Friday, November 02, 2007
Aura of Digital Art (CG)
I recently had a discussion with someone about the value of digital art/computer graphics (specifically, 2D materials -- 3D is a whole another can of worms, though decidedly related without a doubt). My thought was that they were just as valid and authentic as pieces created using traditional tools of art, while my opposition argued that CG had no tangible work that could be considered the 'original' and that was why she would never consider CG as having half the worth of a 'real' artwork.
Technically, the original file (e.g. a .psd file, for example, with all the layers in tact) could be said to be the 'original,' but what she meant was something with tangible texture hanging in museums. According to her line of thought, there could be millions of digital copies and there would be no real way to distinguish the 'original' if, indeed, such a thing could be said to exist at all in the first place. That is, the only way to have a tangible copy would be to print it, which would be flat and 'lifeless' (i.e. without texture) and by extension could never exist as the 'original.' Certainly a CG work printed out would never be something fit to be displayed at the Louvre, for instance.
Now, I've seen innumerable digital [realism] paintings that, in my opinion, are just as amazing as traditional paintings (e.g. "Master and Servant", Gears of War concept art, "Gone", among thousands of others). The artists behind these paintings (created from scratch using computer-generated tools which closely imitate traditional tools of art) could easily have created the same pieces through traditional means, so does the fact that these only 'exist in the realm of the digital' make them any less worthy than traditional pieces? Is it because they lack the 'aura' of the distinctly 'original'? Can something which was created completely in the 'digital world' ever possess Benjamin's notion of 'aura'?
Technically, the original file (e.g. a .psd file, for example, with all the layers in tact) could be said to be the 'original,' but what she meant was something with tangible texture hanging in museums. According to her line of thought, there could be millions of digital copies and there would be no real way to distinguish the 'original' if, indeed, such a thing could be said to exist at all in the first place. That is, the only way to have a tangible copy would be to print it, which would be flat and 'lifeless' (i.e. without texture) and by extension could never exist as the 'original.' Certainly a CG work printed out would never be something fit to be displayed at the Louvre, for instance.
Now, I've seen innumerable digital [realism] paintings that, in my opinion, are just as amazing as traditional paintings (e.g. "Master and Servant", Gears of War concept art, "Gone", among thousands of others). The artists behind these paintings (created from scratch using computer-generated tools which closely imitate traditional tools of art) could easily have created the same pieces through traditional means, so does the fact that these only 'exist in the realm of the digital' make them any less worthy than traditional pieces? Is it because they lack the 'aura' of the distinctly 'original'? Can something which was created completely in the 'digital world' ever possess Benjamin's notion of 'aura'?
# posted by Raye Lee @ 6:59 PM 
