Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
Roderick

Death to the digital canvas

Recommended Posts

In my newest, daring rant, I lash out against digital artistry, claiming a few bold things that might get a rise out of you. Read it on Cap'n August (link in sig) and tell me exactly how much you agree or disagree with me. Because this is something that is a big thing for me and I want as many people as possible to read my opinion on it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I agree almost completely. It's a big thing for me in music too. Valve guitar amps, I could rant for ages, Vinyl ladeeda.

But the phrase _digital art_ for me connotates things that can only be done with a computer. There is artistry in making an interactive game, not only in the art direction and stuff, but in the actual interactive mechanics.

It's totally true about the sword of damocles involved in making something with your hands compared to the comfortable womb of temporal control in a digital medium such as photshop or flash.

This relates to the ubiquitous too-easy interface that reduces the general quality of output by allowing people who don't really understand their medium to create within it, and the resultant diffusion of the the concept of Art (capital A important) that inevitably comes.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I know it's a rant and obeys rant rules; but I don't like that digital has to be lambasted just because you like analog now. You can have both.

A problem with analog art is that you only get one (printing and molding excepted), and so it tends towards exhibition or sale.

What's nice about digital is that everyone gets a copy for free, and it's easily applied to all kinds of uses.

In terms of creation, there are simply some things that you can only do digitally, and some things you can only do with real materials, which is obvious enough. People also view the two areas differently, a beautiful oil painting is much more impressive than an identical image made in Painter or whatever. I'm not saying that this is how it should be; it just is.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Interesting rant, one of your best (I always read the blurb underneath Captain August when I check the site).

I find it more impressive when I see a work of art like a painting that has involved taking risks. Also, I guess I find it more satisfying to draw something I'm pleased with on paper in oodles of carefully-applied ink, than I do if it's a digital work, with endless use of CTRL-Z.

But I don't think art should be about how hard something is, or an impressive process. For me, the end result is what matters. Digital can help you achieve certain things that 'analog' can't, and vice versa. I have absolutely nothing against creation in digital media not using 'real' materials, and I don't really stick my nose up at a webcomic drawn with a Wacom tablet or see it as inferior to one scanned from inked drawings just because of that. Often I don't even really think about it. I judge it for what it is, not how it became what it is.

So, I think there's more skill and talent in an artist doing something awesome using predominantly 'analog' materials, because there is less room for error. But as interested as I am in the creative process and what goes on 'behind the scenes', I think it's unfair to judge things based on that process too much. I think people should respect the artistic choices for what they are, and consider the work itself. It's kind of like playing a World War II flight simulator and saying "Well, that wasn't very funny" - that wasn't what it was trying to do.

I guess if you're saying "It fucking shows", then the art and the process are bound up in each other for you. Somehow I don't let it cloud things too much, which isn't a conscious thing.

Now, valve guitar amps, those do matter. :)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I have respect for anything that takes advantage of its own definition of existence, which I often find manifests itself in the imperfections of a piece of art. Such imperfections are almost built in when you, say, paint something by hand. In many cases, it is not so intuitive in the digital world. My favorite digital works are those works that do not simply take advantage of the fact that it's easy to create an approximation of a real-life process in a short amount of time with much less effort.

This ease in which a 'finished product' may be digitally created, connected with the fact that it is already in an easily distributable digital form, may explain why the majority of digital artwork seems to most people to be inferior to non-digital work. Sure, people are drawing horrible things with a paintbrush and a canvas, but these more specialized materials aren't something your average computer nerd is going to have just lying around. To present these online for everybody to see, some form of physical transformation requiring effort must take place.

Bottom line, in the form of some important words: self-imposed constraints, laziness, immediate satisfaction. Therefore SCIENCE

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

As somebody who is fairly proficient at both digital and analogue art I have to say it is totally a moot point. The other day I saw this piece of art by Dan Lee and I couldn't figure out if he painted it all in acrylic or if it was all digital. One can do in oils or acrylic what one can do in Photoshop; one can draw with a mouse as well as one could with a pencil.

Pretty much the only difference is that you have to be more present when you paint with oils and acrylic. You gotta know how wet the canvas is, and dwell extensively on how to mix the pigments to get the exact shade you want. You pretty much have to commit to memory a 3d table of pigment multiplication -- going up to three pigments. Or you can wing it based on some basic interactions. Contrary to popular opinion, you cannot mix every colour out there with only a generic red, blue and yellow. You need at least two of each (I have four reds and three blues in my current pallet of choice) + 3 to 7 earth colours.... Undoing a painting is slightly tedious; practically impossible with acrylics, with oils it boils down to dipping a cloth in turpentine or mineral spirits or liquin and wiping off the worrisome section. It may involve having to repaint something thereabouts... but it is nothing impossible. In the end, the more comfortable with the medium of your choice, the more all this becomes a non issue. I seldom undo things in Photoshop any more (only when the mouse slips off the desk and draws a line across the whole layer), when painting I just cover up the fucked up sections with another layer of paint, and when drawing I use the eraser not as a tool to fix errors, but as a rubbery whip with which to tame the graphite stick beast, never bothered by "accidents".

The link that you provided, Rodi, to the dude who colours shitty fantasy scenes just doesn't count. The dude makes crappy illustrations for fruity paperbacks. And his work is utterly plastic and flat. Matt Rhodes is really good at what he does (his website had gone under, you can do a Google search on the man). I like his work because it retains some freshness of the pencil drawing, and yet is coloured in Photoshop.

And all this voodoo that you may call "craft" doesn't change drastically when we're talking about digital; it helps if you're proficient in the use the paintbrush, the pencil and the dark room when you get into photoshop. Also, digital prints are coming into their own. Just yesterday during the First Friday (a San Antoan gig when all the modern galleries open new shows) I saw this awesome painting -- well it was more a photoshopping than a painting, printed on good paper with a quality printer, then framed -- a bunch of people with twisted and subtly Picassoesque, subtly Bochish features dressed in stage costumes for some Victorian play in this odd room -- the thing was a photography feat as well, utterly beautiful colour to boot. There was nothing inherently inferior about it and nothing would've been gained if that thing were a painting. It would actually look less real.

(Attachments are just for shits and giggles. The painting is awfully photographed as you can see from the reflection of the window which creates this floury sediment on the whole left side and makes the deep purple behind the watering can look wrong.)

post-10-13375602832473_thumb.jpg

post-10-13375602832779_thumb.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'd say you're looking at completely the wrong aspects of digital art, Rodi. I also think you're describing illustration rather than real works of art in the digital medium. Yes, Photoshop and the like can help you get perfect shading, if that's what you're trying to do in the first place. I think of Photoshop as a tool, not a medium. Additionally, there's more to digital art than the realm of jpeg, so don't narrow your scope too much. Here are a couple people who do work that I like.

Matt Siber: I just think the "Floating Logos" series is fucking great.

Jeremy Blake: He does video work mostly, and did the sequences of color and shapes in Punch Drunk Love.

Jon Haddock: The "Screenshot Series" (scroll down a bit on the gallery frame) basically rules. "Internet Sex Photos Series" (don't be alarmed by the title, guy) is also pretty thought-provoking, and you see an example of purposeful imperfection done in the digital medium.

Please don't take this as a flame, but more a genuine appeal: Think about taking stuff you learned from painting and applying it to the digital canvas before you decide to punch a hole through your monitor and be rid of the medium completely.

EDIT: I guess, overall, you should consider the 'why' over the 'what' when it comes to digital art, as with other art forms.

EDIT EDIT: I agree with what the next person says.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Art is Art those who dwell too much on non-essentials miss the point! (meaning that the medium you use to express yourself is such a non-essential)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Jon Haddock: The "Screenshot Series" (scroll down a bit on the gallery frame) basically rules. "Internet Sex Photos Series" (don't be alarmed by the title, guy) is also pretty thought-provoking, and you see an example of purposeful imperfection done in the digital medium.
Thanks for linking that! I had seen some of those images at an event a while ago but didn't know their origin. They're very good.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm going to assume you're just talking about 2D digital art here so I'll leave 3D out of it, but...

allthatilovedisgone.jpg

and

jungle_knight.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

A computer is an artistic tool in the same way a paintbrush is. Yes, there's lots of cheesy digital art, but there's lots of cheesy traditional art too.

I know plenty of artists who think the airbrush is the work of the devil. It's all the same thing.

End of argument.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I guess if you're saying "It fucking shows", then the art and the process are bound up in each other for you.

You're completely right in assuming that the road is as important as the result for me in this respect. That I used 'it fucking shows' is a tittilating contradiction then: because it usually doesn't show at all. I meant that symbolically to communicate that the process was important to me. And you totally understood.

Kingz; I think I agree with most of what you said there. The link to Twincruiser was more out of respect for one of them (they were twins) that died recently. They made stuff for Blizzard; I guess that falls into the fantasy paperback category. I also think you know it's kind of undoable to have this entirely balanced, nuanced point in a small rant without it watering down the point you try to make. If anything you have to strengthen some of the things that, in real life, you're less strong about. The rant is more or less triggered by endless waves of people who, like Baconian said above, tend to make lots of shallow paintbrushy plastic thingies. Trying to slap some sense into them ;) It would be a horrible mistake of me to even think of trying to teach you guys a thing or two about how everything works.

Of course a medium is just a medium. But my rant is more about a feeling that I've grown into than righteous truth. When I go and paint something I feel much more satisfaction than if I'd do it digitally, because then I feel that I'm messing with the elements, struggling with real paints and tools. It just feels more genuine, to me.

Maybe I should make a follow-up depicting the good things about digital art. That would be a hoot, now wouldn't it? :gaming: But seriously, I'm only a small guy. I'm not pretending to know everything or be totally right about it all.

Synthetic Gerbil; read this rant and the next one: http://www.captainaugust.com/index.php?when=20041020. It explains all my points. Even though your reasons for not reading my stuff have nothing to do with the validity of what I say. Or should all moviecritics be expert moviemakers themselves before their opinions matter?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

No I totally understood the point about the process too, making art is fullfillment in and of itself. Nothing beats actually playing a cheesy riff with all your heart and soul or realizing a great silly idea in pencil. It's about your body firing up and the adrenaline pumping through your vain and you forgetting life for a little while and being alive...(or maybe I am going off on a tangent here... who cares).

Not knowing anything is the human condition, awareness of that is wisdom...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
In my newest, daring rant, I lash out against digital artistry, claiming a few bold things that might get a rise out of you. Read it on Cap'n August (link in sig) and tell me exactly how much you agree or disagree with me. Because this is something that is a big thing for me and I want as many people as possible to read my opinion on it.

I have nothing to say about the subject so instead I performed a complex syntactical and style analysis of your rant, extracting the bold and the italic words in the process. It was interesting to see that where these two subsets met were 1) "analogue art" and 2) "fake colours". Therefore, I assume you like analogue art, but you dislike fake colors.

l want to tell you about a thing thrilled digital art. digital thing I was once proud. analogue art authentic. utterly uninteresting. August painting showed. too enthusiastically dead virtual airbrushes fake colours. one erratic movement, easy escape route control-Z.

not -and the rant- spills the bucket persé. digital colouring photoshop away nagging inside me. analogue art hand craft challenging. pixelperfect glossiness mouseclick silicon real deal, artistic revelled flawed shows fake colours. Real impressed aware destroy his painting shows fucking shows

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I'd like to state that I don't dislike all digital art persé.
Speaking of which, Rodi, that is not how you write per se. Or maybe you want to say that you don't dislike Persian digital art?

:benstein:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Perse means arse in Finnish. Sad but true. ;(

Yeah, in Estonian too.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Be not afraid, Erwin, all is coming to an end soon.

And I am, in fact, completely neutral towards Persian art.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
Sign in to follow this  

×