[-empyre-] Gross materiality

[Julian Oliver]

..on Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 09:55:18AM +0000, Simon Biggs wrote:
> 
> In the same manner that visual art is effected but, paradoxically,
> unconstrained by the materiality of paint and canvas, digital art cannot be
> constrained by the materiality of computer hardware, even whilst it is
> profoundly effected by it.

perhaps i'm misunderstanding you but from my perspective i see 'digital art' to
be very much constrained by computer hardware: there's a lot of art of this kind
i can't yet make due to constraints relating to hardware, from the pipeline
architecture of CPUs, the vector processing of GPUs, bus bandwidth and so on.
moreso there's work i've made that i can't run on modern systems  - far beyond a
problem of mere emulation. in many ways software based art degrades with the
hardware (and software) on which it depends.

conversely, new hardware brings new possibilities for artistic exploration.

at it's most literal the constraining power of hardware over 'digital art' is
expressed by the fact that i cannot make art of this kind /without/ computer
hardware. to flogg a tired metaphor, the computer provides for the paint tints,
the brushes and the canvas. this is why 'digital art' is, to me, something of a
fallacy and 'computer art' is simply more critically constructive, honest. 

Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, ATI will all be figures in any serious history of computer
art. they certainly are in the history of video games just as film technologies
are in the history of cinema. software developers and operating systems (Linux,
Windows, OS X (Irix, Dos Lisa OS) on which so much computer art is based will
also be significant. consider what PD and Max MSP have contributed to computer
music.. 

put simply, the Digital Artwork doesn't exist beyond being a cultural
convenience, an object of thought. that's all very well, much of terminology is,
in fact, born of convenience. in the case of the field of art made using
computers i see 'Digital Art' as critically lazy and unneccessarily illusory.

again, it's certainly no great concern to me if the term retains value (albeit i
don't believe it will). i, and a few other artists i've shown with, have
expressed discontent at the fallacies projected by 'digital art' and so we no
longer use it.

these digital resolutions were to be personal, afterall!

cheers,

-- 
Julian Oliver
home: New Zealand
based: Madrid, Spain
currently: Madrid, Spain 
about: http://julianoliver.com
> 
> 
> On 17/1/09 01:00, Julian Oliver wrote:
> 
> > 'Digital Artwork' is very much non-digital. the metal and plastic computer, in
> > all it's gross materiality, is more than the frame, even the support (canvas).
> > it is, for the most part, a physical context that cannot be separated from the
> > digital content, critically, functionally and historically.
> 
> 
> 
> Simon Biggs
> Research Professor
> edinburgh college of art
> s.biggs at eca.ac.uk
> www.eca.ac.uk
> www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
> 
> simon at littlepig.org.uk
> www.littlepig.org.uk
> AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
> 
> 
> Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201
> 
> 

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