From: Richard Sullivan (richsul@earthlink.net)
Date: 11/02/01-11:14:59 AM Z
I've been a digital advocate for over 30 years. My first modern computer
was an IBM 360-50 with 120K of memory. (That's "K"!)It cost about 5 million
as configured. We had some 1401 second gen stuff around but that was in
phase-out at the time. I retired in 1996 as a managing systems programmer
from the City of Los Angeles and managed the City's New Technology Group.
My division was responsible for testing and evaluating new technologies for
the City. From bar code readers to mainframe computers.
Just wanted to show that I am not a anti-digital bigot.
I have however in the last year or so come to have some misgivings about
the new digital art scene. I think the primary problem is that the ease of
creation has lead to a flood of really bad art.
I think there are two sides here -- digital media and digital creation.
Look at music for instance. Almost all but diehard vinyl nuts listen to
digital music today. I have no problem with listening to Beethoven's later
quartets on CD on a fine system. This is digital media. Think of it as a
transport mechanism.
As a creation system in music we have Midi. Not bad, technically out of
date, but workable. Needless to say I think we have a flood of bad music
developed on home Midi systems. The ease of creation lacks the filtering
function that writing a string quartet from the ground up with paper and
pen or computer assisted composition.
As for digitally "composed" photography, for the most part GIGO, garbage in
garbage out. Mind you this is not an absolute, just some generalities and
observations here. I've recently seen a couple of "digital photography"
shows here at Santa Fe local colleges. Abysmally poor compared to the
"real" photography exhibits at the same schools at the same time. The
prevailing notion seems to be that one can take several bad photographs and
jazz them up somehow and combine them to make something good out of them.
Sort of like the fad in the 70's in alt-photo of putting fancy borders on
mediocre pictures to hide the fact they were mediocre. GIGO.
Another fad is to put something out of context. Done well it is perhaps a
reasonable and credible trick. Dan Burkholder's now iconic turtle in the
church picture comes to mind. Done well and striking. But you see over and
over again bad pics of things put in out of context situations. Of course
using bad images to begin with. Ho hum.
Digital is a new creation tool and perhaps in time we'll see esthetic
standards evolve out of it, but for now it's like bad money driving out
good. I overheard at an opening here a leading art gallery owner musing:
"If I see another digital picture...."
--Dick Sullivan
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