“Digital Art:
The New Art”
An Artist’s Personal
Exploration into the New Art Form
Copyright 2012, Eric Homan
“Digital Art: The New Art” - An Artist’s Personal Exploration Into the New Art Form
Technology and The Artist: Using the
Computer as an Artistic Tool
The Digital Golden Age
The Brilliant Vibrancy of Digital Color
Rising to the Challenge of Using 3-D
Space for Art
The First Generation of 3-D Artists
The Motion Picture in Digital
Transition in New Media
An Artist’s
Using the Computer to One’s Advantage
Varying Styles and Mediums with
Computer Software
The Computer’s Undo Efficiency
Movies Are Art Form
Knowing Your Tools and Your Concept
Beforehand
Exploring Time-Based Art
Time-Based Display for Still Images on a Flat-Panel Monitor
How the Internet and Digital Technology Has Revolutionized Art
Presentation
Using Personal Photographs to Spawn
Creativity
Storyboarding with Computer Software
The Computer Monitor Is A Frame
Judging Time-Based Art
On Collaborating
“Aging Your Art”
The 2½-D Canvas
Video as Time Machine
“Digital Art:
The New Art”
An Artist’s
Personal Exploration Into the New Art Form
by Eric Homan
Statement
Introduction
The following is
a statement of what my experiences have been with computer art (3D and 2D) and
my philosophies involving the artist and educator within this new artistic
field of technology. Before you begin reading this statement, understand that
what I wrote is to spark debate in your mind of what computer art is, what the
creative process was like during its creation, and where each of us fit into
the computer art world, as creators and audience. What I have written can be
disagreed with and/ or accepted. In the end the following ideas, beliefs, and
concepts should, at the very least, make you think.
Technology and The Artist: Using the Computer as an Artistic
Tool
One
day out of curiosity, I looked up the definition for the term "art":
"the conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, or
other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty in a chosen
medium." Considering the creative possibilities open to an artist, I chose the computer as my medium.
One of my biggest fears when I was an undergraduate
in college was inactivity. I was paranoid of having too much time on my
hands and nothing to keep my mind occupied to divert the fact that I was dearly
lonely and bored. I feel that having a computer at home has both befriended and
empowered me of sorts. I can type out my emotions when I feel overburdened by
them. The computer also serves me as a palette and canvas to express my
artistic desires and pursuits. It’s a near-ideal multi-task art outlet. I can
paint, model and animate 3-D objects, write, manipulate digital photographs, or
record sound mixes. It’s the ultimate compact studio for the ambitious, low
income artist!!
The
computer is an advanced, seemingly infinite canvas for the 21st
century creative artist. Their speed, interactivity, user interface, and image
processing power make it easier to create and express complex ideas than any
other artistic medium. I express myself through the computer as a creative tool
as a musician uses a musical instrument to create music. 3D modeling and
animation software now allow artists to “paint” in the computer software’s
three dimensional space, such as with Maya’s Paint Effects art brushes -
altering how society “views”, let alone experiences,
paintings. Grandest of all, a computer artist exerts the ability to express
oneself the moment one is inspired in a way that no other artistic medium can
allow one to do. (*The catch is that the artist has to first learn how to use
the software before they start creating something interesting.)
The Digital Golden Age
The
computer is not just another tool -
it is a liberating artistic medium. We can manipulate photographs, communicate
with interactive imagery, and design sound through a computer. It is the
Computer Golden Age. Creating, animating, texturing, and lighting in 3-D space
is now limitless through using computer software. How they use it is up to your
own creativity. Painting on canvas takes weeks, months, or longer to prepare,
execute, and complete. My own ideas can arrive so urgently that I need a medium
that would allow me to release those concepts in a shorter amount of time with
the same amount of creativity, feelings, and skill I would have put into a
painting on a canvas. The computer allows me to choose from hundreds of
different tools (paint brushes, airbrushes, pastels, watercolors) and choose
any color from the color spectrum and
start painting. The concept, story, or expression, I believe, are the most
important aspects when it comes to creating an image or animation; the medium
does not matter. The bottom line is digital technology has helped me advance and enhance my artwork in a way that would have taken an extraordinary
amount of money and time if I had used different artistic mediums, such as film
or canvas.
Computer Art in the 21st Century Museum
In
addition, the computer has opened up a whole new realm for the ambitious artist
to explore: three-dimensional space inside the computer. If that wasn’t all,
there are also the creative time-based elements of time, interactivity, and
(three-dimensional, 5.1 surround) sound audio that computer software allows the
artist to express with. Traditionally when one thinks of art, one pictures a
painting on the wall of a museum. That’s
history. Not only can art involve the fourth dimension of time (motion
pictures, video, animation), but also it can be in 3-D (paint strokes in 3-D
space). This new 3-D canvas for art can be displayed on high-definition
monitors in museums featuring 3-D paintings, interactive and non-interactive
movies, and animated art. SIGGRAPH’s annual
The Brilliant Vibrancy of Digital Color
Vibrant colors never appeared in paintings until the later 19th Century because the oil pigments were not
available until that time. No one took fuller advantage of brilliant saturated
colors as Vincent van Gogh.
Being a visual artist, I feel attracted by the vibrancy of
color that one can achieve on a computer screen. Being able to use millions of
colors, digital technology has brought a sense of liberty to creative
expression that wasn’t as easily available to artists of the past. Computers
allow us to go beyond Technicolor. Highly saturated colors on a computer
monitor can exert a certain glow to
them that was impossible to represent in other traditional mediums. Imagine:
Vincent van Gogh and the other Impressionists would have used light and color
in most extraordinary ways.
How I Color-Correct the Digital
Photographs
I color correct the photos I take or the movies I
shoot in the same exaggerated, over-saturated look as was done in the digitally
remastered version of Apocalypse Now.
Everything has the feel of being hyper real… yet to the point of being surreal.
The colors simply glow! I’ve also been very fond the luminous
cinematography of the gorgeous cumulus clouds during the hallucinogenic
helicopter ride before the morning attack on the village. The red-orange-yellow
tints are blown WAY up. This is not reality – but it still is! And that
look very much excited me when I first saw it back in the mid nineties.
Rising to the Challenge of Using 3-D Space for Art
Imagine
what history’s most famous paintings would have been like if they could have
used 3-D space to illustrate their work: Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa” or Vincent Van
Gogh’s “The Crows” “painted” and animated in a 3-D environment instead of on a
2-D canvas. They might have been if these artists had the availability to use
3-D software to express their visions.
Creating art with 3-D software seemed like an artistic
wonder with its ability to make anything
in the computer: T-Rexes, elephants, alien space ships, mummies, super novas, etc. Now that we’ve seen enough examples of these,
the novelty has worn off. Just because something was modeled and animated in
3-D doesn’t mean its art or even all that special any
more. The same artistic principle goes for most art forms as well, be it
photography, painting, music, or dance. One still has to rise to the challenge
of creating original and innovative content in order to keep our attention. You
have to give art your own vision. Granted that the first time I saw a realistic
looking dinosaur moving, breathing, and eating in
The First Generation of 3-D Artists
I
believe that the computer is the canvas space
of the 21st century and beyond. The fact that we now have three dimensions to
explore in our “canvas” should be exciting and inspiring to all artists, young
and old. We are the first generation of 3-D animators/ painters/ sculptors just
as Melies and Lumiere were part of the first
generation of 2-D filmmakers (with A Trip To the Moon in 1902 and The
Great Train Robbery in 1903, respectively). Because they were both pioneers
of the time-based storytelling through using film, they invented the rules of
screen composition, pacing, editing, and other innovative special effects. We
use those rules and expand on them within the vast new possibilities of a
digital medium - visually, physically, interactively, and emotionally. It is
possible to “paint” a watercolor painting in 3-D space in the computer and let
the viewer be led through it. We are the innovators of using 3-D space to
express ourselves and communicate.
The Motion Picture in Digital Transition in New Media
The
most popular and recognized art form of the past century has been the motion picture. In the past few years,
digital “film”-making, interactive experience pieces, and interactive 3D games
have become a reality, being shown on personal home computers in the form of
DVD and CD-ROM. It should be recognized that good art can be found and
appreciated in places other than museums: just look in video stores, theaters,
or on one’s home PC. The computer monitor may not have a gilded frame around
it, but it is a frame none the less - appended with a mouse, keyboard, and
speakers. Let the ideas, emotions, audio, and visuals of the art piece be the
real highlight - the true special
effect.
Whether
people understand it or not, interactivity in media is a form of expression.
It’s like when language was invented. This is our new form of communication.
The mouse cursor has become our hand inside a new realm of data, images, ideas,
colors, emotions, and imagination. How we move through a screen environment is
what determines our inner self.
An Artist’s
Because
of the availability and affordability of computers and software, an ambitious
artist can create a movie of animation or video that could rival
Using the Computer to One’s Advantage
The
startling thing about doing animation on the computer is that it is changing
the rules of how much one person can do on a piece. Personally, I keep my 3D
and 2D art projects simple so I can finish
them. Yet traditionally when one is making a small independent movie, you would
still have to hire dozens to hundreds of people to assist you on lighting,
sound, editing, acting, photography, etc. The computer has advanced to the
point that it is possible to do everything by oneself, or in a small group of computer
and business savvy friends. When you work in 3-D, you don’t have to hire actors - you create, build, and animate them yourself. You can literally
do all of the cinematography, editing, lighting, costuming, and sound on a home
computer.
When
I was young and told people that I wanted to make movies when I grow up, they
asked me: “Well... what part? Director? Set Designer? Cinematographer? Sound
Editor? Caterer?” Through years of art experience, hard work, and training, I
can fill most-to-all of those roles, depending on the ambition of the project.
As a result, I am able to gain complete
creative control and artistic
integrity over my work - the great dream of all artists. I don’t have to
put advertisements in my pieces to help compensate for a large budget. Because
I don’t have to hire anyone except for myself, a budget can be astonishingly
minimal. That is the beauty of being an artist who uses a computer to their
advantage.
Varying Styles and Mediums with Computer Software
I
creatively enjoy the computer and digital technology for the different styles
and mediums it offers to digital artists. One month I’ll be working on
interactive experience art, the next it’ll be 3D animated paintings, the next
experimental digital photography and surround sound design, the next writing a
poem in colored text in a three-dimensional space... and so on. I could never
do just one medium for an entire year - let alone a whole lifetime. I’d feel
trapped, confined, and, well... bored.
I like taking on different projects in various digital mediums depending on my
mood and interests. I feel it’s important for an artist to keep changing and
challenging oneself through the various technologies, techniques, and
perspectives one can express oneself in. My artistic mission is to always
struggle with what art can be - especially on the computer. As long as the
artist puts originality and soul into the work, the art will feel fresh,
adventurous... and alive.
I think part of the reason why I take my camera
around with me whenever I go out is that I always hate to miss any big (or
small) moments that I may come across. I also have an odd obsession with
recording aspects around me that I find interesting or at least visually interesting.
I just like to keep in the habit of taking photos. I also like to color correct
the photos I take just to bring out the colors just a bit more. It's than
Post-Impressionistic side of me that wants life to be that extra chromatic.
One half of making photographs is taking the actual
picture. The other half, where I feel the picture truly comes alive, is in the
color correction. In this later step, I spend hours upon hours dodging and
burning each photo, color balancing it, sharpening it, altering the brightness
and contrast until it looks what I want to envision it to being. Taking a good
picture is always the most important part. Without good composition, subject
matter, design, detail, or content it’s really nothing. But there is also an
issue that there are plenty of photos with all of these qualities. I use the
digital imaging process to take it to the next step. Some photographers use
filters and special lens to achieve their unique visions. I use the computer
like a camera tool. It’s just that, another tool.
The Computer’s Undo Efficiency
Making a mistake on the computer is different than making
one on a traditional medium like paper or canvas. The computer allows the
artist more speed in correcting a mistake by going back to a previously saved
version of one's work, or by pressing an “undo” key as many times until the
last occasion one has saved. A mistake on paper would often mean starting over
from scratch. Also, the computer artist can make as many high-quality copies of
their work as they want. In most traditional art forms, there is only an
original.
Movies Are Art
Form
I
denounce art museums for being out of touch with artists. They are too much for
snobs and superficially “intelligent” cultured elite. A gilded frame around a
painting in an elegant museum doesn’t make it better than a copy of an American
Beauty DVD at the local DVD/ video rental store. Content is still the most
important thing about the arts. Cinema is an art form.
Depending
on how to you look them, video
pieces and animation are actually action paintings.
In the future, electronic art will have the option of having a frame visible,
not visible, or animated. Art on a computer monitor really doesn’t need a frame
to make it art, though some people still believe it does.
Still and time-based digital artwork, that being created
entirely on the computer, is the purest form of creative expression. It also
makes a devastating statement and ultimatum to the art world that it had no
real commercial value since it can be replicated and reproduced. Being a
digital source, there is no one original, unlike an oil painting. Hence, does
that make the work “diminished” in value and power? The pretensions of the art
world are immediately exposed. Can they only judge things based on their price
value or how gilded the frame is? Can’t they “value” past something that
doesn’t have a value? It’s the ultimate judgment call. Now let’s say, for
example, an obscure artist had produced some digital artwork that is new,
breathtakingly original, and exciting. Yet it’s computer-animated imagery. It’s
not meant for a mainstream audience like most “special effects” pictures that
are using CG to create digital characters and environments. It’s art. Now it
can’t be sold for $50,000 like other great works of original art. So it must be
valued in the hearts, minds, and emotions of those who experience it. That is
its worth. That is what makes it great. Yet the art world will have to alter
its concepts of what art can be in order for the art movement to continue to
grow. Of course, the digital artwork has to be good in the first place. But
once it is, the world has to drop its limited vision, its elitist mindset, and
its ritzy lifestyle. Art is for all. Digital art will break down the walls the
separate the rich from the poor. The kings and queens of the
As an example, when you’re watching a movie, it’s
critically important to not get distracted when you’re deep into the
experience. There’s a trance-like state when your mind is hooked up to the
imagery and story before you. You’ve removed yourself from reality and you’ve
entered a fantasy world called a motion picture. It’s usually a highly
personalized experience where you sit motionless and passive with your mind,
intellect, senses, and emotions taking in something extraordinary.
Having people around you talking or making interruptions will usually break the
hypnosis between you and the movie, hence, lessening the movie experience. If
the trance is not broken, the experience can be highly satisfying (also
depending on the quality and originality of the movie itself). There are
exceptions to movies being even more exciting if they are experienced with a
group of people as opposed to by oneself. Finding Nemo, the Star Wars
films, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy come to mind as being huge
crowd pleasers that ultimately create a grand sense of unity amongst all in the
audience. Yet there are also other films with a more personal nature that
demand concentration and isolation that reward the viewer with sophistication,
intelligence, and greater depth than most other films. The Last Temptation of Christ, The Deer Hunter, Bad Lieutenant,
My Own Private Idaho, The Elephant Man, and Being There
are excellent examples of more personal, meditative, and mature films than
Many
of my art pieces are meant to be seen on a monitor screen with headphones for
people to have a more personal, intimate experience with the work. Headphones
make the time-based artwork feel like a one-on-one experience rather than a
group showing. I feel this type of intimacy heightens the emotional experience
greatly. Headphones blocks everything around you out and leaves one able to
concentrate on the emotions and visual experience before them. It’s like being
in love with someone. You want to be with just one person so you can
concentrate all of your energy and feelings to that one particular person. I
feel that my artwork feeds and fuels those who experience it. Most of my
time-based artwork is not meant to be loud, explosive, commercial, family-friendly
theater seating work. I feel that the monitor is also a canvas where the video/
animation work can be displayed. The only difference between it and a painting
is that time-based work uses the element of time
and sound.
9-28-04:
I listened to the new Björk album, “Medulla”, on headphones while reading the
lyrics this afternoon, and it was practically a religious/ sensual experience.
Hearing her voice on a pair of sensitive, all-encompassing headphones is like
having her kiss my ears. Each song was such a gloriously sad, beautiful
experience. It’s like playing and splashing in a heaven of tear ponds.
Knowing Your Tools and Your Concept Beforehand
Creative
conceptualization for computer artists is different than other art mediums. The
challenge of creating art in the computer is in knowing your tools before you
begin your art-making process. When working in 3-D, I believe that 95% of the
time is spent on technical issues and problems. In contrast, in 2-D computer
art, one spends 50% on technical problems and the other 50% on the concept.
Therefore, when working in 3-D, a well-planned storyboard and a strong concept
are extremely important to lessen the
amount of time and information you have to learn in order to complete your
vision. It is so much easier to be spontaneous in 2-D work since it demands
less training, expertise, and preparation. In both cases, one must always
consider their creative concept in a higher regard than the technical issues
since anyone can learn the techniques. This is common truth in any artistic
medium. One’s personal vision is what sets one apart.
Exploring Time-Based Art
After
studying and working with oil paint, pencil drawing, and charcoal, I have found
time-based mediums (digital video, interactive art, computer animation) to be
the most expressive and direct way to release my ideas. In video, I explored
the surreal as a short movie experience (i.e. an “imaginary documentary” about
a hand falling asleep and dreaming off into the world around it). In my
interactive experience pieces, I used computer interactivity as a means of
expression. In my 3-D computer animations, I sought to explore the 3-D
environment and reveal it as an environment of expressions. Because of the
element of time, art demands the attention of the viewer for a longer period of
time. This means a greater amount of effort from the artist to keep the
audience’s attention. Time-based mediums also offer a chance for the artist to tell
a story - which is one of the greatest ways to communicating throughout known
history. Art has evolved from looking at a still image to experiencing moving
images.
Time-Based Display for Still Images on a Flat-Panel Monitor
I feel the way
that modern still-based art is going to go is in a time-based fashion by being
shown on a flat-panel monitor. One can showcase as many other images as wanted
to be programmed into this display method. Why print, frame, and hang just one
image on a wall when there is the possibility to present hundreds or thousands
through time?! In a museum or at one's private home, one can program a
flat-screen panel to show a different image once a week, every ten minutes, or
every ten seconds. Personally, I have several personal favorite movie posters
hanging up around my house. They've been hanging up for several years and now
I'm finding myself a bit tired of seeing the same images up. And there's so
many other movie posters I'd just as much like to see up. So the idea came to
me that why not rotate the images around by showing them on flat-panel
monitors, which in its own way became a canvas and frame for the work. You can
now download movie poster in very high resolution off the Internet if I wanted
new images. With original still art (paintings, digital photograph), the image
files just need to be scanned in at a high-enough resolution to be presented in
high detail, or the digital photos need to be taken at a high resolution. I no
longer see any reason to waste money and time with printing paper and
developing prints when the process can be faster and less expensive. Printing
and framing photos is about holding on to the past because that was the way
they did things years ago. It's time to stop living in the past and live in the
present and look to the future. As an analogy: prints fade while digital lasts
forever.
How the Internet and Digital Technology Has Revolutionized Art
Presentation
Now this type of
digital art presentation is offensive to certain "art lovers", art
owners, and artists themselves because it revolutionizes the entire value
of art. A painting can be worth and sold for thousands or millions of dollars.
Yet a high resolution digital image of that same painting can be downloaded for
free off the Internet. A painting is an original, which so-called makes it more
"valuable". But isn't art about the image and its content - not if
it's an original. You don't necessarily need the original masterpiece painting
in order to enjoy and appreciate it. The major problem with digital
representations is that anyone can have them. Most art patrons are of the
upper-class and prefer to be "cultured" by being surrounded by
expensive works of art in expensive gilded frames. But that's living in the
past. Digital technology has created new methods of seeing and presenting
images. There's absolutely no reason to hang one image on a wall anymore when
you can present as many images as you wish over a programed
amount of time. Imagine going to a museum and always seeing new images on the
walls. Yet now with the Internet, the majority of the images in a museum and
hundreds of millions more are now available on the web... for free anytime of
the day! This is a major shake-up of how we've always looked at art. Some
people may still find browsing through a museum a nostalgically pleasing social
activity, but they're really just walking through the past because that's it is
anymore. With the ability, accessibility, speed, and freedom of digital
presentation, the financial value of art drops dramatically! Artists in general
will suffer the most because people will one day wise up that you can just put
up a large flat-screen over their sofa and program multiple images of
what they wish to view in their homes. Those artists who embrace this type of
digital display will at least be part of the movement. Yes, to see a physical
painting with its tactile brush strokes is much more impressive and effective
in real life. But not everyone can afford that. Art should be for everyone, not
just the upper-class. Yet there are more positive aspects to digital presentation
than their are negative. High Definition flat-screen
monitors are what will alter how we experience art forever. And with computers
in so many homes, there lies the other major form of art presentation. The
other downside to all of this is the digital avalanche of too much art
available all at once. With too much to chose from, they tend to cancel each
other out. And the "name" artists end up getting more attention while
just as deserving "little-known", obscure artists continue to fight
for recognition and for financial survival. It brings up the question if there
are just too many artists in the world to support when there's too much art in
the world and the web already...?
One morning, I went downstairs and noticed sunlight
hitting an oil painting I had made. This made me realize how exciting it would
be if an actual beam of sunlight or another heat source hit other pieces of art
and people could watch them melt into a new image. Then I realized that the
best solution would be to create digital images to be displayed on a high
resolution flat screen monitor so they can slowly morph, change, evolve, age,
or whatever through time. So if one person goes to see a museum’s works one
month, the next month they’ll all be altered in some way. It gives people a
reason to come back to the museum (in a week, a month, three months) to see how
things have changed. An outdoor landscape’s environment will change because the
seasons changed. The people get older (or younger). It’s all about doing
multiple, alternate versions of an image in order to morph that image into
something always new through time. An image doesn’t have to be frozen in time.
It can “appear” to be frozen in time (like life does when we look at it on a
casual basis). But give it time and it will change. I believe in letting
artwork age just as we human beings and all life ages. It’s like a way of
giving art an even greater personification. We have the technology to do this,
so why not do it? Technically, what is happening is an extremely slow
animation. It’s just that the morph/ fade from image to image takes days or
weeks instead of seconds.
Using Personal Photographs to Spawn Creativity
In
order to experiment with images and time, I needed pictures that were already
available to me, legally and personally. Having gotten into trouble with
copyright problems by using other people photos in the past, I resorted to
using my own family photographs. I’m not hung up on my childhood as believed by
some. Yet it was through using my family photos that spawned introspective art
examinations about memory and remembrance, such as in “Memoria”. Of course, it
was through my own personal association with the images that led me to be
personally involved with each piece. If I were using someone else’s life
photos, the art pieces that followed would have been considerably less
involving or truthful. I’ve discovered that the photographic images that my
family and I took have sparked ideas in me later on when I reopen them into my
life. Personal memories spawn creativity in me.
Storyboarding with Computer Software
Instead
of using storyboard sheets to plan out my ideas for my storyboarding process,
I’ve been using Director as a storyboarding program for years now and have
completed together hundreds of pieces using 2-D images and audio files. They
just need to be “completed” three-dimensionally and shown to the rest of the
world. Director has aided me for so long with allowing me to release my
creativity the moment I was inspired and wished to quickly piece the pieces
into a whole.
The Computer Monitor Is A Frame
With
the advent of the computer to make art, I feel that seeing and experiencing art
has forever been altered. It has been frustrating to break society’s norm of
displaying two-dimensional art in an expensive gilded frame on a museum wall.
Just because a museum is a place designated for “art” doesn’t mean there can’t be art shown outside... even at
one’s own home on their personal computer. The computer monitor is a frame just
as the television is a frame. Because there is such an overwhelming amount of
mediocre movies, computer art, and computer games, people consider TV sets and
computer monitors with less regard when something artistic is shown on them.
Judging Time-Based Art
I
consider Terrence Malick’s film Days of Heaven
to be just as priceless and beautiful as Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa”.
Because anyone can own a copy of a movie for fewer than ten dollars and watch
it in their home shouldn’t make it less important than a Monet in a
Computer... Artist?
Since
the computer can allow anyone who can learn “user-friendly” software to create
spectacular visuals, I find it rather dull and hapless that, for some
"artists", the computer does most of the work. The fact that
"artists" can download "their" models and textures off the
web and consider it their own is something of artistic fraud. One should go
through computer animation tutorials when they are just beginning, but they
should be a point where they start using their own vision of how things should
look and feel. They shouldn’t end up relying on online tutorials to do their
piece... how to make a realistic tree... how to make a flag wave in the
wind.... It almost turns into paint-by-numbers in a 3-D sense. There’s nothing
original about their work when 50,000 other student animators are doing the
exact same thing - a semi-cartoonish, photo-realistic style. Make your own
worlds and visions! But then again, in realistic terms, those 50,000 all know
that they are all competing for jobs that want semi-cartoonish, photo realistic
stuff for movies, commercials, and computer games. No wonder hardly anyone is
doing anything different and creative with the 3-D medium. You won't get a job.
The reality of the situation is... our society subconsciously supports a lack
of creativity because original thought is not marketable. More speed! More
money! Bigger explosions! Bigger budgets!! Whatever sells.
7-30-03:
Jason, John, and I attended more of the SIGGRAPH
'03 Animation Theater and the Electronic Theater. While watching those selected
prestigious animations, I came to the realization that they were (mostly) not
the work of a single individual, but a team of dozens or hundreds of talented
artists and technicians. Computer animation is a collaborative art form – a
team animated painting. Each person does a separate function, such as lighting,
technical director, modeler, digital painter, and so on. Creating a great computer animation takes so many
people, which makes it a lot like the movie business. Realizing this can be
extremely disillusioning to thousands of us ambitious fine art computer
animators who like to do things our way.
We don’t want to work on someone else’s vision. Isn’t having a personal vision what making art is all
about? Yet in computer animation, the closest it comes to art is a team
time-based personal vision.
On Collaborating
I
am not against collaborating with a project, yet I do recognize that something
unique is lost when too many artists become involved. Though collaborating on a
piece means considerably less work and stress on each person involved, you do
lose the unique purity of personal expression. This all depends on how complex
the piece is. Keeping the piece simple adds a sense of intimacy, personality,
and closeness. If van Gogh collaborated with other artists to draw out his
scenes on a canvas so he could paint on top of it, the imagery - the very
feeling - would have been severely compromised.
“Aging Your Art”
As
an artist using the computer, I have the ability to keep making changes to any
of my artwork that was created digitally.
Even when I feel that an art piece is finished at the time, I may look back
and find something wrong or that should have been changed to better communicate
the ideas. I can always go back to the digital piece and enhance what I have
done before. I think of it as a book that came out initially as a first edition
followed by a second and third edition until the author feels that the book is
as good as it is going to be. I describe this process as “aging your art”.
Movie directors often go back to a previous work and re-edit particular scenes
that weren’t as effective the first time around and re-release the movie as
“The Director’s Cut” or as a “Special Edition”. Computer software makes it easy
to make the corrections I feel are necessary when or if the time comes to
strengthen a work.
Size Matters?
Some
naïve people don’t recognize art unless it’s twice as large as they are and in
a museum. I believe the image, no matter its size, is what is most important
(as long as one can see it). Yet size and scale do matter in the art world.
Concerning digital art, I feel dismayed that most people disregard it since
most images are 720 x 486 (screen resolution). Like most digital artists, I am
waiting for technology to advance so that digital art can be enormous! It could
be shown on a giant flat screen monitor. It can be a virtual 3D hologram so it
doesn’t restrict itself to a computer screen. Digital artists can then create
image with a resolution of 30 ft. x 20 ft. (or even 6 miles by 4 miles so their
work can be viewed from outer space!!)
The 2½-D Canvas
The
astonishing concept aspect to After Effects and compositing in general is that
your canvas can be as infinite as you want it to be. This is thanks to the fact
that you can now move your camera in 2½-D (simulated 3-D) space. You can move
into the Z Depth, or scan your camera around an area vastly beyond your normal
locked down 720 x 480 camera view. You can move, rotate, or scan your camera
around the space you build within After Effects so that you camera can move
around to capture all the environment and action therein. You can even simulate
depth of field to heighten the sense of space and focus. Suddenly, the chains
that once restricted how you use a camera with video and 2-diminsional imagery
has been blown wide open. Take advantage of it!
Video as Time Machine
Out of my total boredom with sitting around my place
with the school year being over, I pulled out an old videotape of old footage
from 1998 to capture and see if there was any good visuals. Boy, did I enjoy
myself with what I was seeing. I was always a compulsive videographer with an
eye for detail and unusual sights. I captured everything I did and everywhere I
went. It was also a shock to see old friends, girlfriends, and places before my
eyes. Video is such a time machine. It truly awakens so many old memories and
feelings.
The Importance of Treasuring Your Artwork
Concerning
artists who believe in discarding their work that they made when they were
young and feel it isn’t good, I must declare that I save everything I do. I
believe in documenting my development as an artist. Art tells a story of who I
was and where I was, emotionally and imaginarily, at the time. I can judge what pieces of mine are good or bad, on an
aesthetic, artistic, and technical level. Yet, I consider everything I’ve done interesting in some respect. There had to be a reason for me to do it.
Maybe
all the great art and movies have been made and we shouldn’t make any more.
We’re just flooding and suffocating ourselves with bland retreads of past
storylines, plots, and characters. There is no need for the thousands of
“important” little-to-no budget independent movies that are made each year.
Same goes for the $130 million