17/03/2014
Blog Entry 65:
As afforementioned in blog entry 48, my group and I have now delivered a presentation in the form of a critical report for Visual Culture: Debates. Our presentation focussed on the development of technological advance with a view to how it affects the viewer and viewership.
For my prat of the presentation I decided to focus on how technological advance might or might not take over older, more traditional ways of working and potentially render them a useless entity in this society, which for my personal practice is very important, due to my working with hand rendered media.
Slide 1:
I began my section of the presentation by defining exactly what is considered technological advance. The term Technology is derived
from Greek techne – meaning art, skill or cunning of hand, which in itself
suggests more than the computerised vision many of us have today.
Since the dawn of time there has been a need for visual
stimulus, which had developed through technological advance.
What is classed as a technological advance or technology?
From the movement of fresco to canvas and canvas to strong
painting specialist papers, everything that is used from people’s knowledge, to
improve or modify, make or use in such a way that it solves a problem or
improves the solution to a problem is technological advance.
For example, Canvass is still used along with the other
advances created to ensure painting can be done on a thinner, more easily
transportable piece of paper or material, but the way in which we make a canvas
has also become easier through technological advance, most prominently because
we have machines which make them for us.
With this in mind it can be stated that Invention and
development of said invention can in theory be classed as technology.
Slide 2:
My second slide focussed on how the topic relates to scholar text, beginning with The Seven Principles for the Visual by Paul Duncum. I found that this text was interesting to use as it fits many different concepts of visual material including how technology might affect audience. It has become abhorrently clear that through technological
advance, these principles outlined by Duncum have seemingly become
strengthened:
But how does technology affect these principles?
Viewership is often used when referring to the audience who
will watch or see a visual – here we are going to consider how this has been
affected through technological advance.
In the case of imagery shown on the internet, it is arguable
that the Power is tipped in the favour of the viewer due to the availability of
comment boxes and forums, allowing anyone to give their own personal
interpretations, which can in turn affect other’s perceptions, along with blogs
where “critiques” can be given by anyone of anything, having said this what is
represented initially still lies with the artist, though due to on screen
availability and the use of technologies such as photoshop, original artwork
can be manipulated to suit the viewers intentions, and because the internet is
so vast, it can be difficult to exercise copyrights.
In From Mass Media to Cyberculture’ by Glyn Davis Hollywood
cinema is described as a seductive empire of the visual, meaning that the use
of ideological iconography used has become so commonplace that we take the
seductive pleasure of looking for granted.
And that the screens at which we look are both tiny and
mobile and vast and immersive – this change in size will have affects on the
seven principles most of all Gaze as imagery online has now become situated on
mobile devices, meaning that not only a much larger target audience has the
potential to see the imagery, but where and how it is viewed has also become
open to the viewers choice, for example one person may sit at home an view an
image on a large screen for a long time and consider it at depth, whilst others
will merely glance at a thumbnail version of the work whilst scrolling through
their news feed on their phone in public.
Through the creation of items such as HD TV the viewer is
opened up to a more “real” experience of what they are watching, yet this is
only suggestive of how we visually look at something photographic and assume it
is real.
What we do not consider is that everything we watch has been
edited and changed to see the point of view that those who produced the visual
want us to see.
As Davis states in the ‘ideology of the visual’:
The painting The Ruined Church at Egmond van Zeefrom the
East by Jan Van Goyen is supposed to be a realistic representation of a
specific area in this case the Dutch countryside, but questions are raised as
to why that the work was done looking at
this specific element, at this specific point of view?
He goes on to strengthen this point in ‘From Mass Media to
Cyberculture’ by Glyn Davisshedding light on the toppeling of
the statue of Saddam Hussein, was done on a press stage using Hollywood set
designers and the statue itself being a set piece – many of us would merely
assume this was real due to ideological desensitisation created through the
onslaught of technology.
Intertexuality and Multimodality, have become somewhat more
noticeable through the use of the Internet:
Using links or search
engines often brings up related subjects or imagery allowing the intertexual
process to become more natural and associations are easily available
Not only can illustration or fine art have multimodality in
a publication or gallery space, but imagery used on screen can be accompanied
by a multitude of multimodal aspects, such as sound, text and animation
Slide 3:
For my third slide, I played a short video clip (linked below) which portrayed how through technological advance, early frame by frame cave paintings could be animated to move:
When considering how technology has affected past imagery,
we can look back to very early forms of illustration and animation:
Cavemen created a fame by frame image which has since been
made into an animation through technological process
This animation by Marc Azema, although very short has
successfully made the frame by frame cave drawings seemingly come to life
allowing us to see how the ancients that drew them viewed the world, and
documented what they saw.
How has this combination of new and old
changed how the work would originally be viewed, does it add or take away?
Ancient Greek ceramics were also painted on to create frame
by frame imagery that when spun made a moving image
But how are these aspects intended to be looked at?
Has the use of newer technology allowed this imagery to be
viewed in all its glory, how those who created them could only dream of, or has
this taken away the rudimentary original value they once heald?
Slide 4:
Slide four was dedicated to portraying how technological advance has played a part in changing people's perceptions of existing artwork and making these interpretations widely known, along with drawing into question how in years to come my own work could be possibly interpreted differently or not as intended through manipulating it or viewing it with the use of future technology. When looking at inspiration the work of the Renessiance
period interests me so I feel it only fitting that I consider how technology
has affected how the work was viewed and how it is now
It is not secret that da Vinci was interested in inventions
so he was clearly looking toward the future of technological advance and
inspired by it, did this affect all his work?
Jdax, this website is where the images in the powerpoint were found (as cited) and contains a more through explanation of how the imagery has been manipulated and what it is supposed to "reveal":
http://www.jaydax.co.uk/lastsupper/lastsupper.htm
(Chapman, 2005)
It is also apparent to a number of
people that da Vinci kept diaries in which he wrote backwards
After the 2003 Novel The da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, many
theories emerged (some were already present)
Thorugh the use of technology people
have been able to use techniques to change or flip The Last Supper fresco to
“reveal” hidden messages
As shown here the image has been
flipped on the lower image which is supposed to reveal hidden meanings such as:
A character holding a baby
A chalice to appear in front of Christ
A Templar knight should appear
(There were also more drastic changes
made to the fresco)
Did da Vinci expect/ anticipate todays technology thus created these messages
in the hope they would be found?
Or has the advance and avaliabliity of
technology created “messages” that were not intended – are we in fact taking
technology too far and looking at things how they were never meant to be
looked at?
How will his affect our artwork in
years to come?
This has big connotations on
representation.
Slide 5 looked at how new technologies and their methods could possibly inform more traditional practice. This work by animator/ fine artist Quayola has used new
digital sculpture technology to inform real life sculpture. (for more information on Quayola see blog entry 30)
The set of 3D digital sculptures are actual frame-by-frame
stills created for an animation called Captives and the real life sculptures
are exhibited pieces in the MU Gallery in Eindhoven, this movement of process
from traditional sculpture to 3D animation has allowed this work to be created
and therefore commissioned for different purposes
The new 3D animation technologies seemingly have given
Quayola an insight into how to work with 3 dimensional imagery and sculpture
which is a much older approach to creating 3D art, allowing him to make
mistakes on screen before undertaking real sculpture, which can not as easily
be manipulated to change mistakes and is far more costly.
The study of 3D form in this way is an innovative way that
technology has allowed visualisation of form; however it does not give
experience of hand crafted and working with media and material to create
sculpture, meaning that technology is limited as to what it can teach about a
hand rendered process.
There are a number of painting tutorials on youtube, but one
cannot hope to understand fully the process without picking up a paintbrush and
experiencing how to actually paint.
In New Media A Critical introduction by lister, dovey,
Giddings and Kelly state that :
“There is a
strong sense in which the ‘new’ in new media carries the ideological force of
‘new equals better’ and it also carries with it a cluster of glamorous and
exciting meanings. The ‘new’ is ‘the cutting edge’, the ‘avant-garde’, the
place for forward-thinking people to be (whether they be producers, consumers,
or, indeed, media academics).”
New Media (Lister, Dovey, Giddings, Kelly, 2009)
Does
this mean that we only value what is new technological advance? Which do you
think people would prefer the actual sculptures or digital renditions?
Overall, I feel that my part of the presentation did in fact inform my personal development, due to these theories being something I had not considered beforehand and that I could apply each of the questions raised to my own work.
