| The sleek
and speedy machine of "Fine Arts" was demolished during
a head-on collision with the insurmountably jaded wall
of "Post-Modernism". No one, it seems, has much interest
in even hauling off the wreckage. "Good enough", I say;
"let sleeping dogs lie".
It is time
for a new order. Not one of those lame "rising-out-of-the-ashes"
things; because it is time to turn our backs on what
was. Let the art schools, fashionable galleries and
the whole money grubbing industry of Fine Arts rot and
rust and fall in from the weight of its own exclusivity.
It is time for a revolution. It is time for a "Digital
Manifesto".
Why a manifesto?
Simply because no one does manifestos anymore. Therefore,
what better way to connect the passion of the old with
the promise of the new. If there is to be a Manifesto
of the Digital Arts here are some of the things it should
include.
I. Death
to the ...
Like all
good manifestos our's must call for the death of something
or other. Usually, this death is wished upon an oppressor
or an oppressive idea. I can think of no greater oppression
than the concept of "limited editions". One of the things
nailed into your head while attending the finer art
schools is that the artist owes it to buyers, agents
and your future estate to limit your output of a certain
image. The argument usually is that too many copies
drives down the prices and scares off your "investors".
But, who really profits from this? Not the artist. This
is the art agents' way of guaranteeing that after you
die everyone else will profit.
Limited
editions may have made sense in the past. Litho stones
and silk screens wear out. An engraving plate can print
the image upon it at only one size. But with today's
digital printing, ten copies now are the same color
and quality as ten more copies later. An image can be
printed at one size on coated paper, and another size
on back-lit film, and another size on canvas. Is each
one of these a separate edition? Wherein lies the edition...with
the image or with the materials and size? If this is
a convention that can so easily be usurped, then why
bother? Is it better to sell one print for a thousand
dollars or a thousand prints for one dollar? "Digital"
allows and should encourage the artist to limit their
output based only on the demand for a particular work
or image over the course of their whole lifetime. "Make
hay while the sun shines"...(then bury your files with
you).
II. We
hold these things to be "contra-digital"...
As the story
goes, Picasso refused to enter Braque's studio until
he received Braque's agreement to his warning; "all
artists are thieves!" Picasso absorbed Braque's conceptualization
of "Cubism" and the rest is art history. And, why not?
No one complains when an artist includes a tree they
have seen in their neighbor's yard in some art they
are working on, because that tree is a natural part
of the environment. "Environment", however now includes
the world wide web, music on CD, high quality photographs
published in magazines, etc. Copyright laws are going
to have to change to include the ability to sample these
parts of the natural environment for inclusion in other
artist's works.
Don't get
me wrong, here, any person that copies or otherwise
re-issues someone else's work in whole or part and sells
that work as their own or without permission of the
original artist should be a candidate for public flogging.
With the original artist receiving the syndication and
re-broadcast rights for the video taped flogging footage.
It's only fair. Either that or convince all mankind
to quit inventing and using machines that make perfect
copies and provide instantaneous distribution of aural
and visual materials. OOPS, too late.
III.
Expand the creative bandwidth!
In the January/February
issue of Communication Arts magazine (page 52), Paul
Matthaeus wrote an interesting article about the transition
in commercial TV away from the expensive proprietary
special effects houses toward desktop multi-media platforms.
The following paragraph makes a good argument for where
Digital Art is also heading. Under the risk of public
flogging, here is the paragraph:
"In the mid-"80s,
print was revolutionized by an innocent little box called
the Macintosh, and programs like Pagemaker and Illustrator.
Suddenly the ability to manipulate text, design, texture
and color was in the hands of the proletariat. Typesetters
decried the technical deficiencies. "The Macintosh will
never have the kerning pairs of a Mergenthaler!" And
over a decade later, it still doesn't. But it enabled
millions the opportunity to manipulate the media. Iteration
after iteration, layer upon layer, the breadth and depth
of design exploded, producing some wildly interesting
work from the uninitiated and design illiterate.
People who
had no idea what the "rules" were, and felt no loss
when they were broken"...had no business doing what
they did, but thank God they did. Mr. Matthaeus went
on to add, "desktop video may never reach the highly
controlled and calibrated quality of conventionally-produced
high-end Video...but like in Print, it just won't matter."
Expanding the creative bandwidth is more important and
will win out over preserving worn out standards and
ways of doing business that are designed mainly to exclude
and discourage the millions who now have digital control
over the "visual" part of the Visual Arts.
While the
integrity of an Artist's work must always be the major
concern, Digital Arts must currently avoid being suckered
into corporate maneuvering that limits creativity and
access based on old standards, materials and money.
For example, watercolor paper may not be the best substrate
to reproduce an image. And, just because art salesmen
are stuck in a place where what the image is printed
on is more important than the image itself...where the
frame costs more than they will pay the artist for the
piece...where brand names mean more than innovation,
we must not give in. We must continue to work and publish,
show and share and market what we have made.
It is regrettable
that some manufacturers in their zeal to sell over priced
and maintenance intensive printing systems made claims
as to ink longevity without bothering to learn the facts
of their product. The Digital Artist will have to work
for many years, now, to counter the already faint-hearted
gallery owners who use ink longevity and desperate clinging
to old materials as an excuse to ignore THE WORK that
digital artists create. In the new world we are currently
creating, high cost will no longer signify superior
work. Galleries and critics alike will soon have to
realize that creativity, vision, diversity and craftsmanship
have returned as the benchmarks of "value".
IV. Toward
a living Art...
Digital tools
can make Art that is accessible; Art that everyday people
can afford to take home and live with, and discard when
they want to move on to something new. "Archivability"
is a scam...a way to exclude...a lame excuse to charge
more money. We can't possibly know that any one of us
is making artwork that someone will want to pull out
of an hermetically sealed drawer in five hundred years.
Digital artwork is much more akin to the Japanese print
makers of the 1700 and 1800s. No one questioned if those
prints were going to last three hundred years. Those
colorful, masterful, fast moving commodities served
a different purpose all together...a living purpose.
A purpose that was inextricably bound to expanded creative
and commercial bandwidth brought about by new tools
and techniques. The market for those prints roared with
the life of mass approval not exclusion based on price
or snobbish philosophy. This is where a Manifesto of
Digital Art should carry us.
V. There
is no conclusion...
Manifesto
or not. Archival inks and papers or not. Limited editions
or not. Regardless of the stalling tactics of galleries,
critics and the art industrial complex, the genie is
out of the bottle. Nothing will stop this innovation.
All the excuses that plague the digital artist today
will be swept away as this wave hits the beach. My advice
is to grab your motherboard. Paddle out as far as you
can. Catch the wave and enjoy the ride. Live long and
prosper.
This article was
first published by
EFX, Art and Design
magazine.
Please visit
www.dunkingbirdproductions.com
for more articles
and essays by JD Jarvis.
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