The Physiology of Digital Art

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a56RPZ_cbdc

She is an digital video artist from Switzerland. Most of her work seems to be about women. A lot of it has this surreal feeling, sometimes sad and sometimes eerie. Her works are way beyond strange to me. They deal a lot with gender and social issues (I’m guessing), in which I’m not really getting the message. She does a lot to alter her videos, by playing with time/speed and sound differences. She also will mesh several pictures or videos together to create one piece. A lot of talent goes into this in terms of making a coherent piece out of many things. It it’s done wrong you can see it blatantly and it can ruin a piece. However, she is able to mesh these various elements together very well and is a statement to her talent.  She is obviously very thoughtful about her work and where she wants to take it.

As for what I think about her work . . . it scares me. There really is no other way to put it. A lot of it makes me uncomfortable, but who knows, that could be her point on some pieces. However, most of the time I just felt weirded out by them. I don’t know if it has to do with cultural differences, but I definitely fell that some work is just to risky for me personally. I don’t pick up on the idea or meaning behind a piece often without some outside help anyway, and I feel that these may just be too ‘politically’ charged for my liking.

Picture w/ 2 others incorporated in

Picture w/ 1 other incorperated into it

Phasing Dancing Stand Sculptures

Cory Arcangel is an digital artist who seems a little ADD to me. He has an obvious interest in the digital word and computers in general. His artwork ranges from all sorts of different media types but all some how relate back to technology. I find this a bit overwhelming. It was hard for me to figure out what exactly he was doing, and the meaning behind it. A lot of his works seems to have nothing to do with one another and this lack of consistency or togetherness puts me off slightly. Some of his works seem to focus on a social statement about how technology effects our lives. His “follow my other twitter” project seems to just scream about how people are obsessed with being an Internet presence and that need for social interaction. While some what interesting, I found that I didn’t really care. I don’t do twitter, but even if the message can be spread to other social network devices (facebook and myspace and such), isn’t this what we are all doing here? Whether on a blog/facebook/or your own website, aren’t we all just promoting ourselves. An interesting idea, but not one I will ponder for an extensive period of time. Basically, this is how it is, and I don’t think too much past that.

For some of his other works, I did think some of hs videos were interesting, just not in an artist way. Things like ‘I Shot Andy Warhol’  would be fun to play in that old school video gamer way. He does a lot with programing and coding, specifically with video games. I think this is interesting, especially since he seems to stick to old games, and it kind of has this throwback feel to them. But again, I don’t really get how he does stuff like this than jumps to some videos about cats walking on pianos (this is where the ADD thing comes in).  Of course it is entirely possible for me to be missing the big picture and miss the whole point of any of his works. I am really only vaguely familiar with traditional art, and digital/modern art is completely off the radar and new to me.

One thing that I did like though was his ‘Phasing Dancing Stand Sculptures’ from 2009. It was just something that made me laugh and sort of hypnotized me as well. I’d probably say this is one of his more ‘art-like’ works. The mix of a sculpture like piece and the music and movement combined did something for me. Overall, he’d definitely not a favorite. Either he is just over my head or not my style at all, but you can’t say he’s not an original for sure.

Matt Siber is a photographer with an obvious interest in advertising and how cultures and people react to it. He has a Bachelor’s in History and Geography and a Masters in Photography. Much of his work revolves around advertising in many different dimensions and usually in an urban setting. The changes to his photos ranges from small changes that you have to look for, like removing all the text in the Untitled project, to larger ones like in Floating Logos. He also likes to catch people in the element with the subject he is focusing on, where as with many other photographers, people are sometimes not included in the work or purposefully left out.

Personally, I really only like the two projects mentioned above. I think the removal of text in Untitled project was very creative and added an element of interest to what would be a photo of everyday urban living. I found myself looking closer to the pictures to find out what was missing and guessed at what was there before. I actually liked the theme here. I’m not really into advertising and trying to figure out why certain things work and get people interested in buying products, but this concept was very fresh. I also enjoyed Floating Logos, if nothing but for the weirdness and SyFy feel of it. The other projects kind of lost me. Things like in the Compare to . . had an idea behind it that was interesting, but I just truthfully didn’t care about it. Again, I’m not interested in advertising. But overall I can say it is obvious that he puts alot of time into his ideas. He really wants to make people think about his concept, so I have to give him credit for being deticated.

*Untitled (Circle Structure), 2004*
What I first noticed about Mike Wsol’s work was that it was very simple. It was basic and  used mostly lines that created structuredpieces. Words like simplistic and minimalistic came to mind. For the most part, there was no color, except in some pieces, but this only ever acted as a backdrop to the art work. While he mostly used just lines, he was still able to create depth and layers that made the work seem more complex the more you looked at it.  They all also have this architectural feel to them. As Mike Wsol has a background in both architecture and sculpture, this certainly makes since.

I think when I first looked at the pieces I was confused, as to why someone would spend time to draw this. But as I continued to look into certain works, I started to see more complexity. I like and appreciate his simplistic style, while still creating the depth and detail. I dislike when people go over board, no matter what medium their working with. To me too little is always better than too much. But I felt with Wsol’s work, he was able to do a lot more with just a piece of paper and graphite. I can say there where some that I didn’t like, as I still found them slightly too simple ( like Pool, 2006). One of my favorites on the other hand was Reinforcement Web, 2006. This was one that I found myself starringat trying to see how it all fit together. It was easy to see that a lot of time and thought went into the piece. Overall, after seeing his work and thinking about what type of digital media he could of used, I can only really think that he used an architectural program, as the work itself was presented in such a precise manner and the lines seemed to be so exact as if you could build these things by just looking at the art work.

Proportion

Variety

Economy

Balance

Jon Gitelson’s work for the most part is really simple. He looks at ordinary things and captures it. Sometimes he is quirkyand clever. Sometimes I think he lets some of the pictures speak for itself.  He also took really ordinary things and made them slightly off, or different. He adds different elements to his work to make it eye catching. For example his car project. In any of the pictures it wouldn’t look out of the ordinary to see a car parked there, except when it’s covered with post-it’s or cards. His videos are also like that. The staring contest with the two men. Nothing really was happening, but you can’t help but watch till the end.

For me, as this is one of my first, if not the very first exposure to the Digital Art world. I found some of it really odd. For example the Trash cans collection. I wasn’t sure what to do with that. On the other hand I really enjoyed the Posters and the Artist Book project. The work above was one of my favorites. I thought they were clever and interesting. I found that at the end of many pieces I was just simply smiling because of the thought behind the work. The video, What Does It All Mean, with the shoes was funny and, well, true. Why do people do that. I think what I liked most about these was the simple truth in the work. I usually don’t look too deep in art, I’m not wired that way. I don’t really want to spend time thinking about the universe based off of a tea cup or something. I prefer when somebody just shows what the world already is, even when it’s just the simple stuff. At least that’s what I feel like he did with a lot of his projects.

Being a Biology Major, I don’t know much about Art in general. I know when I look at something and I like it or when I don’t. Art to me has always been a classic idea of what it has been. Paintings and drawings and such. A digital approach is as a new thought to me as to any traditional artist may think of it. When I think of fine art I usually think of large elaborate paintings that take up half a wall, painted by a man that is now dead. Now rethinking that idea into something that can include a simple photograph is a little hard. But there are obviously techniques and skills that are involved in the practice of achieving a beautiful, meaningful picture. So What is the digital approach to fine art? I think it’s like any traditional art. It’s the heart and talent of an individual and how that is expressed outward to the world. In essence this means that the digital approaches could be anything , not just photos or movies, but cartoons and website designs as well.

Using digital approaches I think means more creativity. While a lot can be accomplished with a tube of paint and brush, I feel that there is a sense of no limits with the digital world. You can perfect and create in a way that traditional methods are inhibited by. I think this is interesting to have a complete open world in which anything can be created and thought of. This often goes against what I’m used to as I work in a field that is structured and ruled by facts and procedure. So this semester I hope that I can break out of that a little and allow myself to take advantage of what the digital art world has to offer.

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