I recently visited an art exhibition where a VR set up had participants helmeted and waving their gloved arms about to create a moving image of a dragon on a nearby screen. There was no shortage of takers who gleefully danced about. There is now nothing new or novel about VR and I have no doubt the experience of being inside an alternate or enhanced reality raises domapine and seratonin levels in the pursuit of a non-drug induced high. We may even see viable holographic possibilities in the near future.
However, just as with many other digital art tools, the claim is that they have moved personal expression forward. Holographic possibilities notwithstanding, why do I doubt that? Mohamed Zaher in an article entitled The Impact Of Digital Technology On Art And Artists 2022 separates past from present with ‘in the past, painting and drawing depended on the artist’s skills in wielding his traditional tools – the brush, the pencil charcoal or pastels’ and that ‘today’s modern technology has reduced the need for the human artistic touch’. And this is a good thing? The sound of a sharpened HB pencil biting into the paper, the crunch of charcoal beneath your fingers, the smell of paint, washing brushes at the end of the day and scraping back a painted canvas surface are all integral to the experience. Why would you want to remove all of that? Add to that, that skill with materials no longer matters and where are we?
The first time I tried a drawing tablet, I can honestly say that I found it disappointing and consigned it to a box along with sundry other electronic doodads. Perhaps I am just old fashioned or resistant to change but creating substitutes for the pencil and brush seemed pointless. The sheer clumsiness with the early versions could never match a human hand let alone render as the pen moved. There have been improvements and I have seen entire exhibitions of drawings done with an Ipad – albeit no bigger than A5 size – although no doubt the print could be any size up to the point where the pixels become so obvious that the pixels become the subject. Or is that not the point? While such a drawing can be printed and shared it was never meant to be. It belongs in a computer archive.
A computer or digital drawing tool relies upon an algorithm – a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations. While I have the greatest respect for programmers, an algorithm is only as good as its creator in terms of artistic choices and no matter how good, the program is a ‘set of rules’. While it is possible to identify sets of rules in historic painting, particularly church commissions where the depiction of religious figures was dictated by priests to ensure that the congregation recognised such figures easily, what we have valued about the work of artists is the breaking of rules. No doubt afficionados will jump to the defence of a pre-prepared set of digital tools and claim that the artists decide how to use them. That is true of any tool – although I have yet to see a set of instructions issued with each pencil, paintbrush or screwdriver other than the obligatory ‘deliberate misuse could result in injury’. Duly warned. Having worked with digital music programs I can see how such tools can be used to effect but in the end what you have are a set of substitutes for the sound a real instrument makes and any musician will tell you that the synthetic sound of a violin is no match for the real thing. It is no less true of paint and drawing programs.
While such technologies are capable of ‘expanding creative horizons and opening up new artistic frontiers’, some in the IT industry accent the reduced time needing to be spent in the actual execution of artwork. Ah yes – I’ve heard this one before. The 20th century promised so much with labour saving devices that proved to be more trouble than they were worth and did not create extra time so much as extra work when the washing machine/dryer/vacuum cleaner and electric toaster gave up the ghost. Creativity was certainly involved in coming up with alternative methods at a moment’s notice when the repair service was promised for several days hence. Time saved inevitably was filled by other mundane activities. If the accent is on ease of use and speed, I see that as of limited advantage. When I make a marks on paper or canvas I may spend days in contemplation of their expressive qualities. Choosing a ready-made option from a digital palette is not the same.
Has digital technology actually advanced the way artists see the world or is that the wrong question? While we have found ever more ingenious and deadly ways to kill each other, artists are by and large using the same methods that they have always done to express themselves beginning with having something to say. Some technical advances do stand out however. Mixing linseed oil and pigment slowed down drying times. The lead paint tube promoted the idea of painting outdoors and sent the Impressionists in all directions. The invention of acrylic paint and polymers allowed for rapid drying times and broad flat areas of colour. The camera showed Degas that cutting off parts of the subject on the edge of a frame wasn’t a bad thing. It was claimed at the time that the camera would replace all other tools used by an artist but instead it took most of a century to shake off its role as a mechanical reproducer of images. The area of video and film though is a whole different matter. Many artists in the 1920s took advantage of what film offered, not as the magic illusionism of the 19th century, not as a way of simply recording the world, but as means of expressing and manipulating a range of human emotions in a three-dimensional environment that did not imitate traditional practices or replace them.
Many claim that the advent of digital technologies has already advanced art beyond anything seen in the previous millennia – in the right hands.
Steve Jobs said
“…technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing and that Instead of looking at technology as a way to replace traditional artmaking, ask yourself, “How can I use technology to enhance the artmaking process?”
To my mind art derives not from a readymade palette of limited possibilities but from the artist actually seeing or experiencing something. One poorly worded quote I found from an digital afficionado said
‘The advanced techniques and software let an artist shape in their vision and use up their creativity to create much more realistic art works compared to those made with traditional techniques’.
The assumption is that the point of art is to create ever more ‘realistic’ illusions and that traditional techniques simply could not achieve such illusions. When an afficionado of apps and suchlike can still see the creative process as making exact copies of nature, art has not moved on. He obviously hadn’t listened to Jobs.
However, as with the eras of steam engine, the computer and the cashless society, we are in the midst of a flood of impactful digital technology and any society that doesn’t get on board with the new technology is doomed to be left behind. The world is full of artists who might object to the premis that they have no choice just as furniture craftsmen object to assembly-only-needed Ikea creations filling every living room but are powerless to stop it.
I have no doubt that visual artists are going to have to adapt and train themselves to use digital tools. After all, if an ageing David Hockney can show the way with an iPad as his main creative tool, then who are we lesser mortals to argue the toss.