Artists' working spaces, tools, and materials in the digital domain: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 14:28, 10 February 2012

To be a digital artists means to have a wide range of expertise and skills (an artist has to be engineer, programmer, graphic designer, and hardware constructor all at once, or has to have access to others who are skilled in those specialities.

Conception, production and technology are closely intertwined and independent. Existing technologies have to go in hand with new artistic concepts, while new technologies inspire and create new concepts.

Lehmann is interested in what this versatile practice of new media artists might look like. Throughout history, artists had displayed, advertise and explained their art-making skills in genres specifically created for this purpose. Author raises questions on how this kind of skill presentation works in the age of digital art, and if artists draw attention to the processes and procedures underlying their work at all.

The question about a contemporary iconography of the representation of artistic practice raises more general questions about the spatial, material and theoretical aspects of this practice: what kind of materials and tools are used to construct media art, and how do artists employ these tools and materials in their creative spaces? How are these creative spaces defined and located, and can they and the creative processes within be visualised?

Eventhough the author assumes the answer to be negative – “digital modes of production do not appear to favour the representation of the artist at work because the very process of making is rendered invisible by the medium itself.” She is testing her hypothesis in order to determine whether or not representation of practice is absent in the creation of digital art through four aspects described in the following four chapters.

1 The representation of artistic practice and creative spaces in the pre-digital era

In the pre-photographic era artistic practice represented artists working in their workshops and was displayed in its own media/genre. It was idealized, generic, staged, mysterious and therefore unobjective.

After 1900 photography and then film replace the painted depictions of the artist at work, and allthough it provided more information about art making it often kept the klishes of the actual moment of creation. Studio spaces and creative enviroments are still treated as relicts.

The author concludes that the representation of practice was – and still is – closely tied to the aura of materials and spaces.

2 The designation and location of creative spaces in the digital era

New media practice formed new creative spaces. These new spaces seem to changed the notion of the traditional working space by the partial absence of its materiality.

In this chapter the author is investigating the physical, metaphorical and theoretical appearances of these new digital spaces and their representation.

The creative space in the world of digital art practice is difficult to mark out. It is at the same time at the desk, in front of the computer, or rather at the intersection of the physical and the machine world, the human-computer interface.

Differentiation between space and place gives an approximate definition of a creative working space of the digital artists. Spaces are part of the material out of which places can be built. Dealing with physical structure, topology, orientation and connectedness, spaces offer opportunities and constraints. Places, on the other hand, reflect cultural and social understandings. (Harrison and Dourish)

It seems that the creative virtual and physical space/place representation avoids to be defined even more than it evades verbal description, maybe because there is no fixed space left to depict anymore.

3 The visibility of digital tools and materials

While the creative space seems to defy representation, the tools and materials of the new media artist (in or at the computer) don’t have that ability. Tools also oscillate between a physical and virtual presence. The physical beeing the keyboard, mouse, pen, or the hand itsef when it comes to touch screens. These tangible devices are translating movement into digital action on the screen, where the tool is represented by an icon reffering to a familiar device of non-digital origin.

Allthough they have only the virtual component, digital materials oscillate between two shapes. On the surface, they resemble artistic material of the physical domain, but beneath that there is a whole new level of software- the code.

One could expect that the digital tools will be used in representations to evoke the magical aura of artistic creation, but digital tools and materials have not shed the iconic or symbolic bond with their precursors. Instead of that, the current development of design software is getting even closer to a perfect imitation of the materiality and tangibility of traditional artistic tools.

This poses the question of weather this kind of software development is restraining the development of tools and materials of an essentially digital nature, without precursors in the non-digital domain.

Digital tools and materials haven’t (so far) represented the artistic practice in the digital domain.

4 The visibility of digital tools and materials

In the field of computer graphics and computer animation, processes of production are almost excessively represented. Here, ‘showing making’ has even been defined as a separate genre, the making-of.

In film, this new genre is a way to appeal to the fascination and apprehension by showing how these images artificially created photo - and hyper - realistc images were generated.

The making-of of computer-animated scenes is much more static, as it is showing animators or technicians sitting in front of their workplace - computers, displaying skilful manipulation of tools and digital materials while the images they create come into being on a screen.

Allthough they promise to reveal the actual making of illusion, they don’t show the actual proccess due to the pleasure of watching. This insight causes the viewer to admire the appreciates the knowledge and the effort of the maker.

Hidden practice

The process of artistic practice seems to be a hard thing to present due to the variety of factors: the metaphor of the laboratory for the artist’s workspace; the difficulties in describing and visualising the procedures of data programming; the hybridisation of creative space; and the multiplicity of artistic practice within this space.

The author summarises the problematic of presenting creative and working proccesses in the new media with 2 possible conclusions: “Either the representation of artists at work has become obsolete in new media art practice and the mystification of artistic creation has finally been discarded, or the representation of practice has become just as hybridised as the space in which it takes place.”

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-'''The Impossibility of Interface'''
+To be a digital artists means to have a wide range of expertise and skills (an artist has to be engineer, programmer, graphic designer, and hardware constructor all at once, or has to have access to others who are skilled in those specialities.
-In his essay ''The Impossibility of Interface'', Mathew Fuller examines the relationship between the interface as a part of computing culture and other forms of interface that are a part of society in general. The interface is contextualised through different power relations, and is presented as an indicator of the ramification of digital media in society.
+Conception, production and technology are closely intertwined and independent. Existing technologies have to go in hand with new artistic concepts, while new technologies inspire and create new concepts.
-The development of graphic user interface enabled computational power to grow from relatively isolated positions to a new form of relation with the users, allowing computer them to develop a visual and spatial relations with the actions they were performing.
+Lehmann is interested in what this versatile practice of new media artists might look like. Throughout history, artists had displayed, advertise and explained their art-making skills in genres specifically created for this purpose.
+Author raises questions on how this kind of skill presentation works in the age of digital art, and if artists draw attention to the processes and procedures underlying their work at all.
-Fuller is examining the similarities and connections of software interfaces and different interfaces that are integrated into culture. He is using Brenda Laurel’s definition of the interface “An interface is a contact surface. It reflects the physical properties of the interactors, the functions to be performed, and the balance of power and control.” and puts it in different social contexts.
+The question about a contemporary iconography of the representation of artistic practice raises more general questions about the spatial, material and theoretical aspects of this practice: what kind of materials and tools are used to construct media art, and how do artists employ these tools and materials in their creative spaces? How are these creative spaces defined and located, and can they and the creative processes within be visualised?
-He investigates the interface and its characteristics through 3 speculative typological modes:
+Eventhough the author assumes the answer to be negative – “digital modes of production do not appear to favour the representation of the artist at work because the very process of making is rendered invisible by the medium itself.” She is testing her hypothesis in order to determine whether or not representation of practice is absent in the creation of digital art through four aspects described in the following four chapters.
-. Interface as distributed throughout and indivisible from the system of which it is part.
-. Interface as monitoring and control of a reductive, indexical map of separate elements that can be changed from state to state but not altered.
+'''1 The representation of artistic practice and creative spaces in the pre-digital era'''
-. Interface as an associational structure which allows a under to manipulate, alter, destroy and multiply processes and objects from which it is independent.
+In the pre-photographic era artistic practice represented artists working in their workshops and was displayed in its own media/genre. It was idealized, generic, staged, mysterious and therefore unobjective.
-Fuller defines software as a combination of information and matter and explains it as a extension of Katherine Hayles’ definition of virtuality as a "cultural perception that material objects are interpreted by information patterns". He says that if we are to understand informational patterns as always having a materiality then the interpretation of informational patterns by other informational patterns is what is here discussed as software.
+After 1900 photography and then film replace the painted depictions of the artist at work, and allthough it provided more information about art making it often kept the klishes of  the actual moment of creation. Studio spaces and creative enviroments are still treated as relicts.
-Metaphors are used to describe what functional capacity a device/software has by referencing it to properties and behaviours of a pre-existing apparatus. But as software has potentials of a greater capacity and functionality, these kind of metaphorical referential structures will be erased from the mass use of interface because those explanatory systems become nonfunctional.
+The author concludes that the representation of practice was – and still is – closely tied to the aura of materials and spaces.
-[[Interface as distributed throughout and invisible]]
-Fuller introduces ''I Thought I Was Seeing Convicts'', a documentary installation composed footage of the insides of a Californian Sate Prison to explain how the interface is not only the mean of representation but also as a modulator of behavior. The documentary is made of short sequences of computer interfaces cut in with images and sound from the prison, and with a prison staff training video, which show violence over the prisoners directed by the prison guards. Interfaces as seen here, code in advance how and when something occurs, but cannot necessarily determine it or its users. By giving the feedback to the same system that feeds it, it helps to build a society of control, under the pretenses of a society of discipline. The relationships between the object and the instructions are always political at the same time they are technical and aesthetical.
+'''2 The designation and location of creative spaces in the digital era'''
-[[Interface as monitoring and control of a reductive, indexical map of separate elements]]
+New media practice formed new creative spaces. These new spaces seem to changed the notion of the traditional working space by the partial absence of its materiality.
-In his installation Farocki cuts in material from other kinds of control systems alongside the footage of the prison. One of them i a schematic rendering of a building’s floor plan, which allows an operator to switch lights on and off and to open and lock doors by clicking on symbols embedded in the schematic. Other footage is from a some sort of surveillance device and shows a stock recognition system which uses a camera to follow someone in a supermarket and helps to specify and record which products are the most popular.
+In this chapter the author is investigating the physical, metaphorical and theoretical appearances of these new digital spaces and their representation.
-This aspect of an interface Fuller compares with one used in a bakery in Boston. This interface allows the bakers to control bread production without the need to deal directly with the raw materials and the process of baking. The interface is very easy to use but its relation to the procedure Fuller sees as flawed, not deep nor detailed enough. Also, the ‘sociotechnical’ an economic arrangements are organised in a way that they could function without having workers with actual baking skills employed. Fuller compares this type of interface with the closing and shutting of doors and switching the lights on and off cut-in parts of the Farocki’s film where the guards have the same relationship to the processes they control. Laurel’s description of interface fits very well as a “surface that is thick, bristles with connections, blockages and channels, variable speeds, time frames and routines, manufacturing an alienated interface, double consciousness.” This is, according to Fuller, an essential capacity of life in the ‘mode of information’. It enables freedom but also paralysis, facilitation but alienation. Therefore, whenever an interface promises to make something clear or speaks of allowing something to work, we should  be sceptical and critical before we declare it functional identification.
+The creative space in the world of digital art practice is difficult to mark out. It is at the same time at the desk, in front of the computer, or rather at the intersection of the physical and the machine world, the human-computer interface.
-[[Interface as independent associational structure]]
+Differentiation between space and place gives an approximate definition of a creative working space of the digital artists. Spaces are part of the material out of which places can be built. Dealing with physical structure, topology, orientation and connectedness, spaces offer opportunities and constraints. Places, on the other hand, reflect cultural and social understandings. (Harrison and Dourish)
-Interface of this kind is never permanently ‘independent’ of those elements that it provides associational mechanism for.  To make this statement more clear Fuller takes an example of video games by introducing Steven Pool’s book ''Trigger Happy''. The dynamics of an interface is understood as a kinesthetics of information. Video games work on an always consistent set of properties and build their own realism not on being authentic but on internal consistency. The axioms can be codes instead of ‘natural laws’, whether these correspond to those in the real world or are a completely specific of computerised media.
+It seems that the creative virtual and physical space/place representation avoids to be defined even more than it evades verbal description, maybe because there is no fixed space left to depict anymore.
-According to Donald Norman, an interface psychologist the focus of an interface should be on ‘Interacting wit the task, not with the computer’. In a video game, the task is precisely to perform the interaction with the computer. which is a reverse definition of a good interface. Today, still plenty of video games work with the concept of task, which creates multiple virtualities.
-Fuller compares a Microsoft Word program with the kind of cultures of interface that Pool writers about in ''Trigger Happy''. Word, like the video games that work on simulations, simulates a writing machine, a perfection for a certain sort of textual production. It is the clutter of ‘realistic’ models of writing or other processes, which at the same time hide their acculturation. This makes Word and similar programs close to simulation games.
-The three mentioned types of interface can operate the one inside of another at different moments. Software is designed to satisfy user’s needs and requirements, but to some extent user adopts to the software, as well. This is why the usability of a software/interface has to be repeatedly questioned and taken with openness and flexibility.
+'''3 The visibility of digital tools and materials'''
+While the creative space seems to defy representation, the tools and materials of the new media artist (in or at the computer) don’t have that ability. Tools also oscillate between a physical and virtual presence. The physical beeing the keyboard, mouse, pen, or the hand itsef when it comes to touch screens.  These tangible devices are translating movement into digital action on the screen, where the tool is represented by an icon reffering to a familiar device of non-digital origin.
+Allthough they have only the virtual component, digital materials oscillate between two shapes. On the surface, they resemble artistic material of the physical domain, but beneath that there is a whole new level of software- the code.
+One could expect that the digital tools will be used in representations to evoke the magical aura of artistic creation, but digital tools and materials have not shed the iconic or symbolic bond with their precursors. Instead of that, the current development of design software is getting even closer to a perfect imitation of the materiality and tangibility of traditional artistic tools.
+This poses the question of weather this kind of software development is restraining the development of tools and materials of an essentially digital nature, without precursors in the non-digital domain.
+Digital tools and materials haven’t (so far) represented the artistic practice in the digital domain.
+'''4 The visibility of digital tools and materials'''
+In the field of computer graphics and computer animation, processes of production are almost excessively represented. Here, ‘showing making’ has even been defined as a separate genre, the making-of.
+In film, this new genre is a way to appeal to the fascination and apprehension by showing how these images artificially created photo - and hyper - realistc images were generated.
+The making-of of computer-animated scenes is much more static, as it is showing animators or technicians sitting in front of their workplace - computers, displaying skilful manipulation of tools and digital materials while the images they create come into being on a screen.
+Allthough they  promise to reveal the actual making of illusion, they don’t show the actual proccess due to the pleasure of watching. This insight causes the viewer to admire the appreciates the knowledge and the effort of the maker.
+'''Hidden practice'''
+The process of artistic practice seems to be a hard thing to present due to the variety of factors: the metaphor of the laboratory for the artist’s workspace; the difficulties in describing and visualising the procedures of data programming; the hybridisation of creative space; and the multiplicity of artistic practice within this space.
+The author summarises the problematic of presenting creative and working proccesses in the new media with 2 possible conclusions: “Either the representation of artists at work has become obsolete in new media art practice and the mystification of artistic creation has finally been discarded, or the representation of practice has become just as hybridised as the space in which it takes place.”