Digital Media in Art

Digital Media Foundations - MD4004

why ART?

Josiah McElheny, The Uniform Body (after Popova and Rodchenko), 2012

Josiah McElheny,The Constructivist Body (after Delaunay), 2012

Anish Kapoor,Svayambh at the Royal Academy of Arts, 2007

Michael Craig-Martin, An Oak Tree (1973).

Rirkrit Tiravanija, Untitled (Free), 1992

The Context of Art

‘Context is the web of complex circumstances in which artists work in relation to their physical environment, historical trends and traditions, social movements, cultural values, intellectual perspectives, personal commitments, and more.

Likewise, art is received within a context of corresponding dynamics that shape meaning and interpretation. As such, context is an inescapable dimension of art in both its production and its reception and interpretation.'

(Vander Lugt, 2011)

Is the history of art, a history of works? Or a history of the circumstances shaping it?

Venus of Willendorf, circa 24,000–22,000 BC

Cave painting of a horse from the Lascaux caves, c.16,000 BC

Painting by Song Dynasty artist Ma Lin, c. 1250

Leonardo Da Vinci, anatomical sketch of

a human skull, c. 1472 - 1519

Contemporary Art

Western-centric logic (works illustrating/challenging socio-cultural values and trends related to the west)

Art in art’s Spaces (or challenging Art Institutions)

Art by artists and for art audiences

Art as distinct from crafts or technology

Definitions of art by art’s theorists

Art in reference to art-history, legacies, genres, styles

Pre-modern Era:

- Images/signs tied to social hierarchies

- Renaissance: Transition of power from the Church to the Medici, return to Classical sources.

- Artists as craftsmen supported by guilds, the church, the state, the rich and powerful

The first art history book: Giorgio Vasari (1550) The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. The first public art gallery: Palazzo degli Uffizi in 1591

Neo-classicism Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784

Rococo: Pair of lovers, c. 1760, by Franz Anton Bustelli

Baroque: Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa,1652

Leonardo da Vinci, Vitruvian Man, 1492

ModernismMonet,

Impression, Sunrise, 1872

Gauguin, Riders on the Beach, 1902

Impressionism

Impressionism

Expressionism Fauvism

Cubism

Dadaism

Surrealism

Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase,1912

Max Ernst, The Elephant Celebes,

1921

Modernism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnfB-pUm3eI

-Mass production, reproduction (no longer imitation of nature)

Modernism and new definitions of Art

Clement Greenberg

"The essence of Modernism lies, as I see it, in the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself” (Greenberg, 1961, p. 1)

Separation between ‘high culture’ (ruling classes, beyond the surface) and ‘low culture’ (Kitsch, mechanically produced, operating by formulas, commercial)

High art is the only hope for a better type of art

Technology being a threat for high culture!!

Mark Rothko, No. 61 (Rust and Blue), 1953

Pollock, Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950

The decline of the Elite and rise of capitalism

“The masses have always remained more or less indifferent to culture in the process of development. But today such culture is being abandoned by those to whom it actually belongs—our ruling class. For it is to the latter that the avant- garde belongs. […] And now this elite is rapidly shrinking. Since the avant-garde forms the only living culture we now have, the survival in the near future of culture in general is thus threatened.” (Greenberg, 1939, p. 38)

“Another mass product of Western Industrialism, it has gone on a triumphal tour of the world, crowding out and defacing native cultures in one colonial county after another, so that it is now by way of becoming a universal culture, the first universal culture ever beheld” (Ibid., p. 39)

Contemporary Art

Western-centric context (illustrating/challenging socio-cultural values and trends related to the west)

Art in art’s Spaces (or challenging Art Institutions)

Art by artists and for art audiences

Art as distinct from crafts or technology

Definitions of art by art’s theorists

Art in reference to art-history, legacies, genres, styles

The classification of "contemporary art" as a special type of art, rather than a general adjectival phrase, goes back to the beginnings of Modernism

Lyle Ashton Harris (2000) The Miss America Triptych.

Laura Aguilar (1989)In Sandy’s Room.

Robert Mapplethorpe (1980) Self-portrait.

Adrian Piper (1974) I/You (Her).

Digital Art

Digital Art engages with digital technologies that confront us daily in the world – photography, film, video, text, book, electronic and digital technologies, installation, performance, screenings, sound works…

- Digital versions of old Media (video, painting, sculpture, photography, sound art)

- New Expressions (net.art, digital installations, virtual reality, fractal art)

- Combinations that blur the boundaries and relationships between different media (multidisciplinarity, multimedia art, computer art).

- Mass production and distribution

E.g. Alexei Shulgin ‘Desktop Is’ (1997/1998)

net.art refers to a group of artists who worked in the medium of Internet art from 1994.

Fractal art (since the 80s) is a form of algorithmic art created by calculating fractal objects and representing the calculation results as still images, animations, and media.

Fractal image generated by Electric Sheep (http://www.electricsheep.org/ )

Is the medium the message in art?

‘“Media art” is [...] such a problematic term […] a distinction from contemporary art is impossible to draw, since all art uses some sort of medium, and many modern and contemporary artworks have used media technologies without qualifying as “media art” in a narrower sense. It seems that, more than anything else, “media art” is a way of looking at works’.

Andreas Broeckmann (2005)

http://www.crumbweb.org/discItemDetail.php?&useArch=1&archID=2179&op=2&sublink=1&fromSearch=1&

‘At first I thought I could simply draw a line under the word medium, bury it like so much critical toxic waste, and walk away from it into a world of lexical freedom. “Medium” seemed too contaminated, too ideologically, too dogmatically, too discursively loaded.’ Rosalind Krauss (1999) A Voyage on the North Sea

‘when Arts Electronica program asks “In which direction is artists’ work with the new instruments like

algorithms and dynamic systems transforming the process of artistic creativity?” […], the very

assumptions behind such a question put it outside of the paradigm of contemporary art».

Lev Manovich (2003) ‘AF 2003’ ‘And why the use of this term [new technologies] is often welcomed this way: “Every time you describe these artists by material, you are hurting, and not helping them”’ Brody Condon (2008)

http://medianewmediapostmedia.wordpress.com/english-abstract/

Domenico Quaranta (2010) Media, New Media, Postmedia

Art World

Content

galleries, art fairs, private,

public and corporate

collections

objects

Media Art World

Medium

festivals, symposia and meetings

experiences

≠

Christiane Paul on curating digital media (2008)

‘It is an art form that still hasn’t found an established place in the arts at large. Many people are still scared of computers, technology, and interfaces and do not understand the inherent possibilities of the medium. I could easily curate a show consisting of projects that I find very interesting, and it would turn out to be a complete “geekfest,” entirely inaccessible to a larger art audience.'

http://umintermediai501.blogspot.co.uk/2008/05/interview-with-christiane-paul-sheila.html

Camille Henrot, Grosse Fatigue, 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYycsJz8vtc

Chisenhale Gallery (London): 28 February – 13 April 2014Preview: Thursday 27 February 2014, 6.30-8.30pm

Venice Biennale Silver Lion 2013

Elizabeth Price, Choir, 2012

http://www.bielefelder-kunstverein.de/en/exhibitions/subjective-projections/elizabeth-price.html

Turner Prize 2012

Ed Atkins, Warm, Warm, Warm Spring Mouths, 2013

http://vimeo.com/58420827 from 4:40 until the end

Jerwood Film and Video Umbrella Award 2013

Gerard Richter, Symphony of Light at Cologne Cathedral, 2007

Mariko Mori, Wave UFO, (2003)

First digital media auction 2013 at Phillips

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304713704579091192929676208

Claire Bishop in Artforum 2012

‘the hybridized solutions that visual art is currently pursuing – analogue in appearance, digital in structure – seem always biased toward the former, so favored by the market. If the digital means anything for visual art, it is the need to take stock of this orientation and to question art’s most treasured assumptions. At its most utopian, the digital revolution opens up a new dematerialized, deauthored, and unmarketable reality of collective culture; at its worst, it signals the impending obsolescence of visual art itself. (Bishop, 2012, p. 4)

Or just the integration of digital media in Art?

Bibliography Berger, J. (1972) ‘Chapter 1’, Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin, London, pp. 7-34.

Broeckmann, Andreas (2005) Discussing 'Media Art' by http://www.crumbweb.org/discItemDetail.php?&useArch=1&archID=2179&op=2&sublink=1&fromSearch=1&16

Colson, R. The fundamentals of digital art “Chapter 1: The History and Development of Digital Art”.

Clement Greenberg (1939) ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch.’ [Online]. Available from:http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDMQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fxroads.virginia.edu%2F~DRBR2%2Fgreenburg.pdf&ei=jVWoUsr0FYKGhQfLvoGACQ&usg=AFQjCNGLU2p9KsbWHWzQAMwUtQ3CdTO6gw&sig2=49ymdr4v1JAXJIWZtqFWwA [Last accessed: 11/12/2013]

Greenberg, Clement (1961)’Modernist Painting’. [Online]. Available at: http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcas.uchicago.edu%2Fworkshops%2Fwittgenstein%2Ffiles%2F2007%2F10%2FGreenbergmodpaint.pdf&ei=KECoUs2xAsKUhQe-0YDABA&usg=AFQjCNEGMg2GsUBC7sm_Do1deexIo2xlOA&sig2=XZ1ZQiNfCN0l5MUDK6RH1Q&bvm=bv.57799294,d.ZG4 [Last accessed: 11/12/2013]

Bishop, C. (2012) ‘Digital Divide: Contemporary Art and New Media’. Artforum. [Online]. Available at: http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fleepatrickjohnson.files.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F09%2Fdigital-divide-contemporary-art-and-new-media-artforum-com-by-claire-bishop-sept-2012.pdf&ei=EH-oUvCTAcSu7AaV5ICYBQ&usg=AFQjCNEN4UKudfx1SNhljmoFa0ziV4yOWA&sig2=oRyiaPou8fjb26DWddi6Pw&bvm=bv.57799294,d.ZGU [Last accessed: 11/12/2013]

Vander Lugt, W. (2011) 'The Context of Art’, Transpositions. [Online]. Available at: http://www.transpositions.co.uk/2011/04/the-context-of-art/ . [Last accessed 10/12/2013]

Quaranta, Domenico (2010) Media, New Media, Postmedia http://medianewmediapostmedia.wordpress.com/english-abstract/

Happy Christmas Break!!!