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The Art of Being Digital
An individual who operates an online art site from one of the colder climes is a happy man.
Well, at least he's happy
about being an artist in the Digital Age. He's thrilled by the improved access between artist and art-lover, the ease of
communicating ideas and sharing images - his own and the work of others. He is pleased to bypass the expensive and
time-consuming process of printing marketing collateral; and he seems particularly happy to know that
he won't have to create art without knowing it has a loving home to receive the work before making the effort of
creating a piece. He'll
just whip up a digital draft and run it past the prospect to make sure... (what? that it won't clash
with the sofa?)
Okay... this fellow seems like a he's given this some thought before writing a paen to the Great God of
the Digital Interstices. Perhaps I'm just being an art-specific Luddite. Perhaps I'm simply glowing a fruity
shade of chartreuse because no one has knocked on my door lately
(or... to provide full disclosure, ever) with a commission.
Perhaps not.
First I have to admit that I regularly promote the Wonderful Webbified World of art access. It is my personal
opinion that any artist or gallery that doesn't have a web site to call their own is just not taking themselves
seriously. Sheesh! It's like refusing to have a phone number, or a business card. (The fact that I
indulge in a bit of web design on the side has nothing whatsoever to do with it. Nothing. Really. That's not why... oh forget it.)
In this, my wool-wearing compatriot of the arts and I are in total agreement. Being able to log onto your email account
and click a link that takes you to an image of some masterful painting that you just HAVE to own, strikes me as world-changing technology.
The fact that the Web is finally being accepted as Here To Stay, even by those who would rather not have any
truck with computers, or broadband access, or RSS news feeds...
fills me with a certain self-satisfied glee. I can afford to feel smug. I was telling people who allocated millions
of budget dollars to Project A vs. Project B, that they needed to have a web presence when they still weren't
convinced their employees needed to have email. (it's true, really... see how right I was?)
Hey. I have to take the kudos where I can. I'm also dead wrong on a periodic basis. It happens.
Yet the concept of digital images as fine art, troubles me; not because I believe it's not "Art", but because in a world
where things are stamped, fabricated, imprinted, and otherwise generated in volume - digital art is just one more item
on a very large list.
Mind you, I create digital art. In fact, I remember when PaintShop Pro was still just a version 2.x. I used Micrografx's "Picture
Publisher" (the most under-acknowledged software of it's type - in all it's stillborn genius), and I ultimately surrendered
to the Hollywood+Mac hype and adopted a flawed Photoshop... in the mid '90s. Digital art taught me things about painting that no
course or instructor could have made me see. There's nothing like burrowing down to the pixel level of a tiny icon to see how the
palette is everything. I've seen digital art that stops me in my sandals, that makes me grin... that makes me weep.
Even if I could create something that visceral and real - would I send a small version of it off to a buyer and ask them to pay me
for it?
Why not? It's art. It's genuine. It's mine to sell.
Why not? Because I can take the original and duplicate it by the thousands,
size it up or down, display it online, or have it printed as a postcard, or a poster... share it with the rest of the world.
...and no one would ever know which was the "original". Why not? Because
buying art is about ownership. I'm not claiming that the concept of ownership is right or wrong. I'm not trying to politicize or
extricate art from economics. It's just a fact of art as human beings have always experienced it. Art is a possession ... and
the rarity of the creation, or the rarity of access to the creation... is what makes someone willing to pay significant sums of
money for the creation.
If there is no such thing as an original... why pay for it at all?
Ultimately, I think my reservations are embedded in my awareness that it costs money to buy a computer, to pay software companies for
the use of their tools and internet service providers for access to the means of distribution. It costs an artist money to
create and distribute digital art. Access costs the consumer, um... nothing. (unless the only reason they connect to the
WWW is to view art... and how likely is that?)
Is art such a paltry thing that we should demand it from
the artist without being willing to pay for the supplies, food, shelter, health care, etc... that permits him or her to continue to create?
...and on the other hand, is the
discipline, skill, effort, genius, luck or whatever it takes to have money... not worthy of respect? Should we give someone a puff of
electrons for the tangible results of their own efforts... their choices?
I struggle with this conundrum because I am an artist, and a collector. I value the technique and the lucky stroke of the paintbrush or
the disciplined daubing and smudging of the perfectionist. I respect the eye that selects images and applies computerized light or
a calculated amount of gaussing and color enhancements.
I also live in this world that requires checks or cash or credit ... some kind of financial commitment for me to obtain a
new pair of sweat socks and milk. I hear people exclaim over my art, and know that while they enjoy it as it hangs on my walls, that
they would not sacrifice a new pair of Nikes and a couple of pairs of jeans to possess the piece. I am not bitter about this because
I create art for the sheer pleasure of doing so. My creative companion from colder regions believes that the barter of
money for art is all a matter of tuning into the technology at hand. He believes that there are artists who possess the sheer POWER to
coerce a living from the world in exchange for their execution of skill. One day great artists will be like "Rock Stars".
When was painting ever like standing in front of an audience, and performing?
Perhaps in this brave new digital future, artists will be performers. Perhaps.
-Lindley-
 
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