[SanBase]

I once wanted to participate in the Toronto Art Expo. I prepared the application, provided examples of my work and began to wait for the results. Soon the answer arrived. My claim was rejected without explanation. I thought that my work may not be pleasing to the organizers, but in any case, decided to contact the organizers and request an explanation. The answer discouraged me, it occurs my works were rejected not because of their artistic deficiencies, but because they were DIGITAL. I did ask, "what difference do the technical methods make when an artist creates a picture, is not the final result more important?" The answer was even more strange - �We do not want traditional artists to be offended by the proximity to digital pictures".

Cool! There is a skill obtained in traditional art made by hands (or by other body parts) and there is a skill of the second type, which is not completely a skill, made with the aid of the computer. Proximity to such works is offensive for the real artist.

It is implied that the computer �itself� sketches the picture, and man presses the buttons. And this opinion is very wide spread. I do not know if it is worthwhile to explain that the computer itself generally cannot make anything. It is simply a piece of iron and wires. Everything you see on it's screen is made by PEOPLE. But the further people are from the technology, the more they are convinced that the computer is a thinking machine which works by itself. The only thing it needs is to have the necessary button pushed. The question of who made this button it does not arise. Therefore, if the artist holds in his hand not a pencil but an electronic pen and he draws not on paper but the screen of a computer, then does he no longer art? Or is the work instead initiated and completed by the computer? Is art created by the computer? To me it does not seem worthwhile to comment on the absurdity of this assertion.

Thus, we observe the explicit discrimination of artists using digital technologies by art critics and curators of exhibitions. Moreover, this discrimination is based exclusively on the technique. The quality of the works themselves do not enter into the calculation.

Just in case:
some of my DIGITAL works:


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[a_sh]

Well...
i can se two sides to this.

On the one hand, i agree with the exhibitors that art that have a strong computergenerated feel do not belong in an expo focused on traditional painted (i assume) art. at least for me, such art is all about stroke-placements, value and color choices, how one can hint at complexity with a few expertly placed strokes and so on.

computergenerated art, and by that i mean imagery rendered from 3dmodels, heavily filtered pieces, photomanips etc - or pieces that incorporate lots of such elements, can't really be appreciated on those grounds.

Because of that, I think such art truly have no place in an expo about traditionally painted art.

Not saying your art specifically falls into this category, just that sometime digital art do.

Of course, then there is a huge amount of great digital art that is not like that, and should be more than welcome, so stating like they do, that all digital media is banned is wrong.


The other side that i see of this is this:
There is absolutely a huge difference in tolerance towards a really crappy handpainted canvas compared to an equally crappy digitally filtered mishmash.
The creator of the crappy canvas can somehow always claim artistic superiority and say things like "It's MEANT to be crappy - you are just too stupid to see the grandeur that this masterpiece shine with!!1" and the crowd would pretend they all saw said greatness and rain praise on said creator, whereas the creator of the crappy filtercrap is not even treated as an artist at all, but rather someone who should preferably go home and hide under a rock for the rest of his/her life.

This of course, means that exhibitors are much more hesistant to accept mediocre digital art. After all, it WOULD be offensive to the artsy fartsy elite great painter to have his, merely misunderstod piece, be placed in the same category as the crapfest that the no-life coompuutergeek made with his machinething.
And since the exhibitors might not always be too confident in their ability to judge if a digital piece is good enough to not be booed off stage and offend everybody involved, they might take the easy way out and ban digital media outright.

Again, not saying your art is a stinking crap-fest. I'm just pointing out that since SOME art is, and the reaction to that art is so bad, exhibitors might find it safe to ban all digital art, good and bad.

Excuse the coarse language - it was needed to get the right mood across.
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The horror...

[Ian Jones]

It certainly sounds like clear discrimination, however without knowing the rules of the Toronto Art Expo it s difficult to comment conclusively.

It is shameful that a medium is shunned due to misunderstandings and pathetic pre-conceptions. You should take this up higher with the organisers and ask them to clarify and justify their position further. All you can hope is that change will happen sooner rather than later, and yes it is inevitable.

For now all you can do is continue to promote your art and find better facilitators who are more open to the digital medium.

[Tzan]

Did the Expo rules explicitly state traditional art only?
I can certainly understand if they wanted a traditional only, just like an art exhibit might be digital or cubist traditional only. They can set their own rules. But that quote:

[SanBase]

[Petri.J]

[Naeem]

i will try to defend the expo:
1. with actual paints, you must work hard for craft (this requires years of training to be able to do exactly what you want)
- with digital media, the 'cleanliness' and craft is immediate and a given. You have
utter control everything you do. So, already, YOU are at an advantage.
2. With traditional media, there IS no Image>Adjustments>Levels. There IS no ctrl-z. There is no Hue adjustment. There IS no Color Balance Adjustment. There is no layer that you can delete in an instant. There is no multiple file saving so you can go back whenever you want. There is no instantaneous texturing/photobashing. It all comes from pure thought. That's where stroke economy comes into play. That's where actual discipline and creativity begin to meet.
Why is every digital artist that wants to truly be on the top reccomended that he FORGET digital painting and instead focus on traditional, and the rest will come? Because digital is secondary to traditional.
So, at the end of the day, if my oil painting is judged side by side with a digital painting, I TOO would be deeply offended.

To me, art isn't just about 'expressing' yourself. Today, too many 'abstract' and modern 'artists' are getting away with making money on the stupidity of others. To me, art is as much about discipline, as it is about creativity and expression. The perfection of a painting dictates the seriousness of the artist. It shows how long and hard the artist has trained and worked toward his/her goal.
On the other side, there are too many artists that 'train' too long, and have no creativity. Pretty pictures, but no thought.

Lastly, if you look at my website, almost all the paintings are digital. But I work hard in traditional media, and try to find the best of BOTH worlds. So, I hope you don't think I'm being a fool basing this off of ignorance.
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[SanBase]

The world is changing. Art cannot be divided into "real" and "digital" in the 21st century. Art cannot be separated from life. I understand that critics who were raised on traditional technology simply do not understand how digital art is created. For this type critic, everything they see on the screen is a heartless creation of computer. This question cannot arise in those who are familiar with computer technology. They understand that the computer is only a tool. It can facilitate the mechanical act of working on art, but it cannot replace the artist in creating the art.

If a sculptor creates 30 meter sculptures, he can use workers with pick hammers. It is still the creation of the master artist who designed the sculpture. A lot of work does not mean a high quality of the work. Many forces were spent on mechanical (not creative) process. For what? In the Middle Ages the artists were forced to make paints themselves, now finished paints are bought in the store. Because of this, was the of the work of medieval masters better than contemporary?
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[balistic]

[choboroy]

Naeem was trying to point out the technical skill and understanding required to execute a quality artwork in traditional media and how digital media requires comparatively less of those same skills and knowledge since you can undo any mistakes you make. The final image is important yes, but the better it is, the more people will wonder about the process the artist used to get to the final image. I suppose therefore, half of the admiration people have for artworks comes from their acknowledgment of how much effort the artist has put into it.

If you had two finished images that were exactly the same, except that one was done digitally and the other was done traditionally in let's say watercolour paints, which one would you be more inclined towards? I know that I would rather have the watercolour version because I know how difficult the medium is to master and that the final image had to be executed without making any mistakes. The digital image may have been skilfully executed, but the same kind of care and discipline is not required when the artist can ctrl+alt+z like mad (like me for example).

And with your example of the sculptor; imagine the same situation: two identical 30 meter sculptures, but one was completely made by the artist, while the other was made by 10 labourers. We would immediately be drawn to the one made purely by the artist since we acknowledge how much work he had to put into it.

Of course, that is if the digital and traditional images are of the same quality. This changes if the digital image is compositionally/tonally/etc. superior to its tradional counterpart.

[Naeem]

Balistic> perfectly valid points. Obviously there is no 'cheating'. But, as choboroy pointed out, if someone is a photoshop whore and stitches together photos to create everything, with minimal 'painting', it is not cheating. It is their method. However if someone painted the same thing in oils, you would automatically turn toward the oils. Because, It speaks of the artist's skill and level of mastery.

I was merely arguing the amount of hard work that went into the finished piece. Getting a gradient on a canvas is much harder then using the gradient tool in photoshop.
Neither one makes an artist better. I speak simply of the matter of skill vs. time, and why someone would be offended. On top of it, why your foundations are important.
Now, someone can slave over an oil painting for weeks (and still suck) and then a good digital painter can do a 1 hour speedpainting in photoshop. If the digital is better, I would definitely leap toward the digital.
But, I think I can still argue here that the person who creates a great digital painting can probably do the same in traditional media if given enough time. The fact that they're so good is most likely because they have a strong foundation in traditional media.
All in all, it is the artist that creates the value of the painting. At the end of the day, it's not about how long you spent on the actual painting, but about your creativity, and the painting itself.
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[SanBase]

[Ian Jones]

I think we all love both mediums...

If you look at the progression of technology over time it seems every generation of older artists always has an issue with the younger up and coming (not necessarily in terms of age, I mean metaphorically). Painting in the traditional sense had its own progressions of technology and ease of use and accessibility changed over time. Look for example at the rapid drying times of acrylic and gouache or the revolution in drawing tools, stocks and canvas not to mention the stir that photography caused. I'm sure these things got up peoples noses.

"digital is secondary to traditional"

I don't agree. I think perhaps what I would say in a similar comparison is that neither medium is primary. What is primary is the understanding of form, composition, colour, value, texture, line etc. etc...

The medium chosen can vary. The medium may have inherent qualities which work in synergy with a particular creative expression, but that does not make that medium inherently greater overall.

Balistic is right however, trying to commodotise digital work is much more difficult. So it is a somewhat Utopian point of view, overly idealistic to talk of mediums as irrelevant to the creative expression completely. However I think SanBase is right, the quality of the work cannot be purely represented by the medium, but rather the work itself. This is the key issue.

The exhibition committee has simply failed to respond adequately to this scenario. They don't have a clear policy, and an even worse justification. For people working in a creative and expressive field they sure are rigid and draconian. It is a conflicting mindset.

[choboroy]

Bah, more verbose ranting from me.

SanBase: haha, well obviously, the commercial value of an artwork is a completely different issue from it's aesthetic and emotional value. Reputation and popularity are definitely dominating factors in the art world when we consider the monetary value of an artwork.

What I really am trying to get at is that, if we put things like reputation and popularity aside, all we have is the final artwork and preconceptions (whether right or wrong) about how it was created. Now supposing two different artworks have similar aesthetic value for a viewer (and let that imply that both artists have a similar level of understanding of line, colour, composition and tone), what else is there left to turn to except process?

We haven't reached the stage where we can place digital techniques on the same level as oil painting, especially people who have no clue as to what goes into a digital image, but I think that everyone on this forum can agree that having done both, oil painting definitely takes more discipline, effort and care in order to achieve the same results as they could digitally. That's not to say that one is inherently superior to the other in any way. Digital imaging software is after all just another tool like a pencil or a brush, and requires its own set of technical skills just as painting in oils requires its own set of skills and painting in watercolour requires yet another different set of skills.

As Ian said, the exhibition committee utterly failed to justify there reasons for rejecting your digital images, and I don't think any of us can either.
We're all digital artists here so none of us will have preconceptions that digital is somehow "cheating". In fact, as Ballistic and Naeem said, artists should all know that there is no such thing as "cheating", only different approaches and methods. However, that does not mean that artists are not allowed to feel insecure when someone else achieves something as good as their work in substantially less time and with less training or practice. It also means we are allowed to have preferences for particular media.

[Cicinimo]

I've run in to that kind of bias many times. The solution I maintain is to look for approval from people that understand what you're doing and care about the medium.

In school I really wanted the fine artists I knew to appreciate my illustrations. They rarely did. Even if they found an illustration to be well done, they still had a different set of priorities and there was no lasting appeal. On the other hand, if those same people dropped by sijun to post their work, most of it would hit page 2 with only a polite comment or two. I'm thinking of people that were revered in art school and are finding success in major galleries.

Yeah, its frustrating to have your work ignored or looked down at, but maybe there's a better place for it? Anyone can be victimized if they force their work into the wrong context.
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[med]

I think it is our job as digital artists to start making some huge fancy Digital Art Museums (no traditional mediums permitted). Spread the appreciation. Cicinimo can pay for building the Museums (Congrats on the betrothal btw)

[Cicinimo]

Thanks .

I know you're only kidding, but in college my thinking wasn't far from that. I really wanted digital paintings to be appreciated in the same way I went to museums to admire oil paintings. In the meantime people appreciate what we do when its in video games, novels and movies without any explanation or statement of purpose. That's nothing to sneeze at...compare the number of movie theaters, game shops and book stores to the number of art museums out there.
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[Ian Jones]

Excellent points Cicinimo...

[SanBase]

Hmm... It's Jackson Pollock:


It is a REAL oil paining.

This one is 100% digital:


Which one looks more natural?
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[Nag]

I hate to be harsh but the Pollock one is hundreds of times better.

Have you ever stood infront of a real Pollock painting? What you�re essentialy doing now is take something that was painted with oil on a huge canvas, take a photo of it and display it digitally as a tiny viny image on a computer screen. And then comparing it with something that was created for just that. (the pollock painting is still better here on the screen IMHO)

I remember not understanding what the big fuzz was with Pollock and a lot of expressionism art untill I saw it live in a museum. I had only seen it in books before. It�s a bit like, "aaaahhh ****.. ok now I get it."

I agree with a lot of the points made in this thread. (I�ve been doing mostly digital work myself for some years). But the fact of the matter is that digital art is a very cheap medium compared to traditional mediums.

I�m however always seeing more and more traditional painters opening up towards digital for sketching and learning purposes and it�s a fantastic tool to develop yourself, learn about image building, composition etc etc. But I don�t see how you can ever capture the "realness" of a traditional painting in digital print. Unless you do some mixed medium experiements which could be a fun thing to try out, silk printing etc. I�ve tried developing digital art on photographic paper and it�s decent, much better than normal print IMHO, but it�s nowhere close to a traditional painting. (It�s more like a photograph)

I do agree that it�s way to looked down upon but it�s like that with all new mediums, perhaps digital more than others, but that�s no reason to not use it too our advantage. Learn as much as we can from it, then switch to traditional and kick everybodies ass with the mad skillz we�ve gained
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