'Post Digital'

"Is inevitable so why wait?"

Digital Art:

Is digital art better than nothing at all?

Lets have a: Massdebate

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ARTYhog, roots through the scraps of the digital art world.

All views expressed here are highly subjective, and many are based solely on a lack of hard evidence.

The debate opens.

Well yes of course it's better than nothing…if you accept that it is purely an absorbing pastime with little or no other use.
Is a digital watch better than nothing at all? As a watch lover I would have to say no. Why? For reasons similar to digital art that's why. Did the digital watch 'evolve' out of practicality, aesthetic or ease of use? More likely it came on the scene because it was easy to manufacture such an object. And where are they now? Languishing in the bottom of drawers with dead batteries and dead displays. The Service station 99p/c bargain…just the thing when cleaning the car.

So what's so bad about 'digital'? For me it is a soulless 'unit' regular and conforming building things with all the passion and imagination of an ant hill. All it becomes is the sum of its parts, nothing more. An illusion of optical mixing. Put it under the microscope and what do you learn…nothing? The unit grinds along. Even grains of sand on a beach are all different.

The unit is the problem. You can't describe an analogue universe with a digital 'string'. Well that's not strictly true you can describe it…but you can't emulate it, or create an expression of it in the same 'system'.

So what about digital music then! I thought of that…the sound ( if we are talking of anything other than snyth music) is created with analogue and listened to with analogue. Digital is only the carrier, the matrix' that transports the sound from A to B. You could argue so does a digital image, yes if it's a photograph, but most digital art isn't . It's a composite of created illusion or algorithmic manipulation.

So how far have I got? Well I could concede that a digital photograph has value, and is not such an intrusive display of pixels. I feel happy about that…for now.

Over to you?

Further.

I met my old art teacher one day in a book shop; trying to impress him that all his efforts had not been wasted ( though I doubt he cared much, as most of us teach for the money) I spoke up.
" I have really started getting into surrealist painting"
He looked up from a book he was reading, and through his John Lennon style glasses replied.
"Self indulgent crap"
I hadn't expected that, but he did it with a smile, as a sort of acknowledgement that at least I was trying.
"No-one wants to know your dreams" he continued.
That meeting has stuck in my head for 25years, probably because he is absolutely right.
I think you can figure it out for yourself why I mentioned it.

Peep through the bathroom door...