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There Should Be No Computer Art (1971) [pdf]
- dang 6y agoI changed the url from https://compart.uni-bremen.de/download/publications/there-should-be-no-computer-art https://compart.uni-bremen.de/download/publications/there-sh..., which does a forced download. If there's a better page to link to, we can change it again.
- FpUser 6y agoSemantics I think. I do not see much difference for example between Pollock's artwork and some of computer generated stuff.
- tgv 6y agoWhich of Pollock's works? Until I saw a drip paining in a museum, I always thought it was a dull, lifeless, messy Kindergarten style, but the actual work was quite impressive in its sheer physical presence. It was rather different from the usual pictures in books and magazines. Seeing Mondriaan (or: Mondrian, as he's known in the English speaking part of the world) was different: his paintings look great in books, but are small and quite imperfect in reality.
- FpUser 6y agoHere is the example: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1e/b2/b9/1eb2b9a2d656762f8bedb28df532f286.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1e/b2/b9/1eb2b9a2d656762f8bed... I agree that when printed on very large canvas and under proper lighting it can evoke some impression but the same would go for some computer generated art under similar conditions.
- Talanes 6y agoNo print has the same physical presence as being able to see the layering of the paint on canvas. It's not a fully 2D medium.
- FpUser 6y agoMy friend once had gallery of CGI in Toronto. Some of his printed images simulated just that. To me, unless you rubbed your finger you would not guess. It had visually perfect shading and relief. Granted there were no parallax but to properly notice that one human needs to be constantly moving when watching the painting. Also I have no idea if it exists but nothing prohibits one to hook up simple plotter type robot to computer and have it make that physical presence real by using real brushes / spray and paint.
- ljw1001 6y agoI had the same experience until I saw a Pollock retrospective at MoMA. Not only is his best work gorgeous, it’s vastly superior to his own early experiments. The whole “anyone could do this” thing I had going in was wiped away completely by the time I left.
- atum47 6y agoThere was a time I was deeply involved in procedural generated art. Everything has changed since I started working. But hey, I got come pretty cool experiments from that fase. Like this one: https://victorribeiro.com/showFractal/ https://victorribeiro.com/showFractal/
- logikblok 6y agoYour website is impressive! Couldn't follow how to interact with Qubes, any tips?
- atum47 6y agoThere's a virtual keypad below the game area, and you could use the arrow keys. https://victorqribeiro.itch.io/qubes https://victorqribeiro.itch.io/qubes https://www.outpan.com/app/99694412f2/qubes https://www.outpan.com/app/99694412f2/qubes https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.victorribeiro.qubes&hl=en&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.victorribe... you can also play it in any of these links
- swayvil 6y agoHey me too. I used to be deeply involved in a procedural art project. https://github.com/johnalexandergreene/Forsythia/tree/master/app/grammarEditor https://github.com/johnalexandergreene/Forsythia/tree/master... Then the project sorta met its natural end, and then I sorta moved on
- 6y ago
- dsign 6y agoIf it weren't for computers, my hobby artistic endeavors would still be about acquiring a steady pulse so that the lines just look right...
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoHis argument is very time/context dependent. Our understanding of computer art is quite different now, in 2021, than it was in 1971 since the capabilities and ease of use of computers are very different. His point about art dealers is still interesting though.
- nimih 6y agoI find the article quite compelling, honestly. If anything, reframing conversations about computer-generated products from "what were the methods of production" to "whom does the production serve" is even more relevant today than it was in 1971.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoYes - exactly. It's interesting that even though the argument is still at least as relevant today as it was in 1971, it's so far outside the usual narratives that it seems harder to follow it today than it was back then. It's much safer to frame it as a question about tools - which it isn't - than about politics and power structures.
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoYeah that's fair, although the methods of production are much more accessible today. Arguably more accessible than traditional art materials, so I think he would be less hostile today.
- machinelabo 6y agoComputer art is not ok as much as paintbrush art is not ok.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chaboud 6y agoI only support finger painting with natural pigments and sculpture from unprocessed materials with no tools... Basically, someone needs to smear fruit on a rock or punch a tree if they want to reach me. Otherwise, it's not art, just graphic design...
- andrewflnr 6y agoI've read this a couple times and can't really figure out what the argument is. Something about alienating artists from their art? And also the bourgeoisie is involved? I did notice that they narrowed their claim a couple times as the article went on.
- nimih 6y agoThe argument appears to be that using a computer to generate a piece of art is not a meaningful distinction from using e.g. a camera or a paintbrush, and so "computer art" is not a useful category. This appears to be couched in a more general political (and normative) theory of aesthetics which argues that art is (in the current political context) important insofar as it serves goals /beyond/ the production of "beautiful objects," e.g. highlighting inequity in the distribution of wealth, or other projects which serve the "needs of the people" contra "the rich and ruling."
- kens 6y agoI had the same reaction, that I couldn't figure out the argument. (For people who didn't read the article, it's not what you'd expect about why computer art isn't art.) It seems to be from the perspective of rejecting art entirely: "There is no need for the production of more works of art, particularly no need for 'computer art'." After re-reading the article, I think it's best understood by considering each paragraph a completely unconnected topic. (I'm not being snarky here.)
- TheRealNGenius 6y agoMy tangentially related thoughts on the matter https://wndr.xyz/posts/9fjM1tOJO7MWX4fYw3AU2Q==/what-s-art-and-what-s-not https://wndr.xyz/posts/9fjM1tOJO7MWX4fYw3AU2Q==/what-s-art-a...
- klik99 6y agoFrom the article: "Questions like 'is a computer creative' or 'is a computer an artist' or the like should not be considered serious questions, period." Interesting that the concept that the computer is somehow doing the art itself, missing the point that a computer is a tool just like a paintbrush, was even around in '71. One wonders when the paintbrush was invented if people argued people should still finger paint, and that the paintbrush alienated artists from their work. There's a tendency to see all technology from before you were born as natural, and anything newer as unnatural.
- nimih 6y agoThe same argument also played out over the course of the 20th century around the status of photography as an art form and how it changes the relationship between the artist and their subject--Sontag's _On Photography_ is probably the best known collection of writing on the topic, but you could probably find a decent overview in any modern art history text.
- NotPavlovsDog 6y agoProfessional art is whatever you can sell as such. What i find boring with western art is that it is completely dependent on the critic and the discourse statement, in text, that must accompany any "serious" work of art. Zen and objects created under that philosophy makes no distinction between "high" and "low" art. There are multiple other approaches outside of the western paradigm. The writer of the article is selling a monetary-driven agenda, as they are dependent on getting paid for their strong-worded texts, while refusing to address that particular elephant in the room, connecting western art and discourse. How tedious.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoA lot of people seem to be missing the relevance of this critique to NFTs. It's actually uncannily prescient, politically and economically.
- megameter 6y agoThe medium that is changing with NFT is one of credit and incentives, not aesthetics. NFT art isn't differently made art, it's differently positioned art. It's like jumping from movies to television. And it's similar in a nominal sense with respect to current platforms, but there's a definite sense of "we have not really done everything this medium can offer yet". The phase where it's a gimmick will pass.
- dehrmann 6y ago> it's differently positioned art Is it even that? Art is to baseball as NTF is to baseball cards. It's something loosely associated with the art. My real gripe with NFT is that collectibles--art, baseball cards, whatever--can be put on display. There's something to be said for tangible things.
- iamacyborg 6y agoThere is something to be said about tangible things, but that’s not an NFT problem, that’s a digital art problem. I actually wrote a thing about it on my blog today https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/irl-problem-digital-art-nft https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/irl-problem-digita...
- whywhywhywhy 6y agoand similar to NFTs the artists involved in early computer art also faced harassment "Indifferent as many critics and curators were, there were some responses to computer art that were considerably more severe. In fact, computer art has aroused the kind of extreme resentment that characterized many of the idolatry controversies scattered through the history of art. Beyond the sabotaging of computers, physical attacks have been made on artists for their involvement with such devices, and the careers of art curators have been significantly damaged by their participation in computer art exhibitions. Though it is commonly accepted that computer art was unpopular upon its arrival, many are unaware of the level of vitriol directed toward computer artists. In a case reaching the levels of harassment and personal attack, Grace Hertlein reported that she was called a “***” and “traitor” by a fellow artist, who saw her choice of medium as morally questionable and as a complete rejection of authentic artistic traditions"[1] All sounds very similar to whats happening to a lot of artists thanks to Memo Akten's cryptoart.wtf name and shame site. [1]: https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/when-the-machine-made-art-the-troubled-history-of-computer-art/introduction?from=search https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/when-the-machine-...
- tpetricek 6y agoFor those who want to compare this 1971 article with a 2018 talk by the very same person (and see that his arguments remain relevant): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-qAPvYdXgM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-qAPvYdXgM
- ma2rten 6y agoI wonder what GPT3 would have to say about this.
- iamacyborg 6y agoThat sort of misses the point, which is common when people consider generative art. Not only does the artist code the artwork into what they consider to be the finished piece, they then curate the output of that system to pick out items that are of particular appeal.
- arrrg 6y agoThat seems to be a weird perspective when we know that artworks that are collaboratively made by humans exist among humans. Think of films, for example, where at the extreme ends you might look at hundreds or thousands of people collaborating on them. Sure, many people may think that the director is the central figure, (often foolishly) even going so far as to almost completely discounting the impact others have, however I don’t think many people would be willing to completely discount the DoP, editor, screenwriter, etc. as artists in their own right, with their own contributions to the finished artwork. As such your argument seems suspicious and weird. Sure, actual people were also involved in the creation of this hypothetical computer generated final artwork in different roles but can you be so quick to dismiss the contribution of the software? I don’t think this is as easy to discount as you make it sound.
- iamacyborg 6y agoThe software doesn’t contribute anything it wasn’t programmed to contribute, is my point.
- ctdonath 6y agoNeither is the brush.
- iamacyborg 6y ago
- overgard 6y agoWell that aged like milk.
- dang 6y ago"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ctdonath 6y agoAs a high school student in the mid-1980's, I was the first to submit "computer art" to a county art contest. There being no appropriate category, it was submitted as a "print" (via previously unheard-of use of a dot-matrix printer, metal impacting inked cloth ribbon). Apparently the submission caused a great deal of consternation among the judges, some thinking it a grand advancement of arts, and others appalled at the notion. Ultimately it was accepted and won (IIRC) an honorable mention (wasn't really that artistic, just explored the medium & tools).
- pikseladam 6y agoDo you still have the "print" ? :)
- goblin89 6y agoExtrapolating the objection a la “this tool is too advanced!” to AI-generated art is a curious thought exercise. Yes, that art might be created by a black box unconscious neural network, but there’re still minds who: developed algorithms, had a vision of an art project, put together training datasets, set up the software, filtered output, and finally published the resulting art in some context (or set up a publication pipeline). This further prompts an exercise in how a single human artist in some ways can be described as a neural network—that takes external reality as input, runs it through some layers (the lens of one’s mind) and produces art as output—and, similarly, might not always deserve the entirety of the credit: there’s inevitably someone with good taste (a curator, a mentor, a community, etc.) who “set up” the artist, who first recognized artist’s work, who pestered the artist to publish (or dissuaded from publishing work that wasn’t so good), who helped artist get published and gain the confidence to produce more art, and so on.
- gorgoiler 6y agoAn artwork needs to engender emotion in others and it needs to be a focus for questioning, thinking and feeling. The best way to get these properties is to make a physical object and to make it unique either through craftsmanship or artificial constraint (a limited edition print run, for example). Unless constrained by the artist, machine generated works do not have the property of uniqueness. They produce something more like poetry — infinitely reproducible art in the form of pure data sculpted at the human scale. A photograph when presented as a computer image consists of pure data: but is it art? Was it taken at a moment in time in the real world? The uniqueness and craftsmanship is right there in the process of capture.
- amelius 6y agoThe problem is that it's a slippery slope. Analogy: telephone is like real-life conversation -> chat is like telephone -> social media is like chat -> now look where we are.
- pikseladam 6y agoMy point of view is that "if a human touches anything and it changes things, it can be called art". Hardware, programs, languages and the all other things that computers are made of were created by humans. So, everything that computer generates is also a result of a group of human work which we come to the solution that even this comment can be called art and claimed. That doesn't change it is a "bad" art but it is art.