Computers and Art: Issues of Content || The Digital Revolution: Art in the Computer Age

The Digital Revolution: Art in the Computer AgeAuthor(s): Cynthia GoodmanSource: Art Journal, Vol. 49, No. 3, Computers and Art: Issues of Content (Autumn, 1990),pp. 248-252Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/777115 .

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The Digital Revolution: Art in the Computer Age

By Cynthia Goodman

Since its first artistic application nearly thirty years ago, the computer has radi-

cally transformed the way in which art can be made and experienced. Digital technology has been incorporated into all stages of the art-making process, from design to ex- ecution. 1 Even the milling of sculpture and the spraying of paintings can be computer controlled. Early computer graphics were pretty much restricted to black-and-white, linear representations of mathematical principles and had little aesthetic interest. A. Michael Noll's Gaussian Quadratic of 1965 is typical of the early work in the field (fig. 1). Unlike many other computer scientists who produced graphics, however, Noll had a strong interest in the history of art, and he appropriated many modem masterworks. He was fond of pointing out, for example, the similarity between his Gaussian Quadratic and Picasso's Ma Jolie in the collection of the Museum of Modem Art, New York, which he frequently visited.

Today there is no definitive computer-art stereotype. Artists are discovering new aesthetic opportunities for the computer medium as quickly as capabilities become available. For some, the computer func- tions like an electronic sketch pad that facilitates and expedites design decisions; for others, direct computer output is the artwork; for still others who work with traditional media, computer-generated images serve as the point of departure. Most frequently images are retrieved from the digital memory of a computer in a tangible form called "hard copy." Although film, printer drawings, plotter drawings, color Xerox, woven textiles, video, and laser drawings can all be produced by different computer-driven hard-copy devices, the most popular format in which to display computer-generated imagery is photo- graphic enlargements.

Some of the most ingenious applications of computers by artists have em- ployed the interactive potential of computer systems to respond in a manner aptly called "real-time," because the processing happens as soon as the commands are given, and the effects are visible virtually instantaneously. No longer is it necessary to input data on punch cards and then wait hours or even days for the results. Painters are excitedly exploring the properties of interactive paint systems, some with pal- ettes of over sixteen million colors from which to choose. By merely touching a light-sensitive cursor on the computer screen, recoloration or manipulation of either an isolated component or an entire composition can occur before the viewer's eyes. The flexibility and speed of this new technology encourage an enormous range of artistic experimentation. As one pioneer computer artist, Ruth Leavitt, has com- mented, "The computer is challenging the definition of an artist's creativity-it may encompass the exploration of many more styles than ever before."2

In the typical configuration of computer hardware and software, the artist "paints" with an electronic stylus or mouse on a digitizing tablet, or table, and a palette of colors and types of brushes are selected from a color display on the video monitor. Movement on the working surface is re- corded immediately on the computer screen. While some artists initially have trouble mastering the hand-eye coordina- tion required to make marks on one surface that are visible on another one somewhat removed, most become adept with the medium relatively quickly. The brightness of the video colors on the monitor, the ability to apply one "wet" color on top of another without waiting for the first one to dry or sacrificing any of the intensity of the sec- ond color, as well as the speed with which a

composition can be radically transformed, are generally considered well worth the adjustment.

Artists as diverse in their styles as Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Lee Mullican, Jennifer Bartlett, and Philip Pearlstein have experimented with electronic paint. For Warhol, the appeal was the resem- blance of his computer-generated images to his other work: "The thing I like most about doing this kind of work on the Amiga is that it looks like my work in other media."3 Once Pearlstein overcame his ini- tial resistance, he was, like Warhol, amazed by the ability of an electronic palette to create effects of impressive subtlety in a stylistic range comparable to that of his customary materials.4 Hockney was in- trigued by what he called (on a BBC docu- mentary, The Paintbox) "painting in light," an effect he believed to be equaled only in stained glass. Painter Kenneth No- land is among the converts to digital- imaging tools, and he has totally immersed himself in the new medium through his involvement with computer-processed video. He has built a professional-quality recording and editing facility adjacent to the studio where he continues to paint in acrylic on canvas. For Noland there is no contradiction concerning his incorporation of a state-of-the-art video facility into his traditional workplace. As he explained: "Both video and the computer have been a confirmation of my artistic vision. I've been able to visualize color in motion."5

Barbara Nessim, like Noland, uses the computer to create drawings similar to her work in conventional media. The point of departure for both are sketches in the three or four diaries she completes each year. Once her computer drawings are printed, she delicately colors them by hand with pastel (fig. 2). In order to achieve an impressive scale, Nessim prints her composi-

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Figure 1 A. Michael Noll, Gaussian Quadratic, 1964, photograph, 11 x 81/2 inches. ? AMN 1965

Figure 2 Barbara Nessim, Thoughts of the Moon, 1989, computer- generated drawing with pastel on paper, 44 x 32 inches.

Fall 1990 249



Figure 3 Kenneth Snelson, Forest Devils'Moon Night, 1989, Cibachrome print, 30 x 40 inches.

tions in as many as sixteen sections, each 11 by 81/ inches, which she then joins together. Other artists-Kenneth Snelson, for example-use a computer to make work that looks totally unlike anything they have done before, although a common emphasis is shared. In addition to con- structing. the large outdoor sculptures of steel and tubes for which he is best known, Snelson has been struggling for the past three decades to express pictorially the electronic structure of the atom. For nearly three years he has been using the Silicon Graphics 3130 computer with Wavefront software as a primary research tool for both his study of the atom and his sculp- tural explorations (fig. 3). According to Snelson, when he discovered this system, "there suddenly seemed to be a new way to make images of my invented micro- universe. ... As a result, I've made all sorts of pictures I never imagined possible. ... Artists as well as scientists have gained a valuable new ally for revealing the invisible."6

Through computer programming, sculpture and environments can be made to respond to external stimuli. James Sea- wright, who has a background in both engineering and fine arts, has been combin-

ing these interests in his artwork since the early 1960s. Houseplants I of 1986 (fig. 4) is a relatively recent work. Constructed of metal, plastic, and electronic parts, this computer-age plant can either follow pro- grammed movement patterns or respond interactively to light levels. In either mode, the taller plant is illuminated by flickering patterns of light across the LED (light- emitting diode) units on its "leaves," and the flip disks on the domed plant open and shut with a clicking noise. Sometimes be- havior patterns are so complex that no two viewers experience the artwork in exactly the same way. Viewing art becomes an event similar in spirit to the Happenings of the 1960s. Then, as now, the artist orches- trates a setting and to a certain extent estab- lishes parameters; what transpires subse- quently is often as much a surprise to the organizer as to the participants and the audience.

Not even the traditional genres of por- traiture and landscape are immune to trans- formation by computer technology. Viewers may be invited to change a composition displayed on a computer screen or to create entirely new ones of their own simply by issuing a few commands. Rich- ard Voss of the IBM Thomas J. Watson

Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, has designed an interactive program that lets the user create and manipu- late "fractal" landscapes. (Fractals offer a way to model natural phenomena with un- precedented verisimilitude.) The capabilities of the system include changing the configuration as well as the coloration of the terrain.7

Voss is one of a group of distinguished scientists-cum-artists whose research is vi- tal to the computer-graphics field. Al- though their investigations were conducted at first for scientific rather than artistic purposes, their discoveries are now eagerly awaited by scientists and artists alike. Some of the most impressive imaging achievements have occurred at such seem- ingly improbable locations as the Jet Pro- pulsion Laboratory of the California Insti- tute of Technology, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, and the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in Livermore, California.

Artists and scientists like Voss can con- struct surprisingly lifelike imagery entirely mathematically. The information in the databases they create is sufficient to por- tray the objects not only in the position and

250 Art Journal



perspective from which they are shown at any one moment in time but also from any other conceivable angle of vision. The discoveries of how to model many subjects that we take for granted in the world around us-such as the reflection of light on water, the transparency of a prism, or the bark of a tree-were heralded as major breakthroughs in the computer-graphics field, each made possible by the invention of specific mathematical algorithms, or se- quences of instructions comprehensible to a computer. It is astonishing to learn the degree to which a computer can create photographically precise images-phenomena that exist only as digital information stored in computer memory.

The computer is also exerting a pro- found effect in the field of architecture. Computer-aided design (CAD) techniques are playing an increasingly important role in architectural design. Modifications as well as the actual planning of structures take place in front of computer screens. The time-consuming process of submitting a drawing to a renderer or the even more labor-intensive and costly process of con- structing a model may no longer be necessary. Once information about a structure exists in a database, architects can see their designs in three dimensions on the computer monitor as they "draw" them. For architects at Skidmore, Owings and Mer- rill (the firm with the longest and most extensive commitment to computer-aided design), Pei Cobb Freed and Partners, and other firms around the world, computers are used not only for drafting purposes but also for studying environmental impact, for engineering and landscaping designs, as well as for drawing up contracts (fig. 5). Some three-dimensional systems make it possible for the designer and the prospec- tive client to take an imaginary walk through a projected space prior to con- struction.

Performance artists have discovered the spectacular prowess of the computer as both a collaborative partner and special- effects device. MTV is one of the most popular forums for computer-generated imagery. The unmistakable imprint of computer imaging is apparent today every time the channel is turned on. In 1983 the acclaimed choreographer Twyla Tharp en- listed the services of Emmy Award- winning computer animator Rebecca Al- len for a television version of her dance "The Catherine's Wheel," in which the lead dancer, Sara Rudner, exchanges an intense dialogue with her computer- generated counterpart Saint Catherine. Al- len has continued to integrate computer animation with live performance, as in her new video, Study State, of 1990. Her recent collaboration with the Spanish group La Fura dels Baus will premiere in Europe in October. In this piece both the performers

and Allen's animations will move offstage and into the audience. Laurie Anderson has also been incorporating computer- generated special effects into her art since the mid-1980s, most notably in the video Sharkey's Day of 1984, in which she seem- ingly dissolves into a screen of smoke, an effect created with the assistance of techni-

cal wizard Dean Winkler. In the late 1980s she was interviewed by her computer- generated alter ego for Alivefrom Off Cen- ter on WNET. Her recent traveling show, "Empty Places" of 1989, incorporated operatic-scale computer-generated images as backdrops.

Figure 4 James Seawright, Houseplants I, 1986, metal, plastic, and electronic parts in two units, 26/2 and 291/2 inches high.

Figure 5 Pei Cobb Freed and Partners, Interior View of Addition to the Louvre from the Pyramid Looking into the Court Napoleon, 1986, plotter drawing (by Paul Stevenson Oles and Rob Rogers) with felt-tip pen and pencil on paper, 18 x 22 inches.

Fall 1990 251



The impressive capabilities notwith- standing, there has been a great deal of

reluctance to accept the computer as a le- gitimate artistic medium. The frequently heard refrain, "Computer art: is it art?" results in part from the ill-defined nature of the computer-graphics field and from the public's more extensive familiarity with the commercial rather than the fine-art applications of computers. Moreover, since the term "computer graphics" was invented by William Fetter, a computer sci- entist at the Boeing Company in 1960, an enormous variety of artistic applications has been lumped under this one category. It is admittedly confusing that these effects range from spinning logos that identify the television networks, to flight-simulation techniques that train pilots to fly planes while remaining on the ground, to cross sections of the human skull and brain generated by computer-aided tomography (the CAT scan), to an electronically generated painting of two female nudes by Philip Pearlstein.

The art gallery and museum establish- ments have dampened somewhat the art community's enthusiasm for the new medium. The resistance of art dealers is based largely on very practical questions of mar- ketability, particularly the difficulty in as- signing a financially profitable price to a work of art that is virtually endlessly repro- ducible (hard-copy devices can replicate the same image over and over again).

Despite misunderstanding and contro- versy, the lure of digital technology has become so irresistible that the lingering hostility is gradually being replaced by enthusiastic acceptance. Darcy Gerbarg, artist-in-residence at the Robotics and Manufacturing Research Laboratory, Cou- rant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, remembers how un- til the last few years fellow artists would shrink away from her at art openings as soon as she mentioned she was using computers. Today, in contrast, "everyone seeks [her] out, anxious to learn all they can about computers and their potential as an artistic tool."8 How can this dramatic

Notes

I am grateful to Darcy Gerbarg and Gene Miller for their provocative discussions with me concerning as- pects of this essay. RoseLee Goldberg provided help- ful information on Laurie Anderson's recent work.

1 For a full documentation of the history of com-

puter art, see my Digital Visions: Computers and Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987). Portions of this essay have been adapted from this publica- tion with permission of the publisher.

2 From an interview with Ruth Leavitt, January 27, 1987.

3 Quoted in Guy Wright and Glenn Suokko, "Andy Warhol: An Artist and His Amiga," Amiga World 2 (January/February 1986): 16.

change in attitude be accounted for? The major reason has been the advent of the affordable personal computer.

The widespread availability of computers as artistic tools is a relatively new phenomenon. Ray Bradbury, in an essay on computer artist David Em, character- izes the field as "swiftly flowing and changing as a storm front stabbing its way across country walking on stilts of electri- cal fire."9 This passage captures the stag- gering rapidity with which developments in the computer world occur. Capabilities that were formerly available only on high- end systems are announced as forthcoming on personal computers one year and flood the market the next. Most computers and software on the market today are designed to be "user-friendly," that is, easy for even the novice to use. Nevertheless, numerous state-of-the-art capabilities still require technical savvy and are costly to produce.

rinciples of artificial intelligence that have captured the imagination of many

within and outside of the computer field since the late 1940s are now being applied to software programs as well as to environmental installations. British artist Harold Cohen is at the forefront of those who dream of a creative "thinking machine." He has designed and built a computer- driven drawing apparatus run by a program he calls AARON that needs only to be turned on to produce an endlessly variable series of drawings of human figures in nat- uralistic settings.

Some in the computer-graphics field foresee that the replacement of live actors with computer-generated substitutes will soon be a frequent occurrence in feature films. Once an actor is stored in a database, he or she may be brought back to appear on the screen in both major and minor roles long past his or her natural lifetime. Nam June Paik, the acclaimed father of video art, whose prediction in the mid-1960s that "the cathode-ray tube will replace the canvas" was considered outlandish, now envisions wall-sized monitors displaying live video imagery as works of art as a

4 From an interview with Philip Pearlstein, January 5, 1986.

5 From an interview with Kenneth Noland, April 1987.

6 Quoted in James W. Krehbiel and Cynthia Good- man, Digital Visions, exh. cat. (Delaware, Ohio: Ohio Wesleyan University, 1989).

7 Richard Voss's program was developed initially for the showing at the IBM Gallery of Science and Art, New York (April 26-June 18, 1988), of the

"Computers and Art" exhibition organized by the Everson Museum of Art and curated by the author. Another version is currently installed in "THINK: Innovation at IBM," an ongoing science exhibition at the IBM Gallery.

common feature of most households in the not-too-distant future. He also foresees best-selling computer-generated artworks being rented for the evening, viewed on large-scale monitors, and rated like the "Top Ten" on today's record charts. 1

Pioneer computer filmmaker John Whitney, Sr., whose computer-generated films have mesmerized viewers by the sheer beauty of their endlessly meta- morphosing abstract forms since the mid-1960s, also foresees the future of the medium as being inextricably intertwined with the availability of technology. For Whitney, the most exciting future developments will come from the visual/musical realm: "With computers we have begun to create temporal architectonic resonances in color, sound, space, and time. . . . one day these resonant harmonics will be shaped into a genuine fine art of aural- visual time patterns as imposing as any of the great musical traditions."'l Whitney has developed a program called Digital Harmony to run on an IBM PC AT that enables the user to see and hear music simultaneously. Using this system over the past two years, he has created more new musical compositions than in his entire career. According to Whitney, "It is now obvious that the pixel and sound wave are the basic building blocks for future developments in aural-visual research."12

The far-reaching impact of digital technology on the art of the future has finally begun to be appreciated. Limited by nei- ther conventional media nor traditional techniques, computers are revealing an exciting and fertile new world of visual expression.

Cynthia Goodman is the author of Digital Visions: Computers and Art (1987), published in conjunction with the exhibition "Computers and Art," which she organizedfor the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, N.Y. She is currently director of Arttransition '90, an art and technology symposium at MIT.

8 From an interview with Darcy Gerbarg, May 1, 1990.

9 Ray Bradbury, "Em Squared," in David Em at OCCA, exh. cat. (Goshen, N.Y.: Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, 1984), 6.

10 From an interview with Nam June Paik, January 1987.

11 John Whitney, Sr., unpublished statement, March 1987.

12 From an interview with John Whitney, Sr., May 8, 1990. Whitney's program was also developed for the "Computers and Art" exhibition at the IBM Gallery.

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Computers and Art: Issues of Content || The Digital Revolution: Art in the Computer Age