Today I spent a large portion of my day preparing for Watching: An Exhibition of Digital Photographs before the Opening Reception. Before reading Margaret R. Lazzari’s The Practical Handbook for the Emerging Artist, I never realized exactly how much work goes into creating an exhibit. Counting the time everyone put in, it took over 30 hours, which would have been exhaustingly hard for only one person to do. I was responsible for the Facebook Event Page creation, which required a lot of collaboration with the person who wrote the Artist’s Statement, the person who created the posters, and the people who provided the photographs. I was initially very nervous about setting up the exhibit, but working as a whole, with everyone providing his or her opinions and coming to a consensus created a much better exhibit. This also happened with far more speed than one person could have done it with alone. I was very excited about framing the Inkjet prints we created and displaying them, however when the final touches were put on the exhibit (due to technical difficulties photos unavailable, but coming soon!), it soon was obvious that the most interesting part of the exhibit was the magazines. By themselves the magazines would not nearly have been as interesting, but when present to complement the pictures, they stole the show. The magazines held the attention of the visitors far longer than the pictures did.
Mary Ann Doane describes digital media as a media “of pure abstraction
incarnated as a series of zeroes and ones” in her Indexicality and the
Concept of Medium Specificity.
She mentions that the “finger’s preeminent status as the organ of touch”
is eliminated with digital media.
In a sense she is correct, however in another sense, that is not
necessarily valid. Digital art is
a media created through abstraction, but it can be incarnated through various
printing processes, or possibly even film. It can be displayed in a gallery, as can any other art. Galleries do not often let viewers
touch the art within (naturally there are exceptions), so there is no use of
the finger’s status as the organ of touch in any of these galleries. When I walk through an art gallery I
often wonder what to do with my hands so as not to reach out and touch the
artwork. Art needs to be
preserved, and to do that, original pieces cannot be touched, while digital
pieces can, because they can be remade.
There is no fear of degradation.
Our gallery had the aspect of touch, through utilization of collections
within a magazine, and really caused the audience to show interest. They were able to interact with the art
and really understand the artist’s theme by having the magazines present, but
also show it to a friend who may have been across the room, without them having
to move.
I believe this experience has shown that there is a wonderful place for
digital media in this world.
Obviously video cannot be touched, but it can be experienced over and
over again in large quantities and with large groups of people, same with
digital photographs. There is no
fear of ruining the original, because any copies made and displayed are exactly
that, copies. Digital media has
created the ability to share art far differently than it has been shared in the
past. There is no fear of degradation
of the original if it has been copied into a physical format. This seems to open up many doors for
art exhibitions that unfortunately people aren’t quite utilizing yet.
In a sense you are right that digital pieces of art are more "protected" because they are not physical ("no fear of degradation"). However, I always feel a sense of loss or incompleteness or impermanence with digital art - it can so easily fade into the vast and infinite landscape of the internet and become lost forever.
ReplyDeleteI also appreciate how you point out that because digital media is so easily reproducible, it presents the viewer (and even artist) with a different experience. As an artist who primarily works in mediums that are much less easily reproducible and are fragile in their original state, the ease and low expense of reproduction of digital work really helps deteriorate a large part of the anxiety that arises from exhibiting artworks of more fragile medium.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed you connecting the hands touching the computer keys to the hands touching the magazines in the show. We were also intrigued by how viewers poured themselves into looking at the magazines more so than looking at the pictures on the wall. The combination of objects, though, may have made the audience at ease. On the one hand the magazines proved a communal viewing experience as viewers could share their discoveries with those standing next to them and the prints on the wall provided a break, a moment to be alone with one's own thoughts even though in a crowded room. The one thing we're noticing about digital stuff is that if you don't make the print while the format is current you may not be able to in the future, so make sure to archive those objects as the files may be obsolete soon!
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