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Computing and the Internet: Sample feature essay
Using Computers in Art and Design
by Clive Gillman
Art and technology
The process of making art has always been one in which technology and individual creativity have worked together. This has been true from earliest times when painters had a sorcerer-like knowledge of how to create vivid colours, and sculptors transformed the
materials they had around them into representations of the world.
The development of the computer has been the latest in a long line of more recent technological advances that have brought us new ways of seeing. Photography, cinema, radio, and television have become the key media through which we view and understand the world around us, and it is the art and culture of these forms that have defined the 20th century. The computer, the most recent arrival, is still in its infancy as a creative tool, but it is clear that its influence has already been felt in most forms of art and culture.
History
Early computers, although useful in other ways, were not immediately identified as machines through which art might be made. However, technology developed rapidly and useful design tools began to appear throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The flat-image scanner (for digitizing photographs and other images) was invented in 1957, closely followed by the image plotter (a form of printer) in 1959. In 1960 the term 'computer graphics' was coined by William A Fetter, who was working for US military and commercial aircraft manufacturer Boeing. He used the term to describe a process of visualizing cockpit designs. In 1962, Sketchpad, an interactive graphics system for drawing directly onto a computer screen, was developed by US electronics engineer Ivan Sutherland, and a year later US computer scientist Douglas Engelbart patented the first computer mouse prototype.
Computers slowly began to appear in new settings. One of the first artists to explore the potential of electronic technology was the US pop artist Robert Rauschenberg. In 1963 he formed a partnership with US technologist Billy Klüver and they began to produce collaborative performance works under the name 'Experiments in Art and Technology'. Five years later, in 1968, one of the first major art exhibitions to be based around computer technology took place at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. This exhibition, entitled 'Cybernetic Serendipity', was curated by Polish-born English art expert Jasia Reichardt and featured
computer-generated paintings, sculptures, films, music, and poetry. This landmark show was hugely influential in highlighting the significance of computer technology as a creative tool.
Key tools
As computers continued to become smaller and cheaper, and therefore more widespread, the emphasis continued to shift from engineers and technologists to a wider, more diverse group of users. The first mass-market computers such as the Apple II, the Commodore Amiga, and the IBM PC introduced a wide range of people to computers for the first time, and artists were quick to explore the creative possibilities of these new tools. Although by today's standards these computers were expensive and low powered, newer models were developed and an increasing range of application software for graphics began to appear.
One of the most important tools that emerged at this time was a software application called Aldus Pagemaker. This tool was created in 1985 to allow designers to use computers for the layout and typesetting of print. It very quickly became the most popular way to produce publications and spawned a whole new industry called 'desktop publishing' or DTP. The success of
Pagemaker and the introduction of affordable colour graphics systems led to the development of a number of other tools aimed at supporting the publishing industry, most notably Adobe Photoshop, which, for many aspiring computer artists, has provided the canvas for their first explorations of the medium.
High-end graphics tools were also developed through the 1970s and 1980s, many of which have specialist applications such as television graphics, computer-aided design (CAD), or virtual reality simulators. One ground-breaking tool used by artists in the 1980s was the Quantel Paintbox system, a complete graphics suite that used a pressure-sensitive pen and tablet device with which artists could paint intuitively. This was used by the English painters Howard Hodgkin and David Hockney, but probably was seen by most people in television advertising and news graphics.
As these tools grew in sophistication, two distinct forms of computer graphics emerged: bitmap editors and vector
graphics. Bitmap editors allow the user to change and edit the individual pixels (picture elements) of an image, and are normally used for manipulating photographs or for graphics that will only be displayed on a computer screen or television. Adobe Photoshop is an example of this kind of tool. In vector graphics, the computer uses a special language to describe the shape and form of a computer graphic object. This object can then be rendered into a bitmap for screen display or for printing. This form of tool is mainly used for the creation of 3-D graphics or for architectural or product design. Many of these tools use a software
technology called PostScript to create the image. Vector graphics tools include Illustrator, Freehand, and AutoCAD.
Work or play
While computer graphics often produce results that are indiscernible from conventional media such as photography or painting, this may not always be the case. Many artists regard digital art as something unique to the computer rather than an emulation of an existing art form. Like cinema, which developed as an art form in its own right out of a hybrid of photography and theatre, digital art will define its own language and codes. But this will take time. US computer scientist Ted Nelson, one of the key proponents of the new technology, believes that many of us are only 'using the computer as a paper simulator'. He coined the term 'hypertext' to describe the links between items that mean information can be found by following many different paths, rather than following one line from start to finish. In other words, just as this encyclopedia can be read by following cross references from one article to another, rather than starting on page one and reading the pages in order to the end, so the Internet allows many different pieces of information to be accessed from many different starting points. Nelson has been a champion of the development of this form of creativity. Today the term hypertext has to some extent been displaced by the more popular, but less specific, notion of 'multimedia', text accompanied by sound and images, for example. We are still some way away from Nelson's vision of an active virtual world. But while the idea that computer art is a distinct form of creative practice has still to gain wider acceptance, it is clear that some artists are beginning to define a new canon.
Among those who have been significant in defining this new ground, several have chosen to explore games and gameplay, an area that seems to present particularly fertile ground for the interactive potential of the computer. Japanese artist Toshio Iwai, who has created elegant interactive sound games, is one of the foremost exponents of this way of working. His work has been shown in art galleries, museums, and, most recently, in the Play Zone at the Millennium Dome in London. English artist Susan Collins has also created interactive projections that allow Internet users to view and influence images being projected onto pedestrians in city centres around the globe and, at the same time, to enter into dialogue with them. Australian artist Jeffrey Shaw, who is based at the ZKM Institute at Karlsruhe, Germany, has created a number of works, one of which is an interactive piece called 'The Legible
City'. In this work, the viewer explores a huge projected map of New York City by pedalling and steering a bicycle which controls the projected image. The streets are made up of enormous texts which the user reads by exploring the complex urban street patterns.
Centre stage
While some artists produce digital work for the art gallery, others are experimenting with the rapidly growing world of the Internet, exploring ideas of connectivity, distance, and simultaneity.
However, the first areas to have achieved broad popular success are those in which digital technology has been used to enhance traditional media forms: in music, in photography, and in design, but probably most visibly in Hollywood cinema, where digital special effects have become the stars of many films. Organizations like the US digital entertainment company Industrial Light and Magic have specialized in pushing the boundaries of computer-assisted special effects, while US animator John Lasseter has achieved worldwide success with the Toy Story movies, in which high-level technical skill has been married with the animator's craft to produce hugely entertaining results.
The future for digital art
Whatever the precise form that digital art will take, it seems that the art of the digital age will emerge in ways that will
surround us and define our world view. This may well happen in ways that we cannot yet predict, although many believe that the realm of computer games will mature and produce works that have the resonance of novels or the involvement of cinema. Computer games such as Myst, released in 1992 by the Miller Brothers, or Ceremony of Innocence, directed by English artist Alex Mayhew, suggest future directions and ways in which the computer can become as challenging and engaging as the best linear
media.
However, what will always remain important is what we choose to say within the media forms available to us. It seems likely that, for the next few years at least, digital media will increasingly provide a window on the world and will be the vehicle for much new creativity.
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