Prior to taking this class I’m afraid that I had the naive perception that digital art was produced using a mouse, a keyboard, and a graphics pad for input, and a video screen or printer for output, but I could not have had a greater misunderstanding of the tools or the medium. Christine Paul’s Digital Art has illuminated an extraordinary landscape of possibilities in the realm of art that I can only hope to truly explore and exploit. The prospect of programming a symphony performance using cell phone ring tones as the output, or using the readings from multiple GPS locators as a living, interactive input are only a couple of examples of the vast creative possibilities that Paul explains that fan my own creative flames.
Utilizing digital technology as a tool is an interesting prospect in that there is already a figurative “box of tools” available within any software application which could potentially be used to create art. This process was explored in the first project that we completed (in this class) by using a non art-based software application to create a piece of art. These digital tools can be used as they were intended or, by applying a little creativity, the tool can be adapted to complete a task totally unrelated to the purpose for which it was created, much like using a butter knife to unscrew a flat headed screw. One incredible aspect of utilizing digital technology as a tool is that by developing a new piece of software, or writing some code, new tools can be created, duplicated and distributed. Simply opening a project in a different software application (than the one used to create it) provides the artist with a whole new digital tool assortment to work with. The use of digital technology as a tool has benefited the entire world of art, regardless of what medium the artist is using, but digital technology itself is also an incredibly flexible medium, offering a number of dimensions that are only limited by the artist’s imagination.
Utilizing digital technology as a medium provides a level of motion and interactivity that has only begun to be explored. An expansive virtual environment replaces the canvas. An unlimited assortment of colors, filters and textures replaces a palette of finite, often costly, pigments. The already massive range of tools available for use in the digital medium expands at the same rate as the technology being used to create the work. Beautiful, but static, works of art are replaced by lively interactive experiences. A bulky portfolio or stack of canvases is replaced with a URL, and the local, dusty museum of old takes up residence on the World Wide Web. This is not to say that the digital medium will replace traditional art, but that it has a dimension that traditional art forms simply can not share.
Using digital tools can simplify and improve a project whether the medium is clay, paint, metal, or condiments. Perhaps the most prominent and effective use of digital tools can be seen though when working in a digital medium. As it takes a physical pigment to color a physical canvas, a digital tool must be used in a digital world.
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