The copy of my term paper

Topic: How do the digital artists see themselves and the digital world?

Introduction

Digital art is a very common art in nowadays. We can see them everywhere, such as in advertisements and on websites. It has a closely relationship with us. So in this essay, I am going to digital art as my essay topic. However, digital art is a very board topic. It includes different kind of things, such as software and art forms. At the same time, I discover that there is a very interesting thing is that people will talk about digital art at their point of view, but not the artists’ point of view. Artists see themselves a little bit different than us that are the viewers. Then, in the following paragraphs, I would like to focus on the artists’ point of views to talk about how the digital art artists see themselves and digital art world, in term of their work, tools and benefits.

Background information about digital art

According to wikipedia, digital art most commonly refers to art created on a computer in digital form. Digital art can be purely computer-generated, such as fractals, or taken from another source, such as a scanned photograph, or an image drawn using vector graphics software using a mouse or graphics tablet.Though technically the term may be applied to art done using other media or processes and merely scanned in, it is usually reserved for art that has been non-trivially modified by a computing process.[1]Also, digital art can be used in the contempoary art as it needs mass production.
Digital art has different kind of field .They are computer-generated, illustration, photography/cinematography-related, painting and game-related.In my essay, I will only foucs on the digital art artists of painting.Also According to wikipedia, painting in digital art means artwork created in similar fashion to non-digital paintings; software-based brushes, pallet knives, canvases, and paints are manipulated by the painter on a computer platform.[2]

The purposes of the artists to use digital art

In digital art of painting, there are a lot categories.They are surreal,cartoons,fan art,fantasy,nature,photo,science fiction,portraits and miscellaneous.On the other hand, there are some purposes for digital artists to make digital art.Firstly,artists use digital art to express their own feeling,thinking and experience.The main equipment that need to create a piece of digital art is computer.So it is very convenience for the artists to create their works at any place in anytime.And, when the artists have strong feelings suddenly,they can make their work immediately.For examlpe, there is a artists called David em. He makes a lot of expressive arts. One of his works is called Falling Angel. This painting is about when he traveled from New York on the airplane. Suddenly, the plane had some problems. He looked out from the widow of plane. He saw what the painting have. So this painting is the combination of the artists’ feelings and experience. This is very important that artists use digital art as the medium to express themselves because they can use their arts to communicate with others freely on the internet in order to let others know about themselves.
Moreover, the second purpose of the artists to use digital art is to play with the formal elements, such as lights, colors and lines. Artists can control these formal elements more easily through the computers, so that they can create much more varieties of their artworks. For example, an artist called Charles Csuri. He uses light and colors to make a series of artworks. It is an abstract art. He can control the light very well through the computer which is very difficult to be made by hand. As a result, it is the reason of artists to use computer to make their works.
Then, the third purpose that they use digital art is to play with different kind of software and technique. As the artists can use different kind of software to make different kind of artworks, even some of these artworks cannot be made by hand. For example, an artist called Herbert W Franke. He uses some computer software to make 3D image. In this image, he used the software called William Latham. He likes to use a lot of software to make his own artworks. He explores news software to make artworks. Also there are some other software names, such as Mathemtica and Bryce. This purpose of making artworks has not existed in traditional art.
The last purpose is the collage. Collage means that mix different kind of things to do a piece of art. In digital art, the artists use different kind of media together, such as photo, alternation and computer. There are two examples. The first one is called Fallen which is made by Jason Beam. And this piece of art work can be found in his official website. This piece of artwork was created specifically for the 2005 Spooky Art Charity Projectto be auctioned off, with all proceeds from the 1/1 Artist Proof being donated to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. This piece of art work is combining photography, digital alteration and scanography, Jason Beam melds a variety of techniques that cannot be achieved in traditional darkroom settings and creates a piece that lies somewhere between a photo manipulation and digital illustration. Another piece of digital art is called Autumn Flows In Gold. This is made by ThruMyEyez, which is the name he used online. It made on 20/10/2007.It came from the website of GFX Artist. This image is about the nature of autumn in golden color. This is a photo. But after the process of computer, it looked like a painting. I used these two examples because these two pieces of artworks are the artists wanted to challenge the traditional art. It is because they are looked prefect. The first one is different from the traditional art as it includes a lot of concept. And the second one is similar to the traditional art but it used computer to make it. So it proves that digital art can be as beautiful as traditional art.

The unique benefits of making digital art

Artists can gain some benefits from making digital art which is different from making traditional art. From the interview of Steve, which is a digital artist, we can know more about what they learn in artists’ perspectives. Steve said “Digital artists are able to choose from hundreds of programs, each with their own advantages, as well as a variety of innovative input devices such as the popular pressure-sensitive graphics tablets. These tools give artists the freedom to create artwork in an environment with few limitations. One of the greatest and most unique benefits of creating artwork digitally is the ability to use "undo" - a virtual time machine - as a way to go back and correct anything that is less than perfect. With artistic talent and technology-educated minds, digital artists are able to create magnificent works exactly as they envision. They can share their digital masterpieces with the world by uploading to online galleries such as digitalart.org.”[3] From his words, we know that they want to make their work perfect .And digital art can let them to do this as the artworks can be corrected by many times. Also they can exchange their own work freely. Another artist called Peter, which is also a digital artist. From his interview, he said “The computer. It's my medium of choice - even though I feel a bitter lack of traditional education, I'm always drawn to the computer - kind of natural affinity. Other than that I'm very interested in water color these days. But unfortunately too lazy to get out and paint most of the times.”[4] From this interview, we can know the some artists think they can create freely is the benefit of making digital art. Also, some artists may not have some traditional learning of art. So in their perspective, the benefit is that they can create a perfect piece of artwork digitally no matter they have learnt art before.

How the digital artists see themselves

There are many people arguing whether digital art is really a kind of art and the digital artists really the artists. No matter what the others think, the digital artist think that they are making real art and they are the real artists .From the interview with Steve, he said “While there are a growing number of traditional artists becoming interested in the creation of digital artwork, many still do not regard it as being true artwork. What is true artwork, though? Computers are simply another tool, an avenue to express imagination, just like paints and brushes. In the future, digital artwork will be widely accepted as a valid form of artwork. Computers aren’t going away any time soon.”[5]In his words, we know that they see themselves as the artists. The only different they think is the tools they use. The traditional artists used paints and brush, but they used computer only. They also use the computer to express themselves and also play with the formal elements. It is the same as traditional art. So the digital artists regarded their work as art.

Conclusion

Finally, the digital artists see themseleves and the digital world very different from us which is the views’ point of view.They used digital art as their communication and expression media.And they play different kind of things,such as formal elements and technology,with digital art. For us, we may not understand why they use digital art.But after this essay, you and me may try to understand them .Also, they can get much more benefits from making digital art than making traditional art.And the benefit I cannot imagine before honestly.And the most interesting things is that they see their work and themselves as a real art and artists and the reason is very special for us.After doing this essay, we can know more about the digital artists and how they see things.



Reference:
1.Digital art, Christiane Paul, London ; New York, N.Y. : Thames & Hudson, c2003
2. http://digitalart.org/articles.php (11/12/2007)
3. http://www.dam.org/artists/index.htm (11/12/2007)
4. http://www.dam.org/gallery/index.htm (11/12/2007)
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_art (11/12/2007)

Footnotes:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_art (11/12/2007)
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_art (11/12/2007)
[3] http://digitalart.org/interviews.php?action=ReadInterview&ID=10 (11/12/2007)
[4] http://digitalart.org/interviews.php?action=ReadInterview&ID=7 (11/12/2007)
[5] http://digitalart.org/interviews.php?action=ReadInterview&ID=10 (11/12/2007)