It's a, "Brave New Digital World..."
As a Digital Artifact Artist (from the age of Convergent Art) – born just passing the golden age of photography, I will offer to you here, a intricate definition (part theory, some elements – tongue in cheek) of where I have arrived as an artist, and why I think I am here. Complexity is a quality we all share in common… Each of us is unique, and multifaceted, regardless of our aspirations. So allow me to explain what I offer as an artist of Digital Artifacts, or, Analogue Digital Deliveries, and the life-long process that brought me to here. “As an enduring photographer thru the majority of my days, my eyes and heart have long steeped in the roots of the natural landscape, its color, its environments, and all that entails. During my professional career, 38 years deep, and 55 years old in curiosity – the world of ‘Photo-Capture and Presentation’ has evolved, dramatically – and so have I. This has come about due to the turnover of, “Analog Methods,” of film and, ‘Wet Darkroom’ printing processes – both becoming overrun, and replaced, by new Digital counterparts… “Manufactures were the first instigators to nudge a hesitant visual arts community and industry towards the digital experience – beginning seriously in the early to mid-1980’s. How was this scheme accomplished? Corporate marketing executives convinced their boards into beginning to slowly close down their lines of the companies’ offerings of long established analogue papers, films, cameras, printing and processing equipment. In this stead – they had R&D replacing Analography with Digital counterparts. No doubt, in these boardrooms across the business world, strategies were being plotted, based on the now established assumptions that; A digital world would provide greater revenues to manufacturers as prices of digital delivery systems struck down the more narrow, and elite markets, and replaced digital media into commercial and business levels of the private and public economy – something never before imagined… These days, families can print their home photographs on their kitchen counters by just sitting their digital cameras into a port of their countertop photo-printer (next to the iPod port receptacle). “In today’s digital cameras – you have a rudimentary ‘darkrooming’ process capability that can be enacted within in your digital camera before, and after shooting. This allows you (if you choose) to totally bypass a computer, and its specialized programs, or commercial lab processing all together. Cameras now capture images with electronically recorded data. ‘Wet Darkrooms’ of old, have been replaced by, ‘Daylight Print Rooms,’ where ‘digital capture electronic files’ are transferred from your camera’s, ‘Flash Cards,’ to larger data storage devices for computers – or other direct-printing devices. These digital ‘electronic’ files can be reprocessed, beyond their original state, prior to their data passing along to a digital printer – such as a Giclee Inkjet Device. Alternatively, digital files may also be uploaded onto any of the Internet Art Exposure Sites – such as AbsoluteArts, Saatchi-Gallery, #artmesh – or even FTP’ed (File Transfer protocol) to web-programming editors, or other professional, or commercial software and web designers, to integrate your image product into even more intricate presentation delivery systems, that can be used for business and government purposes… “Getting back from this world-wide discussion to the personal story; I have experienced this revolution first hand, and have rolled with the punches of this great transition from an analogue world to one of ‘Digital Capture and Presentation.’ The films, of my early works, are today, transformed by the new digital scanners developed for reflective and transparency materials. These scan devices create digital ‘negatives,’ or files, that are then printable digitally, and deliverable for other purposes. “I donated my entire, ‘Wet Darkroom,’ to a non-profit visual arts organization in 1994 (including 5 color enlargers, and all the peripheral equipment, odds and ends, to expose and print a finished product using a chemical process). I completely committed myself to this digital world I knew would come to overwhelm analog processes with equal, to superior product – given time. My frustration was – having to wait for digital printing processes to catch up to the professional level already reached in the mid-late 1990’s for digital capture devices. So I went through a short period of years without the ability to do my own print work. I farmed out my film and digital files to professional labs – who themselves, would soon go out of business – or recast their mission statements to meet the changing market that was quickly going digital too. “I knew the high costs for digital equipment would only go down as the technology developed. It didn’t take too long – not with all of the competition of recognized purveyors who serve the public, and private sectors, with their long established photo capture, print equipment, cameras, and paper materials. I believe there will be some holdbacks who will hoard old materials, and produce their work with these resources to appear different from the majority of others in their contemporary field who have moved on with the digital revolution… They may say that the first processes were the purest processes, – but I can’t agree… The first ‘wet’ processes were filled with carcinogenetic elements ingrained into their chemical make-up – chemicals so often washed down the basin drain into the sewer systems to someday become our drinking water again… I firmly believe these lagers and misbelievers of the new technologies will only provide an asterisk to the real world of art today, and in the future. The elitism of the, “Artist Patronage System,” will no longer be a barrier to upcoming visual digital (still and video) artists, trying to make their mark. It will likely continue to exist for painters and sculptors.
(*) Please note, I do not mean to discount past archival-processed Silver Gelatin, toned, and color counterpart processes exercised by the pioneers of the old days – who created great and historic works. Speaking of the legends of our Visual Arts History – successful artists who were born, and died, in the days of analogue…Their works, and those photographers – tagged with art historical connotations attached to their art, will live on in their own chapters of our Art History. “This record will also recognize those in the same boat as I – who have one foot born into both generations – Analogue and Digital… My analogue prints I have labored over – they may be more valuable than my Digital prints, today – simply for the fact there are only a finite number of them – never to be more. Only truer collectors, and investors, will be most interested in the oldest prints. What makes my new work collectible can be parsed this way. First, the digital processes, and printing materials, are as archival-healthy as any of the old analogue processes – provided the proper materials are chosen. I have grown into being a digital artist as the digital age has progressed. Now my work has evolved in ways I could once have never imagined – because of what the digital processes now offer me in the arena of creative tools to craft my art. Still, my, ‘nature seeking past,’ colors and spirits my digital deliveries of today… I am a Digital Artist – no longer a Photo Artist! I have been processing images digitally since 1996, and printing digitally going on five years. I offer both Analogue, and Digitally created, and processed art. My labor meets archival standards by the use of the papers and chromatic inks I choose – designed to produce Archival Digital Deliveries. I do not print editions. Each order I fill, I start with the original master file, and reprocess it to create a unique printed image – different, if compared, side-to-side, than other printings of the same image (even though it may take a good eye to note the difference, sometimes – other times, the beholder might see the difference too – especially when I use a different substrate!). “Just like the value of mutual funds on world exchanges, or a barrel of oil, or a gallon of milk, may change in price on a daily basis – so should the eye of a discerning artist change their view with a world in motion, I believe. I grew up in an art market where the artist goal was to make every image exact – so that you couldn’t tell one from another – even if processed ten years apart. The biggest difference would not be the quality, but the date on which it was processed. As an artist of the digital age – dating images, and scribing artist notes on every print, still is the grandest exercise an artist can do for enhancing their work’s future evaluations (especially usefully to the heirs of your estate)...
“Today, I challenge those old assumptions about reproduced art. I hold my strongest belief; that it should be the artist’s prerogative, as to what standard they choose to create by. If one artist decides each print must be exactly alike, in every way, with it’s literal counterparts – then that is a part of that’s artist’s identity – to create a digital file, and never change it, never improve it – never consider if you yourself grow from day to day as an artist… If an artist chooses, like I choose, to make each and every artwork unique – no matter how many times it is printed – then that is part of my identity – my freedom, and my creative prerogative. I believe everyday I am a newer person, with a greater knowledge – based on the experience of everyday efforts to improve myself as artist and human. “This is now, “An-Anything-Goes,” World today – whether we embrace it or not… In our present times, people want their artists to be flexible in their outlook – stick to their guns – but express themselves by today’s ‘Real-Time’ standards – moving, changing, reinventing art, and re-expressing the notions that this is – a constantly changing world, that runs, and revels, in these new aged, Digital Artifacts, and their, Digital Deliveries. What painters have done throughout Art History – will be challenged by the artists of our future – and the Digital Renderers, will make their mark too. The digital Artist shall artfully express through these contemporary times for as long as the Digital Age carries forth – until replaced by other technologies. “Perhaps when the Age of Digital Artifacts reaches its conclusion -maybe the painters will still be slowly brushing their way through their days and canvases – how great would that be? Meanwhile, collectors, purveyors, and exhibitors, shall come to fully accept the Digital Artifact as today’s newest art form – considering it important, collectible, seriously produced, and a new expression of these most modern of times… The Digital Artifact will someday stand with the art painter’s brush! After all – is this not the role of Art? A new chapter in history is being expressed, recorded, and digitally delivered! And so, until the next revolution – let’s offer this one the seriousness it deserves… We have morphed out a new kind of artist, in a new and changing world. It is high time to make room for this fresh kind of art creation and medium. This is cause for celebration, and our support, and our attention!” © Brad Michael Moore 2008
“The world feels a bit analogue without some pixelage to change the day…” – BMM
”Thanks for dropping by. – Brad http://www.alphasight.com/index.html
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