“If a line between art and craft does exist, the poet himself shouldn’t draw it; he should focus only on making the poem happen.”
James Merrill
Hand versus Machine
I first got my hands on a Quantel Henry paintbox in 1991. Its introductory price of $250.000.00 meant that this novel computer input device was used primarily by large TV and media production companies. Before then, artists had to overcome the mouse-keyboard barrier in order to use a computer as a tool of representation. Thousands of years of hand-brain skills had to be reevaluated. Instead, the tablet allowed for a natural progression from paper to screen thus relegating the mouse to a temporary stop gap tool that had now run its course. Pen in hand and freed of the limitations of the mouse, the digitizing tablet would become my instrument of choice. The music analogy is appropriate since digitizing tablets require the user to develop a synergistic yet autonomous eye-brain-hand coordination: drawing directly on a surface that remained blank all the while looking at a separate screen.
For reasons that elude me, the now affordable tablet never caught on with the population at large. It is possible that the clunky mouse has permanently imparted on the public a perception of the computer as an unwieldy piece of machinery best used for repetitive and monotonous tasks. Hardly the sensuous equal of a calligrapher’s brush. The French artisanal and the German handwerk suggest craft cannot be disassociated from the craftsman’s labor, skills, and tools. The democratization of a tool at its most basic level often results in ignorance if not contempt of what mastery of that same tool entails. Photography is another prime example of the belief that what differentiates the layman from the professional is the equipment used. It is an occupation that cannot be separated from the tool. Some artists will go to great lengths to minimize the importance of the camera to the point of severing the tool-hand-brain-eye link by reverting to more hands-on techniques of capture and representation. Black and white collodion process, explosive and dripping with toxic silver nitrate anybody?
Repetition
Through repetition, a person develops skills. As he or she improves so does the content. If practice is only learned as a means to a fixed end it becomes a closed system and progress stops. Reevaluation of one’s progress and goals must be reassessed at each cycle in order to evolve. Most people relegate the repetitive capabilities of computers to the static sort. This deprives people of the notion that repetitiveness can be of the evolving kind. Perversely, an over enthusiastic view of the “machine” as an intelligent device will downgrade the stature of the operator to the level of clever manipulator. Artists have always had to contend with the perceived dichotomy of ideas versus skills.
Was This Photoshopped?!
Who’s asking? The question is loaded when it comes to photography insofar as suggesting deceit if not plain fraud. It borders on heresy when evaluating images that on their face depict factual events or subjects. Because photography blurs the imaginary line between art and craft; part machine, part human; the photographic process will always be suspect. It is implied that photographers who resort to software will further make their own bed. But physical art; the media-based kind; shouldn’t be negatively judged by the tools used in its making. Could it be a matter of degree of how much idea versus technique? In which case one has to assume that the creative endeavour is a zero sum game with purists at one end of the spectrum and technicians at the other. The idea for a painting; no technique required; isn’t a painting. Ironically, if one’s criterion for what constitutes art is its lack of reliance on technology one could argue that we are talking about traditional artisanal craft after all.
Where’s The Art?
You may ask. Mastery of post production and consciousness of it will influence the composition before the initial release of the shutter. A feedback loop takes shape, the post influencing the pre and so on. Stored memories are retrieved. Their retrieval will in turn influence the retriever who will impart that change on the next one, ad infinitum. Very quickly, the act of editing; “the craft”; will modify an artist’s understanding and memory of the subject. Art is bias and processes are biased. Reality is a fluid concept when in the hands of a capable craftsman.