

Probably the most disturbing phenomenon in the art of the current century, a result of the dislocation in the dualism of art and science, is the profound pervasive indifference of the whole contemporary generation of artists to formulate a clear cut definition of art itself. The obscuantism, the evasive arguments and denials, the lack of any direct, forthright statement, is evidence of a deep going crisis in art.

The state of art today is such that it can now be performed by tyros and amateurs with virtually no study, preperation, or training. In galleries and exhibitions, the amature esthete can now compete on equal terms with the seasoned, knowledgeable master with such facility that hardly anyone, frequently not even art connoisseurs and critics, can tell good art from bad art, amateure art from professional art.

When the quest for brevity and simplicity has been reduced to infintile primitvism, we have lost the validity of concepts; when the creative urge to reveal life has been distorted into a wayward surge of undirected energy, we have lost control of direction and experimentation; when the search for clarity and order has been diverted to piecing out the meaningless jargon of amateur misbehavior, we have lost our artistic heritage; when definitions, standards, and criteria has been seduced by vacuous emotional mumblings, we have seen the perversion of the philosophy of art and aethetics. When the artist has surrendered his status , his authority, his principles, his professionalism, then the amature has taken over and the jungle is upon us.

The answer to the problem.

The re-establishment of self control in the artist and the social respect for art devolves on creating again a new dualisum of art and science in the twentieth century. The obscure terminology must be claified and attached to commonly-shared associations; personal values must be defined according to generalized experience; the personal subjective purpose must be widened to embrace the broader social goal.

The goal.

To be "art" it should be made responsible for communication of its ideas and concepts; it should reflect the life and times of the artist, his integrity, his ethics, his democratic ideals in the progress of man; it should show his developed skill and judgment in projecting significant, expressive form; it should reveal invention and originality in transmitting the aesthetic experience; and, above all, it should arise out of the environment, the social-human-scientific culture base as the controlling factor in its creation.

Burne hogarth 1957
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When in doubt, black it out.

Wally Wood

[Meaty Ogre]

spooge demon wrote:

Most (almost all) on these forums are really illustrators.

Oh shit. Haha

*wacom pilots all over the world begin to weep*

[Reuss]

Im well aware of the fact that i need to define art before i can define digital art.

That being said ...and relating to what was just said above - the definition of art today has absolutely nothing to do with the ideals Burne hogarth is presenting. Im afraid that the definition of art today has to do with elitism... or selection or whatever you want to call it. After all who is gonna judge the art by the above critiria? It can never be anything but a subjective judgement. So how does one define what is art and what is not. The answer is: One does not! Its done for you! The question of what is art is a question of who gets selected by those who judge. It by no means a democratic process (if it should be is another question) - its all a matter of having the right person / institution brand you with the term ART!

Drew.. i sorry but that sounds sorta silly in my ears... i DO paint..and furthermore.. i also do stuff on the computer.. using photoshop and what have we. So what you are saying is that its all a matter of reaching perfection?! And the computer gives you the opportunity to reach that? And how do you define perfect?!

That you can save versions, undo and what have we isnt really a revolution to me. Its a help yes...its a great tool yes. But just what revolutionary signicance has it had on art? Has art really evolved to such an extend since the invention of the computer that you can speak of a revolution.

I agree that the computer is the media of a revolution.. the revolution is the fact that the computer can contain the normally physically bound architecture of all other media and tools in a symbolical and editable form. The revolution is that the tool, the media, the color, the paper ...the text...whatever is ALL symbolically defined by the same alphabet...but what does that have to do with art?

[Les Watters]

What does it have to do with art?

Exactly. Paint, brushes, canvase, has nothing to do with art. Art is independant of the medium. Once one understands that then one can start to actually create art.

Look anyone can go into a store and buy a computer, and put Photoshop, or Freehand on it. But that does not the artist make.

They just own the tools. right?
_________________
When in doubt, black it out.

Wally Wood

[Impaler]

This sort of hifalutin definition of art as a concrete abstract always makes me giggle. Like, being artist is the same as being some intuitive Buddhist Jedi who can conjure the pure essence of "art" by stripping himself of the physicaly limitations of the medium, or some shit like that.

First off, you (reuss) are getting caught up in that whole late-90's fad of DIGITAL STUFF IS BETTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE EVER. Therein lies your problem. Digital art isn't supposed to be revolutionary, or anything like that. It's just a tool that lies in the hands of the illustrator. Guess what? The reason that all digital illustration is "derivative" is because the same techniques that are used in making a fancy oil painting go into a digital painting. Thus, your statement that digital illustration is just a base imitation is invalid. It's analogous to saying that charcoal is just a poor copy of graphite, or of pastels.

However, give software and the artists 10 years. You have to realize that Photoshop has been around only for that long, and most of the digital illustrators you see around today began using it much later than that. It's a brand new medium, so don't expect incredible new radical things to suddenly appear.

Case in point, the internet. It's been around for 40 years, but it's only been truly accessible once you didn't have to have some unix variant to log on, which was around 1990. If you look at it now, it's a completely different .. world than the old text-based ugliness that was Compuserve.
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QED, sort of.

[Mikko K]

Uh, that Hogarth quote made me want to quote mr. Spooge from a previous thread.

Spooge Demon

[IDrawGirls]

I think Reuss doesn't mean drawings done with a wacom when he talks about digital art.
Imagine there's a landscape by an artist and you can move around in it.
A tool for something like that could be invented I guess.
Maybe there'll be a tool ... but it won't be created for artists!
Maybe for the military!? Or for the entertainment industry?

Just as a tool for artists it wouldn't be worth it.
How many people would want to see the landscape?
How much would they pay to see it?
But I see potential there and I get the question why digital doesn't seem to develop in that direction.
Maybe it does? I don't know.

So digital art (with art as in fine art) these days would be a randomly created pattern (or something like that) rather than a painting IMHO.

[Reuss]

uhm first of all.. i do NOT think that 'DIGITAL STUFF IS BETTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE EVER' hehehehe... in fact im higly critical about 'digital stuff'... and im at the brim as going so far as to saying that digital art does not exist at all......and the fact that anybody with a computer and a cracked version of photoshop can now call themselves digital artists doesnt really help.......

Im not trying to put down the things created with phtoshop or what have we... the things that are imitations of what we have done with other tools before.

Im merely trying to ask the question: Does the fact that it was made on a computer really make it digital art? And to do that ill have to define digital art.... and even art itself. And here i am - wanting to hear what you all have to say about it.

Im just wondering why the computer.. being all it is....hasnt lead to new artforms? Why do we limit ourselves to using the features of already existant tools that the computer can hold. Why not use the tools that ONLY exist in the computer and that cannot be created as mechanical, physical beings? Thats something id consider in defining the concept of digital art.

And Signature.. im not really talking about drawings. Im talking about representations that can only be created by digital tools and can only exist in a digital environment. And What you describe already exists! I my self have been part of a group that created a virtual landscape containing intelligent animals moving aound and reacting to your presence. The military already uses VR to train certain people. The question now is how to make it REAL... what variables makes the user FEEL that he is in that place.. even if hat place is unlike any other place that exists on earth....

Where i study.. if you where an artist and you had some really goodideas as to use the tools we have here... you could work together with some of the scientists here to create it... its been done before. Of course that technology is very expensive..and whas not developed for the purpose of art....

None the less i believe its very important - not only for research reasons, to let artists use that technology..............

[Drew]

I don't see how this is any different than asking "What is ART?". As such, my answer is the same. "I don't care" and, perhaps more to the point, "It doesn't matter." Once we define art, then what? Have we improved art? Have we actually found out anything that we can use? Or have we just created walls that are bound to be knocked down? By defining art, the only thing that we ensure is that someone will come along and break our definition. That's what artists have always done.

Why isn't digital art any different? Because it's just a tool. Artistic advances don't come from tools, they come from people. Sure, some tools are better for certain jobs than others, but whether you're creating a portrait with sand or oil paint, it's still just a portrait. Whether you're using clay or Maya, you're still making sculpture. All tools have strengths and weaknesses and computers are no different. Though computers may allow us to do things that may not have been possible before, they are only a tool that allows us to use our imagination to create something that we enjoy.

I think that you need to either narrow your search, or totally rethink what you want from this. Any answer to your question is, in my opinion, just waiting to be disproven. Good luck.

[AliasMoze]

Exactly. Art is not an invention. It's an observation. Defining it doesn't change a thing.

[Reuss]

As for narrowing donw my search... right now im just putting the questions out there... as i said im not even doing this project until next year... narrowing it all down will be a part of the general process once it starts......

i dont expect defining (digital) art will change anything at all really. But if you work with philosophy, theories and what have we in the academic world - you need to have definitions of terms in order to be able to work with them scientifically...

As far as if defining art helps us to improve art or whatever..no - and thats not even the point. Most theories are actually pretty useless when it comes to a pragmatic level hahahahahaha - but they do proveide us with a tool to understand the world.

Artistic advantages dont come from tools? oh please haha.. sure they do. After all some of the people here argue that the computer IS an advantage.....Dont you think that the old masters that painted photographically correct used certain tools to achieve things that they would never be able to achieve without that tool?! Some woked without those tools... but a lot of them used all sorts of contraptions that gave them that extra advantage... and tools - wether directly connected to art or not have always had a significance upon the creation of art... take the invention of the camera for instance. Didnt that do something to painting and drawing?!
I get that inspiration and talent and so on is a human thing...that no tool can substitute... and i get the whole being not doing...'im a fucking work of art' and so on.... but of course having certain tools will give you certain advantages - and support your talent or whatever u wanna call it.

[Wayne Johnson]

Hey, Make a stand, and come up with a definition. If you don't you'll never know when you got there.
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Art is long and time is fleeting.

Andrew loomis

[Reuss]

i will come up with a definition.. eventually... ill probably spend half of next year coming up wiht it. Ill have to write a 60 page paper.. and (defining) digital art is going to be the subject......

[eyewoo]

I haven't read the whole thread, so this point might have already been made.

I don't think the question is - "Is digital art?" Instead, the question should be, "Are computers and computer software vaild tools for creating art?" From looking at my digital art, it's pretty clear my answer would be yes! Virtually anything can become a tool for creating art... and has...
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[cheney]

Why you guys consider that the thread is futile. Secondly consider that a computer is ultimately nothing more than a math compiler. So everything on a computer is algorhythm. This means filters and brush strokes are the same to the computer. If the result of the two are indistinguishable then who is to say its not a cheated oil painting or a cheated monotone lithograph.

I view digital art as entirely cheating or entirely valid. I don't believe there is any middle ground at all. Like all other art is really all about how the painter markets his shit and how gullible the artist's customers are. Popularity of art has never been much more than a case of that old fable, The Emperor's Clothes.
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[Wayne Johnson]

As an artist you need to know what you are trying to say. You need to know from what foundation you will build upon. Once you decide on that foundation, Like the big modern BOMBSHELLS of Abstract Expressionism "We draw from the collective unconscious." then you can move forward with your art. No matter what your skill level is you have direction and purpose, even if your direction and purpose is chaos. DaDa for instance was concerned with chance and reflected a belief that the entire universe was created by Chance+time. They went so far as to randomly picking the name for their movement out of a French Dictionary, DaDa means toy rocking horse. It is the basic philosophical thought that drives an art movement. It is the idea of the "Noble Savage" or the Idea of an artist run society, like Van Gogh wanted, Random Chance like performing artist John Cage, or Collective Unconscious like Good old Pollack. If you move backward in time you see two different thoughts, one of Humanism from the Renaissance, and one of true Christian faith from the Reformation. The art movements had a meaning behind them that was driven by the philosophical thought of their time. Up until about 1890 most of the world still held on to reason, and absolutes, this thought changed and gave way to our modern art movements, that are created and then someone comes along and recreates with a new idea effectively erasing the old idea. So on and so forth. I believe TRUE ART can be defined. With out a definition then there is no art. Taste is another matter however. But you don't have to like it to be ART. Example, A Clockwork Orange, is a brilliant made film. I can't denie that it was expertly crafted, but the IDEA that the movie embraces is not an IDEA that I agree with or wish to support. Does it make it less than ART? No. It does however promote ideas that are not healthy. I want you all to understand that I do not wish to push my personnel definition of art on you. But I want you all to at least have some foundation to argue your point off if your painting is art or not. The most radical Nihilistic, atheistic thinkers of our time defined their art. So should we.
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Art is long and time is fleeting.

Andrew loomis

[Jezebel]

[Drew]

[cheney]

[Drew]

[cheney]

That is not an entirely valid responce. Imagine trying to shoot a gun with only a bullet. Its illogical, but parallel to your arguement. A person could throw a bullet to project it without benefit of a tool (such as a gun). A person could also build a building as tall as the building I mentioned and merely hope it does not blow over.

Tools and testing make all the difference since we don't live long enough to test everything through trial and error. As a result tools enable the advancement of human creativity.

Consider that in 3000 years of history our methods of construction have advanced very little, but our tools for making such buildings have advanced greatly.
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[Drunken Monkey]

How long have the artists been developing methods and systems using traditional media? And how long have they been doing this using digital media? As it is right now the digital for the large part mimics the traditional. There is healthy balance of both in order to learn those immortal independent principles that have been developed over centuries.

All this fanaticism leads to a creative halt at some point. Stop being so fanatical.
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[Starfish10]

Hi,

I'm a brand new forum member.

I think the status of digital art is very similar to the old question of whether or not photography is an artform. This has been debated endlessly for years. I think the answer to that is, it depends. In the hands of a photographic artist, it's art; in the hands of someone else, it either isn't or it's a happy accident.

I also think that it's obvious that the medium influences the result. How, for example, could a person do time lapse photography without a camera?

Some of the posts seem to question whether anything is being done in digital art that cannot be done with traditional materials. In other words, is it "new?" I think there is a great deal that can be done digitally, and only digitally. For example, I recently did a portrait (digitally, BTW) which I then composited with one of my fractals. I don't see how that could have been done using traditional methods, if for no other reason than the fractal would have been impossible to do without a computer.

Sharon

[cheney]

Tradition media? You guys act like there is no technology or developement in traditional media. Oils were a technological developement to ease painting over the limitations of fresco. Egg tempra was designed for the same reasons over oils. Then Mexican artists invented acrylic paints. While all this was developing there were massive innovations in print making. Prink making is a traditional media afterall.
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[evanm]

excellently stated spooge. Ruess, i think this is an awesome discussion, the closest thing to depth this place has to offer. as for me i will always prefer a brush and a can of terpentine than to a computer. but when one looks at craig mullins' art you can't deny its power.

oh well
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