Software Studies

Oh Lev, you put what Alan Kay said so much better. Maybe it’s hindsight bias, but you just seem much fuller of wise information than Alan Kay could ever offer from his little world of himself. Oh, also did I mention Patrick Lichty thinks he can take you on? Yeah, he only teaches at a (highly) less recognized school for New Media studies, and hasn’t quite been published nearly as much as you have, but yeah he says he can apparently take you down in discussion on contemporary new media thought. On a good day, whatever that means.

Reiterating though, for the course, this essay again emphasizes to me the importance of the artist being knowledgeable to the limitations of software and the over utilization of certain aspects in the arts. Being obviously photoshopped pieces of work equal nothing more than ‘photoshopped,’ and nice animations made through Maya are just versions of ‘Pixar.’ Not to say that the expertise to use Maya is easily acquired but that largely its users that are not working for Pixar are largely lumped into a category referencing Pixar to the viewing public. Additionally, that is not to say that the people doing this kind of work are to be discredited, but that at least for myself I don’t want my artwork to be associated with some major ‘art’ programming company like Adobe or Autodesk. Yeah, they make nice pieces of software that we as artists are able to use to create our desired forms, but as I stated in earlier posts we as digital artists should be concerned with extending our medium to being something beyond general public grasp of knowledge to the creation. Its not like we are intricately hand carving a copper plate to make an image along the lines of Albrecht Durer… made, oh well, several centuries ago. Such work has timeless craftsmanship because few can create along those lines.

We stand upon an interesting line, which Manovich highlights, where software is constantly being updated and past abilities that were once required great expertise are made as easy as clicking a button. So what does that say for the shit that is produced through photoshop on a regular basis that in all honesty required photoshop and a large scale printer. Personally, I don’t think it says much at least other than the same temporary interest we have in advertisements. As artists of the digital world we must strive to create things that are original and questionable to their construction. To say that something is, well, just photoshopped is slightly disappointing in the long scheme of the artworks life. Obviously, the methods for construction may one day be understood, but to create something and call it digital or new media art, and have used simple software uses is disappointing. This is coming from someone who has long been against art emphasizing coding as medium, but honestly the creative act is constrained by the acts of the programmer. Of course we can hybridize our creation and use multiple programs, and embrace the knowledge that with ever expanding developments in software things will be left behind. To those who cut and paste though, what more is your work than an exploration of software? A sketch of something else’s capabilities than your own?

Yes, software and the GUI make up our new world of understanding. Outside of the populace what is our art though than something obviously dated by capability. The real digital or new media artist creates software to do their biding rather than rely on whatever they can afford.