July – August 3, 2008
The computer as art making tool
When photography was developed on a widespread commercial level it heralded the end of the need for “art” to express the agitprop of church and state or to document the world around us. Painting and drawing had to question the reason for their continued existence. These “classical” modes of expression found ways to rationalise going forward. Photographers, however, were relegated to mere recording of life until artists like the Dadaists [who were actually against art-making] started experimenting with the medium. Today photography is accepted as an art medium. It is a tool which artists use to express their visions. In the same vein computers and various digitising media started out as scientific and business machines.
Once again artists have taken on a new technology as a tool to express themselves. However, we are still on the cusp of acceptance of these new media as viable and legitimate art forms. Most galleries and art expos still consider digital work either as mere documentation of “real” art as in the so-called “giclees” or as just a new form of photography and are therefore explicitly excluded. Photography shows will not accept this new art form since it may not be created exclusively in the camera but rather in the computer. Print shows will not accept digital work as legitimate prints since there is none of the laborious hand etching or engraving or stencil making (and after all they are just not paintings!)
01000100 01101001 01100101 01101001 01110100 01110011 has been devised as a means of exploring this emerging art form. Digital orphans have been brought together in this forum to review some of the divergent ways that this new tool is being used to express an exciting new art practise.
Ian Amell, Curator
Exhibiting Artists
- Ian Amell
- Robert Caspary
- Steve Ioannidis
- William Oldachre
- Ranjit Sidhu
- Aneirin Kirkup Smith
- Ruth Tait
- Kaijo Tapanainen
