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06/13/2008: "Has the Time Come for Convergent Media?" by Barney Davey
Brad Michael Moore gave us an up close impassioned personal portrayal of how he has evolved as an artist in the digital age. He is to be commended for the courage to follow his instincts at the expense of leaving a comfortable more certain existence behind. Brad refers to himself as a Digital Artifact Artist.
It has been noted movements in the arts portend the future. Artists being highly sensitized to their environment often create work signaling social change. For instance, Impressionism with its fluidity and spontaneity was in retrospect seen as a reaction to the Industrial Age from which the first precisely manufactured mass produced objects the world had known came.
A century later, I see the work by Brad and other visual artists working digitally forecasting change again. Admittedly, due to the advancement of technology, the pace of change is greater and faster than 100 years ago in the age of Impressionism. And through a purely arbitrary observation on my part, I sense the shift towards digital art as a model or mirror for the evolution of global business, politics, entertainment and art. In this case however, rather than being a polar reaction as Impressionism was to the Industrial Age, I see digitally rendered art as an amalgamation of traditional art, photography, software, computer-generated and manipulated art and printing.
In this amalgamation, I see the melding of digital art techniques as reflection of a shrinking world and a world where greater international collaboration and cooperation is possible. Because information flows freely, world citizens are beginning to realize we are all in this together. Inarguably, our governments want to compete brutally at times. But, the awareness from the citizens is we have to work together. The analogy is just as the pulling together of disparate elements of digital art forges new kinds of art, the rising awareness of mutual needs by world citizens may help us form new kinds of government or at the least new means to cooperate to save the planet and ourselves from ourselves.
This may sound like some hippie philosophy to some, but I swear I gave up the ganja long ago. Rather, the notion comes from intellect and a desire to see a better world. Trends start somewhere and the arts are often the wellspring for them. Look what Peter Max and The Beatles ushered in 40 years ago as an example. The world is a different place because of them and other artists from that era.
Perhaps as world citizen artists and collectors continue to transcend their borders and reach across national boundaries to likeminded others, they will set the trend for governments to follow. If you can Imagine there are no countries becoming a reality, can’t you just see John Lennon smiling?
With 24/7 connectivity to all manner of information sources, we, as world citizens, are much more keenly and instantaneously attuned to what is happening around the shrinking globe. We understand the loss of rain forests is traumatic and the exploitation of Africa fuels unrest that does not bode well for any of us. On a typically more inspiring level, the reports from all corners of the universe through artist’s blogs on Absolute Arts are fine examples of how this information revolution is shaping our world view.
Obviously, the more we are aware of other cultures, the more we are influenced by them. Picasso was influenced by African tribal masks. Once you know that, it’s easy to see the results in the shapes of his abstract Cubist figures. What might have taken years in his time for such nuances to spread about Picasso’s muse now happens in the moment.
Knowing that bit of information about Picasso draws me closer not only to him, to help me understand him better, but also to opens my mind to African tribal art and understand it better too. Anecdotally for me, there is a similar pattern with Picasso’s work leading me to appreciate his influences and how ‘60s era British rockers put me on the path to discovering to B.B. King and ultimately Robert Johnson and other seminal Delta blues musicians whose work begat jazz, rock, hip hop and other popular musical forms. Without the information trail, I might never have had such rich cultural enlightenment.
Where I’m going with this is to say I think we need a term to define what is going on with digital art. I’m not talking about something like how the French word giclée was appropriated into usage as marketing jargon. The term did successfully allow printers, publishers and artists get away from using the term digital art and digital printing at a time when using either was certain to cool the ardor of potential buyers of this new media. There is unique serendipity in how usage was conceived and caught on.
To keep things in context, in 1990 there was no Internet to speak of; the desktop computer revolution spawned by Windows 95 was still five long years into the future. Cell phones and digital cameras weren't the norm as with today. Fax machines exemplified the cutting edge of instant communication technology. (For those of us who worked in an office then, standing around waiting to send or receive a fax was the modern day equivalent of the proverbial water cooler.) So, at the time, using digital to describe anything related to art was not going to warm the hearts of any buyer and as such the usage of giclée was brilliantly, if not luckily, conceived, received and passed into the vernacular.
Today, we have a much different environment. People are awash in digital gadgets everywhere. Photo manipulation software is a free add-on with digital cameras and printers. To wit, we are no longer afraid of using the word digital to describe exquisite things. We have eloquent pioneers like Brad Michael Murphy coming to terms with who he is as a self-described Digital Artifact Artist. Without denigrating his choice of terminology, I don't think terms digital art or digital artist adequately describe the art being created in this relatively new manner.
The process of creating art using digital means is involved and multi-stepped. There is image capture whether through digital photography or image creation using a Wacom Tablet or other hardware/software combinations. There is a manipulation of the imagery through any number of software programs such as Painter, Photoshop, Illustrator and so on. Then comes the output onto a myriad of substrates including paper, canvas, vinyl, metal, wood and more. To produce a final desired result, the artist must print or collaborate with a printer on calibrating the equipment to get the output desired. Often pieces are further enhanced post printing to make them yet more unique, one-of-a-kind and original.
For the purpose of defining the process artists like Brad create, I don't see how calling the end result a giclée makes sense. Giclée has come to mean digital reproduction which is far different than something created from the artist's imagination and skill in a digital environment and brought to life using digital printing techniques.
To my mind, the term Convergent Media makes more sense. It reflects the usage of Mixed Media, which is an ages old widely accepted art term. Mixed media describes a multi-stage process of using different techniques and media to render an original piece of art. Convergent Media does the same thing but implies the use of technology not available to previous generations of artists.
Giclée is a marketing term. I see Convergent Media as a descriptive term. Like its cousin, Mixed Media, it requires a simple explanation of the blending of techniques and media. In describing how a piece was rendered, typically an artist using Mixed Media will give the details to a point and let it go at that and collectors liking the piece are fine with it. That is, there could be torn paper, cloth, paint, wax, items from nature and so forth that went into the piece. But exactly how it was rendered is rarely a talking point or subject of conversation.
Just as a Mixed Media artist doesn't give minute trite detail such as, "I used a No. 2 lead pencil to outline on a gessoed canvas." I don't believe a Convergent Artist needs to give all the details and a step-by-step of how an image was created in order to satisfy a buyer. They are subjectively and emotionally buying the finished vision of the artist's imagination and creativity, not her or his computer skills. The buyer is still buying on emotion, not on the technical merits. That said, sophisticated buyers will always appreciate technical talent along with creative ability.
Convergent Media Artist is an accurate, honest description of a person using any number of current technologies and techniques uses to create art. Convergent Media distinguishes from using giclée and expands on the limited term, digital art. Agreed, it requires a brief explanation as does Mixed Media, but it does not obfuscate as giclée does. I think it enhances without detraction, it embodies what's available now and in the future for cutting edge artists to incorporate into their oeuvre.
I hope this sparks debate and opens the door for using Convergent Media as a useful art term. Or, alternatively, I would be just as pleased to see the debate continue and have another serviceable term come about from the discussion.
Barney Davey
www.artprintissues.com
P.S. A points in this blog are borrowed from a July 2007 post on my Art Print Issues blog.
