8 ms·

My cousin went to RISD in 1972 after graduation she started hanging around MIT eventually studying under Negroponte before the formation of the media lab. After

My cousin went to RISD in 1972 after graduation she started hanging around MIT eventually studying under Negroponte before the formation of the media lab. After graduation she worked as a computer animator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Starfighter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Starfighter She is in the photo at the terminal working on the last starfighter. She has been creating computer art ever since. She has often expressed confusion and disillusionment with the field. She is often unsure if she or the computer is the artist.

api 1y ago
Photographers have always had similar sentiments, but if you look at artistic photography versus random or amateur photography the former is definitely an art form. Nearly all art except singing and dance is made with tools. In many cases tools define the art form.
- brookst 1y ago
  Even signing and dance use tools, they’re just biological and under sophisticated neural control. It takes at least as much work to train vocal cords and breathing as it does to train muscles to use a paintbrush.
- glimshe 1y ago
  Dance generally uses tools too, but they are more subtle and better integrated. Clothes, props, lights and even the stage can be seen as tools to achieve dance's aims. Singing can certainly use tools too. Auto tune and special microphones. Perhaps you mean to say that neither require tools.
  - dragonwriter 1y ago
    > Singing can certainly use tools too. Auto tune and special microphones. Not just electronic tools: archictectural acoustics are often a tool in vocal performance.
- jrm4 1y ago
  Tools define those too, I've seen a few GREAT articles on the subject, but the example was given: There's a dance everyone knows called "the robot." It, of course, didn't exist until after robots were invented because no one would recognize it as that. Even more interesting, when e.g. a dancer makes it look like s/he's "moving backwards." We as humanity couldn't really concieve of that until we saw e.g. film actually run backwards. Recently I was watching some beatbox battles, similar deal. I kind of like them less these days because I prefer when they imitate/get inspiration from acoustic or other "older" instruments, but now the majority of them are imitating, e.g. bass synths and EDM type stuff.
dahart 1y ago
> She is often unsure if she or the computer is the artist. Did she really say that? As a moonlighting digital artist, I feel like this is the same thing as a painter saying they’re not sure if the paintbrush is the artist. Maybe if I wanted a full time art career I should have leaned into it and fostered the dramatic narrative of the computer having intent. God knows there are a bunch of artists who actually know better say lots of stupid untrue stuff that anthropomorphizes computers, and they enjoy a lot of attention for it. I think this hyperbolic ghost in the machine crap is very short sighted and has influenced public opinion much for the worse. Artists are undermining their own efforts and talents and spreading misinformation about what computers actually do when they tell the story this way. More importantly, they are undermining the efforts and talents of all artists, specifically of digital artists who don’t want to take part in the computer-as-artist narrative. I’ve stood next to my art at a gallery show and had people walk by and say out loud something like “ugh why is this here? this crap is just made by a computer”. I don’t expect people to understand how I use the computer, but the bias and lack of curiosity is pretty sad, and my computer was neither artist nor collaborator. It was a tool that I used to achieve a vision I had, the same way I use a paintbrush to make pictures. We could talk about who made the tools, whether it’s a paintbrush, a camera, or computer hardware and software. There’s a Grand Canyon of space for credit that various other people might deserve, in between the artist and the art made using a computer. Jumping to the conclusion that the computer did anything on it’s own and deserves attribution is to be unintentionally (or sometimes intentionally) ignorant about what a computer is and what it does.
- detourdog 1y ago
  I have no idea what your point is. Why else would I quote her? It may have been in the 90’s if that makes it more credible for you.
  - dahart 1y ago
    I don’t see quote marks, it wasn’t clear if you are interpreting in your own way or remembering exactly what was said. My point is that calling a computer the artist is hyperbole and inaccurate, even more so from the 90s than today.

api 1y ago

Photographers have always had similar sentiments, but if you look at artistic photography versus random or amateur photography the former is definitely an art form. Nearly all art except singing and dance is made with tools. In many cases tools define the art form.

brookst 1y ago
Even signing and dance use tools, they’re just biological and under sophisticated neural control. It takes at least as much work to train vocal cords and breathing as it does to train muscles to use a paintbrush.
glimshe 1y ago
Dance generally uses tools too, but they are more subtle and better integrated. Clothes, props, lights and even the stage can be seen as tools to achieve dance's aims. Singing can certainly use tools too. Auto tune and special microphones. Perhaps you mean to say that neither require tools.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > Singing can certainly use tools too. Auto tune and special microphones. Not just electronic tools: archictectural acoustics are often a tool in vocal performance.
jrm4 1y ago
Tools define those too, I've seen a few GREAT articles on the subject, but the example was given: There's a dance everyone knows called "the robot." It, of course, didn't exist until after robots were invented because no one would recognize it as that. Even more interesting, when e.g. a dancer makes it look like s/he's "moving backwards." We as humanity couldn't really concieve of that until we saw e.g. film actually run backwards. Recently I was watching some beatbox battles, similar deal. I kind of like them less these days because I prefer when they imitate/get inspiration from acoustic or other "older" instruments, but now the majority of them are imitating, e.g. bass synths and EDM type stuff.

dahart 1y ago

> She is often unsure if she or the computer is the artist. Did she really say that? As a moonlighting digital artist, I feel like this is the same thing as a painter saying they’re not sure if the paintbrush is the artist. Maybe if I wanted a full time art career I should have leaned into it and fostered the dramatic narrative of the computer having intent. God knows there are a bunch of artists who actually know better say lots of stupid untrue stuff that anthropomorphizes computers, and they enjoy a lot of attention for it. I think this hyperbolic ghost in the machine crap is very short sighted and has influenced public opinion much for the worse. Artists are undermining their own efforts and talents and spreading misinformation about what computers actually do when they tell the story this way. More importantly, they are undermining the efforts and talents of all artists, specifically of digital artists who don’t want to take part in the computer-as-artist narrative. I’ve stood next to my art at a gallery show and had people walk by and say out loud something like “ugh why is this here? this crap is just made by a computer”. I don’t expect people to understand how I use the computer, but the bias and lack of curiosity is pretty sad, and my computer was neither artist nor collaborator. It was a tool that I used to achieve a vision I had, the same way I use a paintbrush to make pictures. We could talk about who made the tools, whether it’s a paintbrush, a camera, or computer hardware and software. There’s a Grand Canyon of space for credit that various other people might deserve, in between the artist and the art made using a computer. Jumping to the conclusion that the computer did anything on it’s own and deserves attribution is to be unintentionally (or sometimes intentionally) ignorant about what a computer is and what it does.

detourdog 1y ago
I have no idea what your point is. Why else would I quote her? It may have been in the 90’s if that makes it more credible for you.
- dahart 1y ago
  I don’t see quote marks, it wasn’t clear if you are interpreting in your own way or remembering exactly what was said. My point is that calling a computer the artist is hyperbole and inaccurate, even more so from the 90s than today.