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> 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
by 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 agoI 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 agoI 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.
- detourdog 1y agoIt was a statement made a long time ago. We have been talking about technology since the 80's. Some of the unease is that in real life drawing one has to understand perspective this isn't required. I think you may be too hung up on the term artist.
- dahart 1y agoI assumed it might have been a statement made a long time ago, which is why I asked if that’s what was really said. Not sure I understand what you mean about being hung up on “artist”. That’s the word you used. Do you want to suggest an alternative? Do you mean that Shelley did feel like the artist, and the computer meant something else to her? Your very short story seemed to me to fit a pattern and language about digital art that I’ve seen many times elsewhere. It’s very common for people to say something very similar about computers being collaborators in the art process, rather than being what they are: inanimate tools, made by other people. I’m sorry if it it’s not really what you or Shelley meant.
- 4ndrewl 1y ago> 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. This is non-sensical. You hold the paintbrush and move it across the medium with your own hand. It is entirely within the artists control. With a computer, you tell it what to do and within it's own constraints, be that p5.js or an llm whatever algorithm will produce some result.
- btouellette 1y agoNo it really isn't. Is Jackson Pollock entirely directing each drop of paint or is there some inherent randomness that is being guided and directed at a higher level? There's a clear analogy to digital art where there exists along a continuum things like traditional digital art tools -> algorithmic generative art -> LLM generated art at varying levels of direct control.
- 4ndrewl 1y agoSim to the other reply, Pollock flicks the paint, he doesn't instruct something to generate flicked paint...
- achierius 1y agoIs your gripe purely that text is involved in the middle? If a paralyzed man painted by verbalizing commands -- left, right, up, down -- that "instructed" a simple machine to move the paintbrush, then by your definition he would simply be "instructing" a machine to "generate" the painting.
- recursive 1y agoWhen Bob Ross scrapes his knife across a canvas to create a jagged rock field, he doesn't have a detailed plan for exactly which rocks will appear and where. But he knows that that it will create a a rough patchy area alternating between two colors that will look like shadows in the context where he's doing it. When you use the pencil tool across the screen in photoshop, it works just as a pencil on paper. The difference is not so clear as you imply.