“Digital Art:
The New Art”
An Artist’s Personal
Exploration into the New Art Form
~Written from 1993 thru 2008~
Copyright 2008, Eric Homan
Menu of Catharsis/ Contents
“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
The Relationship Between
Artist and Audience
The Road of Artistic
Honesty in a Commercial World
The Dilemma of Being a
Digital Artist
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
My Present Tense Goals
“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
I can say that I have seen the
future of art and it is Maya’s Paint Effects. People are able to actually paint
digitally in three dimensions to create 3-D painted worlds… animated
3-Dimensional expressions… emotions in animation. I’ve found myself in
an artistic area where art history is about to be told. This 3-D paint package
may just kill off other forms of art and/ or rejuvenate computer art to a
higher galaxy. Creating art in 2-D is in the past. We can express ourselves in
three dimensions and in animation. Art will never be the same. (And beyond
that, art on a computer can be interactive.)
Most prominently and passionately, I lectured to my fellow M.F.A.
students about the technical power and artistic dangers of using Paint Effects
to create your computer animation work. With this new animation tool, anyone
can do 3-D animated “art” in a matter of minutes. Creating a tree is as simple
as pressing a mouse. All it takes to know how to animate a field of golden
grass in the wind is to read a tutorial. Yes! You too can make a tree “grow”
from a seedling to a fully bloomed tree with buds, flowers, and branches in
second. But it brings up the urgent realization: so can everybody else!
You don’t have to be an artist anymore to create such images. A bored ten-year-old
with no artistic ability and a pirate version of Maya on his computer could do
it. The programmed software has made it so easy to make incredible 3-D images
now that it’s pointless to do if you don’t have your own distinct artistic
vision and skill of how to create it. I was so enraged to hear one of my
classmates declare that she didn’t want to change “her” concept even though
that it was very similar to one of the Paint Effects tutorials. Chapter Ten: To
make a “stylized” tree grow, bloom, and then die. It’s an overdone poetic idea.
In addition, where is the effort if it takes only a matter of minutes to do now
using Maya’s Paint Effects brushes? And if you use a manufactured programmed
brush type that thousands of other computer animators are using, aren’t you
sharing the same look? Alas, where is the effort?! Perhaps this is where my
point comes in that Paint Effects are terrific for background details. But for
foreground objects or subject matter, they are like taking objects from someone
else’s 3-D and using them in your own out of “convenience”, or because they’re
there and readily available. The artist must come in and use their own personal
vision and make their work truly their own. Paint Effects are to be used to
support the work, not overwhelm it. If you can redesign the brushes so that
you’ve made them your own, such as with the oil paint brush strokes, you can
use them to your great creative and technical advantage. Then you can achieve
what you need to as an artist. And that’s what truly important to your creative
integrity and vision.
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.
“Art Is Not Just In
Museums”
I question if art is for everyone
anymore. Once art could be defined as aesthetically pleasing. In the mid to
late twentieth century, we have surrounded ourselves with so much beauty,
thanks to advanced methods of communication and technology, we’re developed an
apathy for most of art. The world has taken it for granted. We’ve seen and felt
so much “art” that our senses are no longer as impressed by it. There is so
much mediocre art in our corporately sponsored society that are being exposed
in museums, television, movies, the internet, and book stores that it drags the
entire creative standard down with it.
So we need to look for and find what
is considered “good art”. I believe the only true form of art is personal. In
my own opinion, I adore some of van Gogh’s work because I have empathy for his
life (through reading his letters and viewing the van Gogh biographical
dramatization Lust For Life). I feel emotions when I see pictures of my
significant other, old girlfriends, my family, and close friends. The Star
Wars figures I played with as a child are art sculptures. The emotionally
bare songs of the albums “Bob Dylan: Blood on the Tracks” and “John Lennon:
Plastic Ono Band” are like religious hymns to me. I know that other people like
the same things I do - but most don’t consider them art to themselves. I’d even
call my own girlfriend “a priceless masterpiece” - because of her flaws, her eccentricity,
her sense of humor, her moods, her courage.... Other people don’t see her the
way I do. They usually don’t feel for certain aspects of life because they
either didn’t have the time, patience, relation, or empathy for an artwork or a person. Our lives have become too
crowded with information and beauty that we don’t have room for sensitivity and
imagination. It’s art fatigue. Too much exposure goes to commercial ”art” with
all its superficial visual beauty and conservative, inoffensive nature. It kills
off our individuality as a society by seeing so much mediocrity. I feel a major
problem with people not using their emotions, imagination, or intellect since
they won’t be able to decipher what is good and what is bad. If everything is
“fine” and “happy”, we won’t change and immorality will continue thriving
without argument or protest.
These words will be considered
“nothing new” and will be forgotten. They will be forgotten. Yet, an impression
lasts in type. ...Is it art?
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
Museum Void
One
of the most upsetting contradictions of visiting a museum is that one is forced
upon digested over 300+ pieces of art on display. Because there are so many to
see in a given environment, one cannot focus one’s attention. In a way,
the massive number of artwork cancels them out. It’s a grossly overwhelming
experience. This is the feeling I get when I am in a museum. There are too many
style, colors, personalities, forms, ideas, and concepts to take in enough to
fully and personally appreciate. Understanding art needs to be a personalized
experience like loving another person. You cannot emotionally love 300 at once.
Perhaps you can narrow down your favorites. Yet still, it’s a trying,
exhausting experience to disregard so much beauty.
Art – Private
Also, viewing art should be a personal experience –
meaning being one-on-one with the work of art. Visiting a museum with a group
of people will rush a highly intense experience for you. Never allow a friend,
family member, or stranger to talk to you while taking in a work of art
(unless they’re also on the same emotional and mental wavelength as you are).
You’re communicating back and forth with the art by reacting to its hues,
concepts, figures, emotions, and ideas. This is an extraordinary form of
exchange that’s occurring. Remember – it’s your private reactions that
are communicating back. Don’t let someone else break this special connection.
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.
The Relationship Between
Artist and Audience
“I
was just having fun with words. You just take words and stick them together and
see if they create any sort of meaning. You see, the last album was me coming
out of my dream... you could last your whole life on that.... I’m singing about
my life. If it’s relevant to others peoples’ lives, that’s alright.” That was a
quote by John Lennon that I’ve always remembered for it simplistically sums up
my own art.
Since most of my art explores the
subconscious and revolves around the world of surrealism, I feel that it has a
playfully appealing, dreamish quality that anyone can enjoy. My work isn’t for
intellectuals, arty types, or rich people - I make it for everyone who can
dream. I want my work to help the viewer find their feelings... to dissect
their apathy. My work does tend to be very personal and naked. In a sense, it’s
emotional pornography for an open-minded society.
I don’t think much about the
commercial worth of my work when I’m creating art. If people find it
interesting or relate to it, I’m immensely pleased. I give the world the most
pure, sincere, heartfelt emotional and imaginative expression I can possibly
create. I have had people accuse me that I don’t think about “my audience”.
Emotions are universal. I just give
them an aesthetic appearance - a surface and a sound to match their essences. I
am constantly on the search for creating art that is challenging, while also
being considered “accessible
experimentation”. If a certain group of people can’t allow themselves to feel
deeply inside and relate to those emotions on the screen, then they disappoint
me. There’s nothing fake or false in my work. That alone should gain it some
artistic merit or respect.
Since my work can be displayed
electronically, I don’t feel a need for my work to have to only be shown in a
museum. I would be just as thrilled to see it in a suburban home, a small town
library, or an inner city school. Because art has real emotions and soul, it
doesn’t mean it has a limited audience. It is easier to just use superficial,
dumbed down emotions that everyone in the world will understand and not have to
think or feel uncomfortable about. There is no way to tell who will find my
work exciting or not. It is a personal
preference. Everyone dreams. To experience someone else’s dreams is something
revealing, voyeuristic, and exciting. When dealing with emotions in art, there
has to be an honesty to it or else it feels contrived. Dreams and emotions are
the keys to my work. The audience unlocks the doors.
“Does the artwork have universal
appeal? What age group do you see this picture appealing to?” These are
questions that nag at me every so often as an “experimental” artist who
produces “personal artwork”. Is my work too weird and innovative to appeal to
more than 1% of the populace? If it doesn’t, there is no place for it to be
promoted and therefore my work becomes forgotten about on a shelf with hundreds
of other works of mine. I believe my artwork has an emotional core to it that
is devastatingly honest and real. I suppose I put “sugar” and “honey” on it by
using bright, vibrant colors in my artwork. I’ll make it aesthetically
appealing while still aggressively raw with feelings. But seriously, how can I
possibly consider what age group my work will appeal towards? “Anyone who can
handle and empathize with honest and direct emotions in the context of
brilliant imagination,” I’d say. We’re all human beings, aren’t we? We can feel
for each other, can’t we? We learn from one another, can’t we? Then how can my
artwork not be considered “universal”? Maybe it’s because people don’t always want
to look at something too real. That’s the contradiction of my artwork: it’s
realism in the form of surrealist escapism. Once an artist consciously targets
their work to appeal to a certain group, then it is instantly commercial art.
Whenever the artwork flows out of one’s soul and subconscious without a thought
for money or wealth, then it is art. It’s pure and it’s real. There is
no pretensions about it. It exists because it has to. The artist delivered it
himself or herself. If the pregnant thoughts in our beings need to be released
no matter what, then they must be. Some people find the screaming of art
comforting. Some people find the it repelling. As long as they hear - that is
what’s important. It’s an open mind that us artists seek in our audience. That
is enough.
But what if that is not
enough? As it was mentioned in a Woody Allen movie: “Hitchcock was an
artist and a commercial filmmaker. He knew what he was doing. He was thinking
about his audience. Filmmakers have to be that way. Otherwise, you’d just be
making movies for yourself. It would be like artistic masturbation.
You’d be a narcissist.” Any artist, including myself, has to wonder if this is
true. Do I have to put Grace Kelly or Leonardo DiCaprio into my movies to make them
profitable and bankable?!” It’s madness. You have to make a “hit” or else
you’ll become homeless and out of work. No one wants you. You need money to
survive. And honest art won’t pay the bills. You have to make it dumb, pretty,
sexy, fun, exciting; but also challenging, intellectual, brilliant, visionary,
mind-blowing, experimental, and poignant. It’s practically a contraction
combination.
Commercial Ingredients for
Personal Art
To paraphrase some witty
sardonic sentiments of John Lennon in describing going from his raw and
brutally personal “Plastic Ono Band” album to ‘sweet’ “Imagine” album: To
get more of a mass audience, make your desperation sexy! Put sugar and glitter
on your depression art blues and reds!
The Road of Artistic
Honesty in a Commercial World
My artwork is my identity, my
individuality, my humor, and my heart. I feel that art expression is a vital
activity that should remain free of any conformity. Yet that is an especially
difficult thing to do in the real world where you have to make a living by making marketable, commercial art. That is
why when most people think of computer art, they immediately think of special
effects in movies and commercials. The only realistic way to escape the
pressures of doing strictly commercial work is to teach in a creative environment... be it in a first grade classroom
or a university. A teaching career* allows one to grow as an artist in any way
they feel fit while guiding and educating others. To remain true to oneself and
one’s art is one of the most difficult things an artist can do. The temptation
of money and a lack of creative ideas often scares artists from exploring
themselves throughout their lives. A lack of money and energy are also grim
reasons why artists don’t survive on originality and innovative concepts.
*But along with teaching and academia are administrative duties,
committee meetings, and more meetings.
The Dilemma of Being a
Digital Artist
Because there isn’t an original work
in computer art, selling digital fine art to the public is almost impossible.
In the world of traditional art, a painting is worth a lot of money because
there is only an original. I feel that computer art is suffering from a lack of
respect since their work can be easily reproduced. This is why most people look
at animation and computer art in a commercial light - you have to mass-produce
what you are doing to get a profit back. This is a major dilemma for almost all fine art computer artists - especially
time-based artists. The image and content should be the most important aspects
of art; yet unfortunately, if it isn’t an original or a still-image to match
one’s house, the artist will not be able to live.
I believe that one day personal, expressive pieces made on the computer will
gain the recognition they deserve. For the time being, most of those artists
have to take a deep sigh and either “sell” themselves to the commercial
field... or teach.
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
programed 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 the the
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.
While watching several selected prestige animations
at a computer animation festival, 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.
The
Compromise
Idealistically, I believed that I
could do all the elements of my time-based artwork by myself. The problem was
that I am a perfectionist. Unfortunately, I cannot create professional sounding
audio, Hollywood quality 3-D visuals, groundbreaking 2-D compositions, or
award-winning poetic words all alone within a mere lifetime. This has been a
cause of great misery because I dearly wish to impress people. Instead, I have
created flawed, imperfect works of “unfinished” art. There’s always something
lacking, aesthetically, technically, and artistically. I always have a problem
that cannot be corrected in the amount of time I can give or the amount of
knowledge I can hold to solve it.
So I’ve been compromised and become an art professor at a
university. I couldn’t quite make it. I had to accept my limitations or else I
wouldn’t be able to sleep at night or live happily during the day. And this is
all total sincerity. My present goal in life is to advance computer art into a
higher level of expression and communication. Teaching is my present
occupation. Creating art is my secondary vocation.
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
Upon
watching the behind the scenes material of The Matrix Revolutions DVD, I
am more convinced than ever that more and more movies are going to be done
completely in the computer. Why use real actors or build real locations when
you can make them in the computer?!?! It will all come down to cost. What is
cheaper and easier to create one’s fantasy worlds with? Filmed movies will
always have some place, but I can now see that it will be greatly diminished in
the decades to come. Digital cinematography is the new tool of the future of
movie making. If you aren’t aware of it as a moviemaker, you better learn about
it soon. Animators and their technology are the new actors now. There are no
dangerous and costly real special effects. There is no longer any need for
human stunt doubles. Just as motion picture film was a revolutionary step in
how we are entertained, I can easily foresee how computer technology will
completely alter how such movies are now created. With Final Fantasy: The
Spirits Within, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and now this movie,
it’s already happening. There is simply more possibilities and control in the
digital realm. There will be no real need for $25 million dollar paychecks to
actors. There are no benefits to pay, no trailer for the actor, no driver, no
5% of the movie’s gross. The computer eliminates all of that. Technology has
finally caught up with mimicking reality. Now anything's possible. You can
finally motion-capture emotions by
setting up multiple cameras in front of an actor’s face. This is all new
technology that has been quickly developed and invented to suit the needs of
the script and story. Finally, the steps are being made to get an emotional,
believable performance out of a synthetic actor.
8-2-05: Critical impressions from this year’s SIGGRAPH
conference: Has imagination grown old form having realized so many amazing
visions in CG? Computer animation is old now because it’s been around for so
long and we’ve seen so much of it and what it can do. We have indeed become
jaded by it. We expect to see incredibly visuals now… but they’re no longer no
big deal. Perhaps this puts more emphasis on story and great characterization.
Perhaps it is a good thing. We are seeing so many children’s computer animated
feature films that resort to the same old stories and same old characters with
fantastic visuals and terrific animation. There’s no originality there anymore.
The competitors are simply copying each other to death and taking few chances
to do anything different. They want to please a mass family audience with fluff
and what’s worked before. But it’s now grown stale. It’s just not exciting
anymore. It’s dead on arrival because it’s leftovers. And in a sense, as bad of
a situation this is it is still good. Every few years there needs to be a
shakeup with something new when things get tired and trite as they usually do
after a while.
Stories have gotten old as well. We’ve seen these
characters before.
My Present Tense Goals
Everyday, I feel a need to continue creating expressive
work that is meaningful and fresh to others and myself. I want to keep
exploring creativity to be able to live my life through new ideas and new
emotions. Digital technology is my artistic medium of choice because of its
unknown potential as a new artistic frontier that is still growing and
emerging. The fact that I can still creatively help explore and envision with
and in digital technology is one of the reasons why I quickly became dedicated
and engrossed in it. I was able to translate my ideas and emotions for the
first time in a way that has been personally satisfying. Also, I’ve been able
to get acquainted with enough software to work efficiently and fluidly to
express my thoughts, visions, and emotions. Being able to combine vibrant
digital colors, photography, and other mediums in Photoshop and Painter has inspired
me to create work that can be my own worlds. With Director, I’ve been able to
orchestrate my images and sound into interactive experiential movies that
actively address and involve an interactee. With computer animation, my images
have become three-dimensional environments with symbolic characters breathing,
moving, and inhabiting within them.
Teaching computer art students at a
college allows me an exciting chance to enhance my skills, discover new
mediums, and keep me exploring technology and myself. I am constantly working
for originality and self-expression. This was what I want most of out of life.
The electronic arts are the route I see myself achieving a sense of purpose and
expression throughout my life span. This is my present tense goals – my
lifetime goals.