Art and Technology

 "Well! I have often seen a cat without a green, thought Alice, but a grin without a cat!  It is the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life! "

The quotation above comes  from J. Burnham's article "Alice's head". It illustrated well the disembodied presence of modern art. Influenced by technology the work of art becomes liberated from the material trappings of canvas, paint and stone that used to frame its existence in the world during all previous centuries. "Software is an attempt to produce aesthetic sensations without the interviewing 'object.'" 

Today we talk about art and technology as two distinctive things. Nevertheless, the technology and art have not always been separated. The Greek word "techne" has a meaning of both art and technology. It can be argued that brushes and paints are also technology. In this case what is the difference between these tools and the computer, which is used to draw a pictures under the guidance of a programmer? Isn't the computer just an extension of the hand of a man? It is often argued that there is no specific difference between the functioning of a human memory and a computer  memory, that the computer's hard drive is just an extension of our mental storage.

However, technology may not only be an extension of our mental/physical capacities, it changes the way we see things, they way we perceive new information and the way we categorize the world around. Terry Blum expressed it in this way: "[it is] not merely a new tool but a way of assimilating a new level of information by which to process ideas. It permits a new order of decision-making [where] the data from one image [is used] to create the next. Spatial movement and dimension are contained within the boundaries of the structure, which itself exists as a unit in space". In this case, the computer is a : "servant of ideas, an enabling mechanism that allows to create new ways of doing." Technological advancement brings about new set of conceptualizations and strategies which result from a different vocabulary of images, sounds, motion and text.

In the process of creating virtual art there is no direct interaction between the surface of the material and the hand of an artists. The ductile contact is decreased to free the mind to operate on an intense level of intellectual speculations. Machines give amazing opportunities to change things. The new visual arts medium allows to vary programs, test and change vast quantities of information, combine text, sound and video, and images, to process, simulate, fabricate, interact and expand their control and use. Computers can make decisions on the basis of test of the "if - or" questions and change the flow of action accordingly thus allowing interaction between art and viewer possible.

Cornock and Edmonds have categorized the relationship between the artist, artwork, viewer and environment into core categories:  Static, Dynamic- Passive, and Dynamic-Interactive. The past of art is characterized by the prevalence of a static art. Currently, technology keeps expanding the possibilities of artistic expression. Dynamic-interactive art is the most rapidly developing category of art because it provides almost limitless modes of creations and intricate interaction between users, creators and machines.

The interactivity of art and its inter-modality are the key characteristics of the postmodern art.

Technology has changed the art dramatically. The possibility to translate every stimulus into digital information, little discrete dots and bits, created a whole new approach to the creation and apprehension of art. The discreteness has produced an opportunity to make an interactive art; art that is changeable, that is responsive, art that is never finished but is always in the process of movement and developemnt.

Interactivity is based on the discrete nature of technology. All coded data is stored in numbers it can be combined in an infinite number of ways making possible each user to define how he/she will arrange the journey. The conception of the piece of art shifts from the artist's domain to the spectator’s domain. Since all text, sound and image can be translated into pure information, there is an unlimited number of ways they can be interwoven together and translated into each other. We now possess unified digital alphabet. One of such examples is The Color Organ created by Jack Ox where he visually presents the music  as an intricate pattern. A viewer may navigate though the space of the image which is also the space of music and by clicking on its pieces hear the music that initially produced such a shape.

The notion of multiple viewpoints melted together is a phenomenon of cinematography. As camera moves, falls, rises, reaches places that are not seen with an unarmed eye, and takes different angles of view in a complex juxtaposition human perception changes. It deepens, expands its horizons to different points of view and extends comprehension beyond the immediate understanding of reality in front of the eyes. Further development of technology made possible the complex integration of all flows of information not just the visual ones. Sound can be mixed together with image and text. The medium became hypermodal.

Hypermedia includes items of different modalities. An interface connects user to a database. The relation among data in the database is non-linear. All information is interlinked, non-sequential and cross-referenced. This has changed the view people think about reality. With the hypertext and hypermedia it is possible to go deeper following the endless links of references and to become lost in the forest of interconnected web-sites. The emphasis on user-friendly interface requires a higher level of organization and planning on behalf of the constructor. The significance of web page designs and accessibility of information are widely recognized as being of crucial importance. The Witney Museum Web Art Page displaying some of the most elaborate examples of web-site interfaces can be viewed here.

With the  invention of photography  the reproduction of an infinite number of precise, high - quality copies became possible. In a way, the negative of a photography is its original because it is the fixed base for the further reproduction of duplicates. Digital art itself does not have an original. Pixels and bits are the essence of the piece of such art. With the invention of computers, the art did not become reproducible for only something that has an original can be re-produced. Digital art by its nature does not have an original, it is virtual. Benjamin, in his wonderful reflection about the state of art after the invention of photography named "The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction"  has raised this question of the loss of aura of contemporary pieces of art. The art is no longer connected to the historical époque and traditions of the time when it was made. It became practically impossible to interpret the creating using the knowledge of the time when it was produced. Every piece of art is an époque in itself. The problem that often arises in this situation is that it speaks and foreign language that viewers do not know how to translate without defined references. The idea of reproductivity and copies is explored in the work of David Rokeby "Cheap Imitation". Furthermore, some forms of art just cannot be reproduced because they were created in the process of the unique interaction between the viewer and the piece of art. Interactive art is not reproducible by definition because it is a complex process of reciprocal induction of a machine and a human being. The process of its creation is never finished, therefore never reproduced.

The endless reproduction of copies, and copies, and copies makes the meaning disappear from the symbol. Andy Worhal based his numerous series on the idea of endless reproduction of the icons of modernity. Jean Baudrillard introducing the notion of "simulacra" describing it as a representation of reality without the reality. Simulacrum is generated by models of a real without the origin or reality. Simulacrum is a hyperreal. Without the substance, just the form, a lot of postmodern art resembles this definition. Images produced by a computer do not have to be based on something tangible from the physical world that surrounds us. Photography has to at least rely upon objects it represents and on light. Whereas programmers are free to create whatever they wish to create. They are using information that they can do anything with. However, using the data, they conceive concepts and ideas that do not have matter/original. For instance, the work Elle (She) represents a model of interaction between a viewer and a hyperreal which does not have the substance. She, a very sophisticated digitally generated figure or a woman, is just a set of pixels on a screen. She may seem to interact with the viewer and respond to his/her movements but this interaction is meaningless. She does not exist other than on the screen.   

Tools that we use change not only the product but the process and the perception of both. With mechanical aids the elements of time and space are not longer tied to reality. Anyone can easily alter physical environment transgressing the boundaries of what is physically possible. In the presence of abstract reality the idea of the human body gradually changes. The exploration of motion, body and space is investigated in the installation  Uzume created by Petra Gemeinboeck. In the inceaseable matter-less digital art the author tries to find the boundary along which lies the frontier separating the reality from the virtuality. In the environment where there seems to be no separation between the mind and the computer, the perceiver and the environment, the body in her project becomes the tool for motion that connects the viewer to the machine. The body becomes the instrument just like a machine in the creation of art. Similar idea is realized in a project "Speaking Space."

Technology undermines the value of social and cultural institutions. Since there is no more original to contemplate in museums and galleries, their role has to be redefined. The fusion of artistic forms and meltdown of directions creates a "global village" for works of art as well. The art literally goes on the streets. Jenny Holzer uses Spectacolor Board, computerized signs, to access public in their everyday busy lives. On a daily basis consumers are bombarded with hundreds of commercial offers. Jenny displays the aphorisms - truisms in her art to convey some of her concerns about the modernity.

Plato in his "Republic" noted that psyche is the eye. Technological information brought about a new form of seeing and thinking that gradually changed the concept of the person. With the advent of the Internet the existence of multiple legitimate personalities became more possible than ever. The mind can reproduce itself into new characters infinitely because it is no longer locked in the body but can freely surf over the waves of cyberspace. Rigid Waves explores the idea of a broken mirror reflecting broken distorted personalities. Similar to a shattered mirror postmodernism cut apart one single self. 

Art can examine anything in the world and it can empower and permit people to engage into new attitudes and discover new things.

In 1827 Hegel predicted the inevitability of the end of art. When the photography was invented the old-fashioned ways to create images were seen as extinguishing. The same things is happening now with the advent of technological era. The notion of art in its ontological status has been altered. The society still needs art. However, art plays another new role and performs more functions now. There are different ways to define what art is and how it can be described. We can talk about its use value, exchange value, aesthetic value, different modes of production and so on. The art is not dead. It has been transformed by technology, which changed its very nature and its form and changed us.

The potential of each medium is different. An artist can create different things using a pain, a camera or a computer. As Man Ray once said: "I Photograph what I do not wish to paint and I pain what I cannot photograph." We need all meduims to use the potential of each medium fullest.