Is There a Digital Aesthetic?
Symposium:
- ISEA98: Ninth International Symposium on Electronic Art
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More presentations from ISEA98:
Session Title:
- Short Paper Presentations
Presentation Title:
- Is There a Digital Aesthetic?
Presenter(s):
Abstract:
Today’s “aesthetic” of digital art originates from a carefully applied amalgam of a myriad of new creative options. Does digital art have its own “look and feel”? It can and often does, but since the improvements in image resolution with the resultant shrinking of the blocky pixel, even a computer-based painting is not limited to that pixellated “look” any more. I believe that the digital aesthetic, the beauty of digital art, lies in its capacity to surpass the traditional limitations of previous media and its ability to allow the merging of aspects or techniques that used to be the exclusive domain of distinctly separate media.
The digital aesthetic is most readily experienced in the images that success-fully integrate effects from previously divergent sources. Ideally, these new creations should be enjoyed at face value. That is, as new unified works, appreciated for what they express about art, or other important matters. The most important thing to remember is that art in any form is not created by the tools but by the imagination and skill of the operator, the artist! The digital aesthetic merely echoes a gift from the twentieth century: that the sky is no longer the limit!
