The Revolution will not be Oil-Painted
A manifesto for postdigital art
Like Leonardo’s use of oil painting created a break through in
the time-honored technique of egg-yolk temper of his master Andrea del
Verrocchio, so the adoption of digital painting by a growing community
of visual artists sets the ground for new production methods, new
market rules and overall for a new artistic value.
The practice of digital drawing and painting today has achieved
maturity: on the technical side, because the tools needed to create,
share and publish digital art reached the right balance of
functionality, easiness of use and cost; with more and greater
importance on the aesthetical side, because the attention eventually
shifted from the digital medium being interesting per se, to the
message and the artistic value that digital painting tools can shape.
The days of considering clever some pixelated pictures with glossy
effects, for the simple fact of being digital, are over, buried
together with the ashes of dotcom business plans.
In fact, we are nowadays in the postdigital era: to quote Wikipedia,
“digital tools have become so ubiquitous as to be taken for
granted … what is interesting is not the tools in themselves but
rather the new horizons of artistic possibility they open up."
Postdigital art brings into the hands of the artist the levers of greater control and greater freedom:
- choose exactly what lines, colours, shapes, textures, layers to
use, making possible to everybody to create visual artwork with the
highest level of technical prowess
- draw in any size, from the tiniest microscopic surface to a seamlessly extending, virtually infinite plane
- produce the work of art in any number of copies and sizes, from a
single unique piece to a countless number of identical reproductions,
all with the same constant quality
- distribute the work of art in any support, from a concrete
artifact printed and signed on any physical support, to a weightless
digital image
- determine the effects of aging, preserving the pristine original forever or consciously opting for obsolescence
- connect with the public and artists through any channel, from the
traditional intermediation of art galleries to the direct contact of
online auctions and social networks
- decide what kind of intellectual property and rights will apply.
Postdigital art in its essence is a visual art. Thrusted by the
propulsions of greater control and greater freedom, the postdigital
artist has now the power to overcome the crisis that darkened the
research in visual art for the last three decades. These levers can in
fact open the doors of a new aesthetics, whose foundation is built upon
the increased independence of artistic research from the effort and
technical expertise required to deliver.
Regrettably, today the majority of those painting with digital tools
are just walking on the surface of the new aesthetics, adopting the
expression of old media and styles and exploiting just the better
time-to-market.
The challenge to find the emergent meaning is cast; but only few are
exploring the uncharted territories waiting under the surface. To
enter these territories we need to start one step back. Compared to the
glorious avant-guards of the past century, the choice is not as simple
as deciding to paint in little cubes or in colorful blotches.
The central question is: 'what new meaning the postdigital medium will convey?'
This is truly a new frontier. The closest lands, the ones starting from
our neighbourhood, that the trail of postdigital art may easily cross,
are these:
- Squeezing out of illustration as much fun as possible, whether it is art or not, and see the results – just for fun.
- Walk into the realm of augmented reality and go one step ahead of
photorealism, to explore meaning instead of showing off with technical
ability.
- Explore the possibilities of digital collage, or visual sampling.
- Free sequential visual art, the sequences of blended word and
images also known as comics, from the paperly nature of its medium.
But all the above can be probably condensated into a single point:
- “Art does not reproduce the visible, rather it makes visible”, along the path of Paul Klee.
And what medium can makes visible better than digital tools?
Where this journey will go, I do not know – yet.
One thing is for granted: the revolution will not be oil-painted.
Milan, 26 February 2008.
www.marcobresciani.com
This work
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