Art Vs Technology
Has the manipulation of art diminished the intrinsic value of its existence?
"Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be." “The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.” [1]
The raw essence of art is the fundamental element of its aura. An artwork is not always perfect which is why the piece can be so beautiful in the first place. From manipulating photographs that end up in a magazine to replicating a Picasso and selling it at the price of an original; is all this altering subtracting from the ‘art’ and beauty of the subject? More importantly, is the act of manipulating pictures simply to alter the image or are there social alterations linked to it as well.
The ‘art’ of photo manipulation has evoked a cultural and ethical response as the act of altering an image can portray many messages. One might look at a raw image of a model next to a digitally manipulated version of the picture in a magazine and assume that the message being portrayed is that this person’s raw beauty was not beautiful enough. This creates the desire of perfection, in all its unobtainable elements. From this we provoke a social response; with more and more young women and men being diagnosed with eating disorders, it is difficult to not look at the media and their portrayal on an impossible ‘beauty’.
“Unmistakably, reproduction as offered by picture magazines and newsreels differs from the image seen by the unarmed eye. Uniqueness and permanence are as closely linked in the latter as are transitoriness and reproducibility in the former. To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a perception whose “sense of the universal equality of things” has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction.”[2]
An aura can not be replicated. Digitally manipulating a snapshot in time of beauty diminishes the original aura all together. With new technologies changing the way we perceive the world and specifically, art, it seems almost sad that copious amounts of hours that were once put into an artwork is now downsized to a few clicks of a mouse. Although;
“Artists sometimes need to work with the mundane. We have to take the bad photographs that our clients give us and make them printable.”[3]
Technology however, has always evolved with the idea of making our lives simple and less complicated. This has improved the medical aspect of humanity, however the social side of life has been damaged. Not only through digital manipulation and the effects this has had on society but through the internet; cyber bullying, emailing instead of writing a letter or even face to face communication. With the lack of human interaction, misleading information, manipulation and persuasion can occur even if it is only from one individual. This means that our society could be conforming to the narrow minded idea of one person; just as one person alters the images being placed in a magazine; we are all being subconsciously told to conform to an inflexible blueprint of ‘beauty’.
“When we change the way something appears, we perform a social action. An image manipulation may accuse, misrepresent, persuade and entertain depending upon the audience, illustrator, and whom is depicted.’ ‘These actions and their relationship to the state of affairs in the world help better conceptualize the ethical impact of altering imagery.”[4]
Although digital manipulation can be seen as a subtraction from the ‘art’ of the subject, is there still ‘art’ in digital art? Can an artwork composed digitally still have an aura? I believe it can. If there is symbolic meaning behind the piece then it is possible to appreciate the talent one person may have for creating art digitally. Could we compare the talent of a painter to the talent of someone who is able to create an image digitally using the same colours, shapes and lines? I think this depends of the person viewing the artwork. For example I know my grandmother – a very talented painter – would not see the art in an abstract digital image simply because technology is very new to her and sometimes we are afraid of what we don’t understand. Whereas, having grown up with technology and having studied every aspect of art, I can definitely appreciate different types of art no matter what media they use.
“How far can we take digital image manipulation and still maintain photographic integrity?”[5]
To an extent, digital art can be placed with photography, painting and sculpture. When famous artworks are digitally replicated however, the aura of the original is not passed on to the replicated. Da Vinci; Dali; Matisse; Monet; Picasso; Van Gogh. These artists have created timeless masterpieces that in nowadays can be replicated and sold for the same price. Thinking you own an original masterpiece from one of these brilliant artists can be liberating. You could see yourself owning a part of history. To find out that it is simply a copy with the same price tag as an original would make you question the integrity of this new found technology that allowed this to occur.
The ethics of photo manipulation is questionable and actions need to be taken to make society aware that the image one is looking at has been altered.
“Any images that are staged or fundamentally altered will be prominently labelled as Photo Illustrations”[6]
Although;
“The advent of computers and digital photography has not created the need for a whole new set of ethical standards. We are not dealing with something brand new. We merely have a new way of processing images and the same principles that have guided us in traditional photojournalism should be the principles that guide us in the use of the computers. This fact makes dealing with computer related ethics far less daunting than if we had to begin from square one.”[7]
Photo manipulation should be cut down. Isn’t it about time we started looking at beauty in imperfections? Why is there a need to change the way a photo looks in the first place? The art is simply being stripped of its aura. Technology will always have pros and cons. It is important to not loose ourselves in the ‘simplicities’ of technology. Art is only seen in original pieces. Auras are only present in the individuality of an artwork. This concept must always be prominent in our society in order to no let technology and narrow minded views of individuals, run our lives.
[1] Walter Benjamin (1936) The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.
[2] Walter Benjamin (1936) The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.
[3] Bonnie Meltzer December 1995/January 1996 issue of Leading and Learning with Technology ©1996 all rights reserved.- DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY; A Question of Ethics
[4] Image Act Theory. C.J Renolds
[5] The Ethics of Digital Photo Manipulation; ©2008 About, Inc., A part of The New York Times Company
[6] Lillian Bassman- Webster University Journal- Policy for the Ethical Use of Photographs (2000)
[7] John Long NPPA Ethics Co-Chair and Past President September 1999
Friday, June 6, 2008
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Wikipedia:
To cite directly from the wikipedia research page:
"It is in the nature of an ever-changing work like Wikipedia that, while some articles are of the highest quality of scholarship, others are admittedly complete rubbish". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:10_things_you_did_not_know_about_Wikipedia ).
In years ten, eleven and twelve I study an artist by the name of Salvador Dali; particuarly his painting 'The Persistence of Memory'. When researching this artist and his work in books and reliable internet sources I learnt a great deal into the depth of this mad man and his strange work.
When looking in Wikipedia however, the write up on 'The Persistence of Memory' was false and i knew this for a fact. It states:
The original idea of this painting came from a memory of Dalí's from childhood. While undergoing a routine physical, the Doctor asked Dalí to stick out his tongue. This phrase in Spanish sounded much like the words for "melting clocks." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_of_Memory
Infact, Dali had an infatuation with the idea of soft and hard. The original idea of this painting came to Dalí on a hot summer's day. He was at home with a headache while Gala was out shopping. After his meal he noticed some half eaten Camembert cheese and how runny it had become on account of the heat of the sunny day. That night, while he had been searching his soul for something to paint, he had a dream of clocks melting on a landscape. He went back to the unfinished he had been working on, which had a plain landscape with rocky cliffs in the background and a tree on a platform. Over two or three hours he added in the melting pocket watches which made this the iconic image it is today.
It is easy to see that this article is incorrect because there are no resources listed so you don't know where the information is coming from.
Wikipedia is a useful site in the sense that if you are unsure as to what something is, searching it on wikipedia will give you some idea. However, it's important to keep in mind that not all the information will be correct as anyone can go into the site and change the information.
The article on Anothony Kiedis in Wikipedia however, has a large list of sources and having read his autobiography I can see nothing wrong with this article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Kiedis
When researching on wikipedia it's important to look for the sources to find out if someone has put solid research into the article or whether they are talking rubbish.
"It is in the nature of an ever-changing work like Wikipedia that, while some articles are of the highest quality of scholarship, others are admittedly complete rubbish". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:10_things_you_did_not_know_about_Wikipedia ).
In years ten, eleven and twelve I study an artist by the name of Salvador Dali; particuarly his painting 'The Persistence of Memory'. When researching this artist and his work in books and reliable internet sources I learnt a great deal into the depth of this mad man and his strange work.
When looking in Wikipedia however, the write up on 'The Persistence of Memory' was false and i knew this for a fact. It states:
The original idea of this painting came from a memory of Dalí's from childhood. While undergoing a routine physical, the Doctor asked Dalí to stick out his tongue. This phrase in Spanish sounded much like the words for "melting clocks." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_of_Memory
Infact, Dali had an infatuation with the idea of soft and hard. The original idea of this painting came to Dalí on a hot summer's day. He was at home with a headache while Gala was out shopping. After his meal he noticed some half eaten Camembert cheese and how runny it had become on account of the heat of the sunny day. That night, while he had been searching his soul for something to paint, he had a dream of clocks melting on a landscape. He went back to the unfinished he had been working on, which had a plain landscape with rocky cliffs in the background and a tree on a platform. Over two or three hours he added in the melting pocket watches which made this the iconic image it is today.
It is easy to see that this article is incorrect because there are no resources listed so you don't know where the information is coming from.
Wikipedia is a useful site in the sense that if you are unsure as to what something is, searching it on wikipedia will give you some idea. However, it's important to keep in mind that not all the information will be correct as anyone can go into the site and change the information.
The article on Anothony Kiedis in Wikipedia however, has a large list of sources and having read his autobiography I can see nothing wrong with this article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Kiedis
When researching on wikipedia it's important to look for the sources to find out if someone has put solid research into the article or whether they are talking rubbish.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Is art really art?
Walter Benjamin states in his "Art in the age of mechanical reproduction";
"Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be." “The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.”
In the age of digital manipulation it comes as no surprise that we can question the authenticity of a work of art. Benjamin considers the idea of an artwork having an ‘aura’ – “We define the aura of the latter as the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be. If, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you experience the aura of those mountains, of that branch. This image makes it easy to comprehend the social bases of the contemporary decay of the aura. It rests on two circumstances, both of which are related to the increasing significance of the masses in contemporary life.
Namely, the desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction. Unmistakably, reproduction as offered by picture magazines and newsreels differs from the image seen by the unarmed eye. Uniqueness and permanence are as closely linked in the latter as are transitoriness and reproducibility in the former. To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a perception whose “sense of the universal equality of things” has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction. Thus is manifested in the field of perception what in the theoretical sphere is noticeable in the increasing importance of statistics. The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception.” – and by manipulating or reproducing a piece of art it is safe to say that the aura of the piece is lost or diminished. Everyday we see magazines and advertisements with beautiful, ‘perfect’ models pasted all over. Society observes these “people” with the desire to obtain their perfect appearance. What most don’t know or even more alarmingly, do know is that these images have been airbrushed, photoshopped, cut, pasted, and altered. The original aura of these people and the raw photo that has captured their unique beauty for a millisecond has been changed and lost. Beauty is in imperfection however, by digitally manipulating an image we are trying to create beauty in perfection which is seemingly impossible to obtain in reality.
Similarly, when composing a piece of music- a piece of art – with raw instruments and genuine voices there is no doubt that the notes and pitch will not be perfect; this imperfection is the beauty in the music. With the ability to digitally alter a composition it again diminishes the aura of the art; the music. Someone with an amazing voice or an amazing instrumental talent used to be deemed “talented”. Nowadays, if someone has the ability to digitally create music, they are talented. You don’t even need to be able to sing or play an instrument because a computer can compose and alter the music to perfection. Each note is perfect. The pitch is always right. Yes, someone is talented to be able to compose such a perfect sound on a computer; that is skill. The ‘aura’ of the musicians however is lost, or it never really existed.
I think that raw digital art – composition of raw colours, effects and shapes – can in some sense have an ‘aura’ as the ‘artist’ has put artistic thought into the creation of the digital piece. When reproducing and altering a piece of art however, I believe the ‘aura’ is lost.
"Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be." “The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.”
In the age of digital manipulation it comes as no surprise that we can question the authenticity of a work of art. Benjamin considers the idea of an artwork having an ‘aura’ – “We define the aura of the latter as the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be. If, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you experience the aura of those mountains, of that branch. This image makes it easy to comprehend the social bases of the contemporary decay of the aura. It rests on two circumstances, both of which are related to the increasing significance of the masses in contemporary life.
Namely, the desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction. Unmistakably, reproduction as offered by picture magazines and newsreels differs from the image seen by the unarmed eye. Uniqueness and permanence are as closely linked in the latter as are transitoriness and reproducibility in the former. To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a perception whose “sense of the universal equality of things” has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction. Thus is manifested in the field of perception what in the theoretical sphere is noticeable in the increasing importance of statistics. The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception.” – and by manipulating or reproducing a piece of art it is safe to say that the aura of the piece is lost or diminished. Everyday we see magazines and advertisements with beautiful, ‘perfect’ models pasted all over. Society observes these “people” with the desire to obtain their perfect appearance. What most don’t know or even more alarmingly, do know is that these images have been airbrushed, photoshopped, cut, pasted, and altered. The original aura of these people and the raw photo that has captured their unique beauty for a millisecond has been changed and lost. Beauty is in imperfection however, by digitally manipulating an image we are trying to create beauty in perfection which is seemingly impossible to obtain in reality.
Similarly, when composing a piece of music- a piece of art – with raw instruments and genuine voices there is no doubt that the notes and pitch will not be perfect; this imperfection is the beauty in the music. With the ability to digitally alter a composition it again diminishes the aura of the art; the music. Someone with an amazing voice or an amazing instrumental talent used to be deemed “talented”. Nowadays, if someone has the ability to digitally create music, they are talented. You don’t even need to be able to sing or play an instrument because a computer can compose and alter the music to perfection. Each note is perfect. The pitch is always right. Yes, someone is talented to be able to compose such a perfect sound on a computer; that is skill. The ‘aura’ of the musicians however is lost, or it never really existed.
I think that raw digital art – composition of raw colours, effects and shapes – can in some sense have an ‘aura’ as the ‘artist’ has put artistic thought into the creation of the digital piece. When reproducing and altering a piece of art however, I believe the ‘aura’ is lost.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Search Engine Experiment
Who was the creator of the "lovebug" virus? www.ask.com
Onel de Guzman is the suspected author of the LoveBug virus which originated in the Philippines.
Who invented the paperclip? www.ideafinder.com
John Johan invented the paper clip and William D middlebrook inveted the machine that created the paper clip. 1899, November 9.
How did the Ebola virus get its name? www. stanford.edu
The Ebola virus was named after the small river in Northern Zaire, Africa near the village where the first isolate of the virus was obtained in 1976. More cases occurred in Zaire in 1977 and in Sudan 1979.
What country has the largest recorded earthquake? www.ask.com
1960 - Chile. This eartquake caused death and destruction as far as Japan and the Philippines and had an estimated magnitude of about 8.
How many kilobytes in a terabyte? www.ask.com
One terabyte is equal to 1.073742E+09
Who is the creator of email? www.digpile.com
Ray Thomansen
What is Storm worm and how many computers were infected by it? www.ask.com
Storm worm is a backdoor trojan that takes over you computer, denies access to services, identity theft, email span, shuts down security defenses on desktop, sends out copies of itself to your contacts and has effected anywhere between 250,000 to 1 million computers.
What is the best way to contact the Prime Minister of Australia? www.ansearch.com.au
Via Australia Post
What does the term Web 2.0 mean? www.ansearch.com.au
Web 2.0 is a second generation of available web services that allows people to collaborate and share information online
Onel de Guzman is the suspected author of the LoveBug virus which originated in the Philippines.
Who invented the paperclip? www.ideafinder.com
John Johan invented the paper clip and William D middlebrook inveted the machine that created the paper clip. 1899, November 9.
How did the Ebola virus get its name? www. stanford.edu
The Ebola virus was named after the small river in Northern Zaire, Africa near the village where the first isolate of the virus was obtained in 1976. More cases occurred in Zaire in 1977 and in Sudan 1979.
What country has the largest recorded earthquake? www.ask.com
1960 - Chile. This eartquake caused death and destruction as far as Japan and the Philippines and had an estimated magnitude of about 8.
How many kilobytes in a terabyte? www.ask.com
One terabyte is equal to 1.073742E+09
Who is the creator of email? www.digpile.com
Ray Thomansen
What is Storm worm and how many computers were infected by it? www.ask.com
Storm worm is a backdoor trojan that takes over you computer, denies access to services, identity theft, email span, shuts down security defenses on desktop, sends out copies of itself to your contacts and has effected anywhere between 250,000 to 1 million computers.
What is the best way to contact the Prime Minister of Australia? www.ansearch.com.au
Via Australia Post
What does the term Web 2.0 mean? www.ansearch.com.au
Web 2.0 is a second generation of available web services that allows people to collaborate and share information online
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Communicating With Friends And Family
When communicating with friends and family it's often more convenient to write a quick email, post a myspace comment or write on their facebook wall. We all get busy so when these technologies came along it became a lot easier to keep in touch with everyone. This is all very well but what ever happened to sitting down to write a letter or better yet sitting down in person to spin a yarn? Shock Horror! I must admit I am one of the 100 million people who uses MySpace as means of communicating with friends and especially family overseas but you hear of these kids who spend every waking our on these sites. They're on there posting photos of themselves to see how many comments they can get, or adding thousands of random people to say that they have this many friends. It's a bit sad that these kids look for confidence boosts and so called "friends" in this way.
There is a huge difference to knowing someone on the web and really knowing someone in person. These people may not even be who they say they are which can be a dangerous aspect to these sites. I personally don't add random people who I haven't met in person and this is a privacy thing for me. I use myspace to keep in contact with my friends from not only my school but other schools also. Most importantly though it allows me to keep in contact with my beautiful family in Canada.
I caved in to the Myspace peer pressure at the end of 2006 and I've been happy with it so far. I was influenced to join the "MySpace team" because everyone was doing it- although I put up a good fight in the begining. Privacy has not been an issue for me using MySpace because I'm smart about it. My profile is private, I accept adds and add people myself only if I know them and I don't put any personal details such as my phone number or address. These new communication technologies have many advantages and disadvantages - it all depends on how you use it.
I would much rather socialise with friends at a bbq with a few bevvies and a mean feed but MySpace does allow me to organise such an event :)
There is a huge difference to knowing someone on the web and really knowing someone in person. These people may not even be who they say they are which can be a dangerous aspect to these sites. I personally don't add random people who I haven't met in person and this is a privacy thing for me. I use myspace to keep in contact with my friends from not only my school but other schools also. Most importantly though it allows me to keep in contact with my beautiful family in Canada.
I caved in to the Myspace peer pressure at the end of 2006 and I've been happy with it so far. I was influenced to join the "MySpace team" because everyone was doing it- although I put up a good fight in the begining. Privacy has not been an issue for me using MySpace because I'm smart about it. My profile is private, I accept adds and add people myself only if I know them and I don't put any personal details such as my phone number or address. These new communication technologies have many advantages and disadvantages - it all depends on how you use it.
I would much rather socialise with friends at a bbq with a few bevvies and a mean feed but MySpace does allow me to organise such an event :)
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Personal Introduction
My name is Lauren Benedet and my mum thinks I'm a maddogg.
I'm seventeen years old and I was born on the Gold Coast.
My old man is Canadian so I also have citizenship for Canada. Recently I completed my thirteen years at A.B Paterson College -thirteen years too long - where I grew as a person and developed my knowledge and interests. I adore my family and friends. I enjoy all sports, - particularly dancing and snowboarding - travelling, partying, art and literature; oh and partying. I'm a loud and energetic person although at times I'm quiet and attentive. I'm studying at Griffith University to obtain a Bachelor of Communication - where I go from there, I have no idea.
I'm seventeen years old and I was born on the Gold Coast.
My old man is Canadian so I also have citizenship for Canada. Recently I completed my thirteen years at A.B Paterson College -thirteen years too long - where I grew as a person and developed my knowledge and interests. I adore my family and friends. I enjoy all sports, - particularly dancing and snowboarding - travelling, partying, art and literature; oh and partying. I'm a loud and energetic person although at times I'm quiet and attentive. I'm studying at Griffith University to obtain a Bachelor of Communication - where I go from there, I have no idea.
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