Week 6

Our presentor this week was John Park who specialized in Digital Arts. When I first heard the term digital arts, I thought of things like Photoshop and other programs that alter images. I did not know how widespread digital art is. For example digital arts can be found in video games, movies, commercials, and in pictures.

John started out the lecture by introducing the problems, strategies, and solutions of digital arts. He broke down the problems into four categories. The first is the screen. All of digital arts is intangible. You cannot feel it, only see it, which makes it very impersonal. The second is currency. Digital technology is where the money is because it is a very costly type of art. The third problem is losing humanity or being zombified. This is very relevant to my generation because we are very technologically dependent. We have learned to communicate best through facebook and our cell phones. By using those devices to communicate, we end up cutting off human contact. The final problem is by far the largest. It is finding the art in digital media. Most artwork is laid out in front of you. You can see the mediums used and you can see the craftsmanship behind it but with digital media it is difficult to find the art in it sometimes.

The first artist we looked at was David Byrne. He hooked the old piano up with wires and attached those wires to different places in this warehouse. When someone would come by to play, they would hear different industrial noises coming from all parts of the building. I thought that this project was neat because David let us viewers and the people who participated experience the world in new ways by giving us power and control over such a large scale building.

The second artist we looked at was Paul Pfeiffer. I really enjoyed looking at his work because he did a lot of things with sports. I particualy like the one titled “Four Horseman of the Apocalypse” because it is still such a strong photo even without the lights, ball, hoop, and crowed. I feel like you can still feel all the energy of the game without all the bells and whistles.

The third artist we looked at was Janet Cardiff. I listened to the walk titled “Ghost Machine” which takes place in a grand old theater. It was very eerie just listening to the different sounds that took place on the tape. It sounded like they were with me in my room. The second video I watched was “The Murder of Crows” which was very dark. It made me feel scarred and depressed knowing that it was about death. What I liked about her work though was she really gets you involved in the pieces and it acts as a bit of a simulation experience.

I believe that the connection between all of these concepts is how digital media is used as a tool to create grander things.  In every artists work, they have used digital arts as a tool. One occurring theme that I have seen with all the artists is how they are trying to unite digital media and people. David does this with his interactive piano, Pfeiffer does this by choosing to focus of sports, Cardiff does this with her walks, and our presenter did this with the dancer.

The photograph I found I believe represents all the technology that is available to us for communication.