Travel Rogue

October 06, 2005

Dedicated Art System

So I've been reading about this new trend toward interactive, electronic art. In its most accessible form, it's probably this $125 DVD you pop into a player and display on a flat-screen plasma TV. Click your remote and the piece morphs in response.

I don't get how this is any different than a stupified video game with no objective. You pop in a cartridge, something appears on the monitor, you click around and the environment responds to your actions. It would seem to me that if we are to consider the DVD as "art," then video games should also be considered art. Which is somewhat preposterous. Entertainment, yes. Art, not so much.

The question I have is how much of this "art" is defined by marketing spin? I could take that same DVD, sell it in a baby goods store, and call it a developmental toy. I could synchronize it to music and call it eye candy. I could leave it be and call it a screensaver. But calling it "art" seems a bit of a stretch to me.

A bit pulled from the NYT:
"Between the Rees pieces is a large framed print, "Black and White (Old Testament)" by Mark Napier, that looks like an abstract ink drawing suggestive of wildly uncoiled spools of wire, but is actually, Mr. Sacks said, every word of the Bible converted into the digital language of ones and zeros."

Since when did translating something into binary code become "art"? If this is the case, then I should dig up all my sixth grade homework and sell it on eBay.

What happened to brushstrokes, light sources and one-of-a-kind masterpieces? Is art getting distorted or destroyed?

Disclaimer: Of course, this is just opinion. I am well aware that art is in the eye of the beholder.

Posted by carolyn at October 6, 2005 10:00 AM

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Posted by: Dave at October 7, 2005 08:50 AM

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