Digital art

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Digital art most commonly refers to art created on a computer in digital form.[1] In an expanded sense, "digital art" is a term applied to contemporary art that uses the methods of mass production or digital media.[2] The impact of digital technology has transformed traditional activities such as painting, drawing and sculpture, while new forms, such as net art, digital installation art, and virtual reality, have been recognized artistic practices. [3] More generally the term digital artist is used to describe an artist who makes use of digital technologies in the production of art. Digital artists are artists who make digital art using computer graphics software, digital photography technology and computer assisted painting to create art.

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[edit] Digital techniques

Digital art can be purely computer-generated, such as fractals, and algorithmic art or taken from another source, such as a scanned photograph, or an image drawn using vector graphics software using a mouse or graphics tablet.[4] Though technically the term may be applied to art done using other media or processes and merely scanned in, it is usually reserved for art that has been non-trivially modified by a computing process (such as a computer program, microcontroller or any electronic system capable of interpreting an input to create an output); digitized text data and raw audio and video recordings are not usually considered digital art in themselves, but can be part of the larger project of computer art and information art. [5]Artworks are considered digital painting when created in similar fashion to non-digital paintings but using software on a computer platform and digitally outputting the resulting image as painted on canvas. [6]

The availability and popularity of photograph manipulation software has spawned a vast and creative library of highly modified images, many bearing little or no hint of the original image. Using electronic versions of brushes, filters and enlargers, these "Neographers" produce images unattainable through conventional photographic tools. In addition, digital artists may manipulate scanned drawings, paintings, collages or lithographs, as well as using any of the above-mentioned techniques in combination. Artists also use many other sources of electronic information and programs to create their work.[7]

3D graphics are created via the process of designing complex imagery from geometric shapes, polygons or NURBS curves [8] to create 3 dimensional shapes, objects and scenes for use in various media such as film, television, print, rapid prototyping and the special visual effects. There are many software programs for doing this. The technology can enable collaboration, lending itself to sharing and augumenting by a creative effort similar to the open source movement, and the creative commons in which users can collaborate in a project to create unique pieces of art.

The mainstream media uses a lot of digital art in advertisements and computers are used extensively in film to produce special effects. Desktop publishing has had a huge impact on the publishing world, although that is more related to graphic design. Computers are also commonly used to make music, especially electronic music, since they present a powerful way to arrange and create sound samples. It is possible that general acceptance of the value of digital art will progress in much the same way as the increased acceptance of electronically produced music over the last three decades.[9]

Digital Photography and digital printing is now an acceptable medium of creation and presentation by major museums and galleries, and the work of digital artists is gaining ground, through robotic installation, net art, immersive virtual reality and software art. But the work of artists who produce digital paintings and digital printmakers is beginning to find acceptance, as the output capabilities advance and quality increases. Internationally, many museums are now beginning to collect digital art such as the San Jose Museum of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum print department also has a reasonable but small collection of digital art. One reason why the established art community finds it difficult to accept digital art is the erroneous perception of digital prints being endlessly reproducible. Many artists though are erasing the relevant image file after the first print, thus making it a unique artwork.

Some say we are now in a postdigital era, where digital technologies are no longer a novelty in the art world, and "the medium is the message"(Marshall McLuhan). Digital tools have now become an integral part of the process of making art. As silicon-dry digital media converges with wet biological systems, Roy Ascott has pointed to the emergence of a "moistmedia" substrate for 21st century art.[10]

</gallery>=== Computer-generated art === Computer-generated art is art created with a computer, from models created by the artist. The term is usually applied to works created entirely with a computer. Movies make heavy use of computer-generated graphics; they are called computer-generated imagery (CGI) in the film industry. In the 1990s, and early 2000s CGI advanced enough so that for the first time it was possible to create realistic 3D computer animation. The film The Phantom Menace was widely noted for its heavy use of computer graphics.[11]

There are two main paradigms in computer generated imagery. The simplest is 2D computer graphics which reflect how you might draw using a pencil and a piece of paper. In this case, however, the image is on the computer screen and the instrument you draw with might be a tablet stylus or a mouse. What is generated on your screen might appear to be drawn with a pencil, pen or paintbrush. The second kind is 3D computer graphics, where the screen becomes a window into a virtual environment, where you arrange objects to be "photographed" by the computer. Typically a 2D computer graphics use raster graphics as their primary means of source data representations, whereas 3D computer graphics use vector graphics in the creation of immersive virtual reality installations. A possible third paradigm is to generate art in 2D or 3D entirely through the execution of algorithms coded into computer programs and could be considered the native art form of the computer. That is, it cannot be produced without the computer. Fractal art or algorithmic art and Dynamic Painting are examples.

view of digital art installation by Pascal Dombis

Newschool ASCII Screenshot

ZOACODE: COMFORT THE LINKLESS: Zoacode contemplated by Heather Marandola in the Hyperhive of the Nervepool by Ebon Fisher

Joseph Nechvatal Orgiastic abattOir (digital painting)

Computer-generated image created by Gilles Tran using POV-Ray 3.6. The glasses, ashtray, and pitcher were modeled with Rhino and the dice with Cinema 4D

Ganesha created by shivanjan choudhury

Azzurra De Sanctis - created by Luke E.S. Romano

"Arise Arise" (section) created by Jennifer Kathleen Phillips using the Adobe Photoshop tools and Terragen for the distant mountains and sky.

Comparison of Leonardo's self portrait and the Mona Lisa based on Lillian Schwartz's Mona Leo

"The Woman of Rock" (section) created by Andrew West using Adobe Photoshop. This image is an example of digital painting

Mermaid Syndrom (2006)

A computer-generated mountain

Digital painting using Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop created by JD Jarvis

[edit] List of digital artists

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Paul, Christiane (2006). Digital Art, pp 7-8. Thames & Hudson.
  2. ^ Charlie Gere Art, Time and Technology: Histories of the Disappearing Body (Berg, 2005). ISBN 978-1845201357 This text concerns artistic and theoretical responses to the increasing speed of technological development and operation, especially in terms of so-called ‘real-time’ digital technologies. It draws on the ideas of Jacques Derrida, Bernard Stiegler, Jean-François Lyotard and André Leroi-Gourhan, and looks at the work of Samuel Morse, Vincent van Gogh and Kasimir Malevich, among others.
  3. ^ Donald Kuspit The Matrix of Sensations VI: Digital Artists and the New Creative Renaissance
  4. ^ Paul, Christiane (2006. Digital Art, pp. 27-67. Thames & Hudson.
  5. ^ Wands, Bruce (2006). Art of the Digital Age, pp. 10-11. Thames & Hudson.
  6. ^ Paul, Christiane (2006. Digital Art, pp. 54-60. Thames & Hudson.
  7. ^ Frank Popper, Art of the Electronic Age, Thames & Hudson, 1997.
  8. ^ Wands, Bruce (2006). Art of the Digital Age, pp. 15-16. Thames & Hudson.
  9. ^ Charlie Gere, (2002) Digital Culture, Reaktion.
  10. ^ Ascott, Roy (July 12, 2000). "Moistmedia, technoetics and the three VRs" (RTF). ACTES / PROCEEDINGS ISEA2000. http://www.isea2000.com/actes_doc/01_ascott.rtf. 
  11. ^ Lev Manovich (2001) The Language of New Media Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

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