3 ms·

Is the ‘art world’ completely unaware of what games artists and the demo scene were doing in that era and with those same tools?

bitwize 6y ago
If they are aware of it, they probably don't consider it significant. The art world favors social critique and social impact over mere demonstration of technical prowess. At least since Bob Ross democratized landscape painting and put it within easy reach, it's not a significant artistic achievement to merely be good at painting landscapes. One must challenge the audience's preconceived notions and explore the relationship between land, space, society, race, class, and gender in order to be a successful landscape painter. For this reason, the demoscene matters less than a footnote in the realm of high art, especially when compared with a masterpiece like Bolognini's Sealed Computers. (An art installation that consisted of several AT-class computers, all wired up and powered, running programs that display randomly-generated lines -- except the display ports are all sealed with wax, meaning that no one ever actually sees what they are displaying.)
- fractallyte 6y ago
  A bitmap brush dragged over the screen, with Instagram-style caption: https://www.suzannetreister.net/Ampages/Amiga41.html https://www.suzannetreister.net/Ampages/Amiga41.html Art + technical prowess + the art values you mention: http://amiga.lychesis.net/artist/JimSachs/JimSachs_AmigaLagoon.html http://amiga.lychesis.net/artist/JimSachs/JimSachs_AmigaLago... If the ‚art world‘ is unaware of the latter, then it what does it tell us about their artistic credentials?
  - egypturnash 6y ago
    The Sachs image is from 1t least 1993, as it's done in Brilliance, which was released then. It's also in 256 colors, versus Treister's images from 1995 done when the maximum number of colors was 32. Unless you had a paint program capable of Hold And Modify mode, which DPaint was not at the time. (And Extra Half-Brite did not exist until the A2000 and A500 came out in 1987.) So let's have a more equal comparison: here's an image from Defender of the Crown (1986). http://amiga.lychesis.net/artist/JimSachs/DefenderOfTheCrown_Normans.html http://amiga.lychesis.net/artist/JimSachs/DefenderOfTheCrown... And here's an image from Avril Harrison in 1985, which might have been one of the demo images that shipped with DPaint - I know several of her works were on the disc: http://amiga.lychesis.net/year/1985/AH_Waif.html http://amiga.lychesis.net/year/1985/AH_Waif.html And of course how about Harrison's 1985 image of Tutankhamun's death mask, which was both on the disc and on the cover of the box? http://amiga.lychesis.net/year/1985/AH_KingTut.html http://amiga.lychesis.net/year/1985/AH_KingTut.html
    - fractallyte 6y ago
      Treister's images are dated 1991-1992!
      - egypturnash 6y ago
        Ah, yes, they are. I misread the dates somewhere. My bad.
  - bitwize 6y ago
    The problem with "Amiga Lagoon" is that it's too twee -- it's kitsch. Like all kitsch it attempts to score points by appealing to our unconscious reaction to "pretty" things, as well as simplistic emotions like nostalgia or sentimentality. What's the theme or concept being explored here? That the Amiga's media fidelity is such that it can serve as a window onto another, paradisical world? There, I just solved the puzzle. You don't really need to think when observing this piece. It's all right there, spelled out for you. By contrast, Suzanne Treister's work raises more questions than it does answers. Looking at them makes you feel a certain way, and you have to sit down and puzzle out why it makes you feel that way -- and even then, answers may not be forthcoming. The piece exists in a limbo of different possible interpretations; exploring these, and finding contradictions between them, adds depth to the work and the audience's appreciation of it.
    - fractallyte 6y ago
      Conversely, I believe that a true artist is one who has mastered the medium, and then uses that as a means of expression. To be honest, I don't see that quality in this particular set Treister's images. Copying and pasting some bitmap brushes, adding inane captions, only give the illusion of profundity. Nevertheless, I really value your comment - it's illuminating!
- watwut 6y ago
  My impression from modern art galleries I went into was not "social critique". Very little of that was in social critique category. The realism is not the achievement anymore, because people can do drawings that look like photos.
  - bitwize 6y ago
    > My impression from modern art galleries I went into was not "social critique". Very little of that was in social critique category. It's almost never quite so direct as that. Rather, the job of an art piece, especially in conceptual art, is to take some aspect of the way audiences typically view a work -- or any object -- and challenge it. Turn it on its ear somehow. Because there's nothing universal about what we find beautiful, what we find happy or sad, how we respond to color or light or space, etc... all these things are indoctrinated in us by the consumerist society that surrounds and pervades us. The purpose of contemporary art is to challenge that, to offer an alternative. To counter the desires and judgements that have been ingrained into us since childhood by capitalism. As such, art isn't really art unless it's anti-kitsch, because kitsch affirms consumerism. Being "anti-kitsch" in this way is like being "anti-racist": inasmuch as you fail to adequately oppose kitsch you are kitsch. Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living was art because Hirst offered a novel challenge to how we view life and death, or living and dead things. Having done so, however, any subsequent pickled animals would not be novel. They would be kitsch -- trite reproductions, shallow copies of what Hirst had accomplished.

bitwize 6y ago

If they are aware of it, they probably don't consider it significant. The art world favors social critique and social impact over mere demonstration of technical prowess. At least since Bob Ross democratized landscape painting and put it within easy reach, it's not a significant artistic achievement to merely be good at painting landscapes. One must challenge the audience's preconceived notions and explore the relationship between land, space, society, race, class, and gender in order to be a successful landscape painter. For this reason, the demoscene matters less than a footnote in the realm of high art, especially when compared with a masterpiece like Bolognini's Sealed Computers. (An art installation that consisted of several AT-class computers, all wired up and powered, running programs that display randomly-generated lines -- except the display ports are all sealed with wax, meaning that no one ever actually sees what they are displaying.)

fractallyte 6y ago
A bitmap brush dragged over the screen, with Instagram-style caption: https://www.suzannetreister.net/Ampages/Amiga41.html https://www.suzannetreister.net/Ampages/Amiga41.html Art + technical prowess + the art values you mention: http://amiga.lychesis.net/artist/JimSachs/JimSachs_AmigaLagoon.html http://amiga.lychesis.net/artist/JimSachs/JimSachs_AmigaLago... If the ‚art world‘ is unaware of the latter, then it what does it tell us about their artistic credentials?
- egypturnash 6y ago
  The Sachs image is from 1t least 1993, as it's done in Brilliance, which was released then. It's also in 256 colors, versus Treister's images from 1995 done when the maximum number of colors was 32. Unless you had a paint program capable of Hold And Modify mode, which DPaint was not at the time. (And Extra Half-Brite did not exist until the A2000 and A500 came out in 1987.) So let's have a more equal comparison: here's an image from Defender of the Crown (1986). http://amiga.lychesis.net/artist/JimSachs/DefenderOfTheCrown_Normans.html http://amiga.lychesis.net/artist/JimSachs/DefenderOfTheCrown... And here's an image from Avril Harrison in 1985, which might have been one of the demo images that shipped with DPaint - I know several of her works were on the disc: http://amiga.lychesis.net/year/1985/AH_Waif.html http://amiga.lychesis.net/year/1985/AH_Waif.html And of course how about Harrison's 1985 image of Tutankhamun's death mask, which was both on the disc and on the cover of the box? http://amiga.lychesis.net/year/1985/AH_KingTut.html http://amiga.lychesis.net/year/1985/AH_KingTut.html
  - fractallyte 6y ago
    Treister's images are dated 1991-1992!
    - egypturnash 6y ago
      Ah, yes, they are. I misread the dates somewhere. My bad.
- bitwize 6y ago
  The problem with "Amiga Lagoon" is that it's too twee -- it's kitsch. Like all kitsch it attempts to score points by appealing to our unconscious reaction to "pretty" things, as well as simplistic emotions like nostalgia or sentimentality. What's the theme or concept being explored here? That the Amiga's media fidelity is such that it can serve as a window onto another, paradisical world? There, I just solved the puzzle. You don't really need to think when observing this piece. It's all right there, spelled out for you. By contrast, Suzanne Treister's work raises more questions than it does answers. Looking at them makes you feel a certain way, and you have to sit down and puzzle out why it makes you feel that way -- and even then, answers may not be forthcoming. The piece exists in a limbo of different possible interpretations; exploring these, and finding contradictions between them, adds depth to the work and the audience's appreciation of it.
  - fractallyte 6y ago
    Conversely, I believe that a true artist is one who has mastered the medium, and then uses that as a means of expression. To be honest, I don't see that quality in this particular set Treister's images. Copying and pasting some bitmap brushes, adding inane captions, only give the illusion of profundity. Nevertheless, I really value your comment - it's illuminating!
watwut 6y ago
My impression from modern art galleries I went into was not "social critique". Very little of that was in social critique category. The realism is not the achievement anymore, because people can do drawings that look like photos.
- bitwize 6y ago
  > My impression from modern art galleries I went into was not "social critique". Very little of that was in social critique category. It's almost never quite so direct as that. Rather, the job of an art piece, especially in conceptual art, is to take some aspect of the way audiences typically view a work -- or any object -- and challenge it. Turn it on its ear somehow. Because there's nothing universal about what we find beautiful, what we find happy or sad, how we respond to color or light or space, etc... all these things are indoctrinated in us by the consumerist society that surrounds and pervades us. The purpose of contemporary art is to challenge that, to offer an alternative. To counter the desires and judgements that have been ingrained into us since childhood by capitalism. As such, art isn't really art unless it's anti-kitsch, because kitsch affirms consumerism. Being "anti-kitsch" in this way is like being "anti-racist": inasmuch as you fail to adequately oppose kitsch you are kitsch. Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living was art because Hirst offered a novel challenge to how we view life and death, or living and dead things. Having done so, however, any subsequent pickled animals would not be novel. They would be kitsch -- trite reproductions, shallow copies of what Hirst had accomplished.