New media and the Arts
From Baruchnewmedia
Art plays a big role in our cultural community, and it is involved in all aspects of existing and up-and-coming technologies. Media in general is highly influencing everyone’s lives and new generations are being extremely exposed to this world of high-tech communication. Well, not only is new media being conducted in communication, machinery, medicine and other areas of our lives, but now it is also changing the way we look at art. An old school traditional, panel-colored technique is being rapidly introduced to the new world media. Art installations are set up with impressive usage of light and video projections. This is the new way museums are marketing themselves these days. New media is also guiding the world of art to where digital photography, animations, and 3D designs is taking art in a new light and how its high usage of technology is replacing brush strokes and even our way of interacting with art. This page is allowing you to discuss and contribute different aspects of art scene today, and share topics that either concern or excite you...enjoy!!! :)
Contents |
Networking
There are many ways to discuss and exchange ideas about art on the web and connect with people who have similar artistic interests. Facebook is filled with fan pages/groups dedicated to art in general or to an art institution or program. Myspace is another site that shows art in a different aspect from many concerned art to be.
deviantART
deviantART is perhaps the largest social networking site for artists. It allows artists to showcase their work, connect with others, and even sell their works through the site.
People tweet about art at increasing rate nowadays and sometimes they are encouraged by institutions to do so. For example: for their 50th anniversary, The Guggenheim organized tours of their Kandinsky exhibition and people from their staff twitted live about it.[1]
Artmesh.org
Artmesh.org is a social networking site dedicated to artists, art lovers, curators, and collectors. The site is accessible by invitation only and each member can invite up to 15 others to join. The sites enable its users to: - see through how many people you connect to anyone else on the website - post your works of art - write a biography - rate works of art - recommend connection for artistic collaboration - and much more
Artmesh logo: 
tumblr
tumblr has quickly become the center of all types of art and photography. tumblr has combined the functionality found in other art related social networking sites such as deviantART and flickr. Artist and photographers are given the functionality to easily create a blog that would showcase all of their work as well as link out of the blog into flickr or even their own site. One of the greatest advantages that artists take advantage of in tumblr is the speed at which their work can float around the internet as more and more users encounter and "reblog" it.
flickr
flickr is the most popular website to showcase your photography. New media has easily replaced photography galleries with flickr, although not as effective some may argue, the simplicity and ease to use the website easily makes up for the lack of live viewing. Flickr also hosts a various amount of photography ranging from amateur photos to professional photos of sports events to landscapes. Flickr has benefited from it hosting functionality by using new media to do so.
New Media inspired Art
There are several new movements in Art that are inspired by New Media. Some of the movements include ASCII art which is is a graphic design technique that uses computers in order to piece together 95 printable characters and make art out of it.
There is also Internet art, which is art that uses the Internet as its primary medium or platform.
Another form of art is Telematic art, which is descriptive of art projects using computer mediated telecommunications networks as their medium.
There are various techniques on the New Media Art page
Websites
Video
Access to videos about the art world became much easier since the emergence of new websites for video sharing. Videos are available for a wide rage of interests in the arts on many different platforms. Users are enabled to share, comment and produce video content about art using the following Web 2.0 platforms.
Showcases
ArtBabble [ahrt-bab-uhl]noun; verb (used without object) -bled, -bling: 1. free flowing conversation, about art, for anyone. 2. a place where everyone is invited to join an open, ongoing discussion - no art degree required.
This emerging video sharing website is specialized in showcases and videos about art and artists from many different sources. The website is open to new partnerships and encourage any art website or institution to post their videos or create a channel. Videos are searchable by series, channels (specific fields of interest like abstract expressionism), artists (from a to z) and partners(institutions and fellow websites).
The website went to live on April 2009. It was conceived and created by professionals from different departments of the Indianapolis Museum of Art with the support of a Ball Brothers Foundation grant.
.
Channels
Vimeo and Youtube have channels dedicated to the various aspects of visual arts.Those channels provide content about art techniques, trends in visual arts, openings at galleries and museums, interviews with artists, and much more.
Daily Dose
If you want to keep in touch with the art world on an up-to the minute basis, there are many online services that offer different kinds of subscriptions. Technologies like RSS readers and portable devices enable the user to get information (image, video, audio and text)from different sources in the same place. Moreover, many hard paper magazines offer their content online along with other features specific to Web 2.0. In addition, there are the less dogmatic blogs; where people express their personal voice about art, artists and the art market.
Paper Magazines
The leading art magazines are fully or partially available online and offer different features on their website (newsletter, RSS, sharing, bookmarking, facebook connectivity, blogging etc...). Art professionals can access/store/share the latest news of the art world.
- ARTFORUM
- Art in America
- Flash Art
- Juxtapoz
- The New York Times Art & Design
- The Art Newspaper
- Art News
Online Magazines
Online magazines are not available anywhere else than on the net. Consequently, they are more focused on last-minute events, trends and less mainstream content. Usually, those websites are using much more the Web 2.0 technologies (they all provide RSS, photo albums, facebook, twitter).
Scene 360 is an magazine about trends in arts and film.
Flavorpill is magazine about cultural and artistic events. Their newsletter features all the exhibitions and artistic events in NYC (other cities are also covered).
Blogs
To be informed with past, current and upcoming events, and to read other people's thoughts and visions you can visit many of the blog spots that are available online.
Artists
Many contemporary artists have turned towards the media revolution as a source of inspiration. Some of them criticize the limits of new media and its potential dangers for our society. Others, have used new media technologies to support their vision or their concept, sometimes conveying ideas that have nothing to do with technology. Either embraced or refused, it is clear that New Media has found its place in the artistic production these past 10 years.
Online Museums
Online museums are starting to fill the gap between their old media way of functioning to a new media way of connecting with the public. Many of the art museums of the globe have started to use Web 2.0 technologies to make museums a more personal experience.
Interactive websites
Public relations department and educational departments at museums strive to use new media in order to bring more people to the museum website. The final purpose being to bring more people to the physical museum, to enhance research and education in the visual arts and finally to raise more awareness about the institution.
The Museum of Modern Art launched its interactive website in March 2009. The site enables users to browse the collection and make their own collection from the pieces that MoMA owns. Many other features where added (e.g. the research resources, the multimedia channel and an online community page where users can connect with MoMA through diverse new media sites .
Podcasts and audio tours
Museums offer podcasts (of lectures, interviews, commentary from the staff etc...) and audio tours on their website.
Education
Resources and Master programs in New Media and Visual Arts.
Copyright
Celebrity
New media gave artists new ways to reach celebrity. What is famous online is not necessarily so famous in the real world. Artistic projects using video, still images or interactive software can reach a wider public online.
Noah K.
Noah Kalina was an anonymous photographer before he posted his video on youtube. His project consists in taking a picture of himself everyday since 2000. He is continuing his project as of today and his website is weekly updated.
Glitch Art
Glitch Art is abstract art inspired by computer crashes and digital data by British artist Ant Scott - there are some interesting images on the site that compare glitches to electron scans, great stuff... [via] - Link. Exploiting electronics glitches has been very current in the musical world. It even became a "genre" that was experimented with by artists such as Achim Szepanski, Oval, Pan Sonic or Pole, in the 90's
Sound Art
Sound art is a loosely associated group of media art practices that concern sound and listening as their focus. Some are rooted in early 20th century classical music (see musical modernism) while others are derived from non-musical origins (architecture, sculpture, installation, etc.). From the Western art historical tradition early examples include the Luigi Russolo's Intonarumori or noise machines, and subsequent experiments by Dadaists, Surrealists, the Situationist International, and in Fluxus happenings. Because of the diversity of sound art, there is often debate about whether sound art falls inside and/or outside of both the visual art and experimental music media.
Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art is often very interdisciplinary, commonly engaging psychoacoustics, audio technologies (both analog and digital), found or environmental sound, exploration of the human body, and extended techniques of musical instruments in conjunction with the standard set of visual issues found in contemporary art.
Sound art organizations and festivals
Animation
Animation involves bringing artwork and characters to life with such precision that they truly seem real. Computer animation (or CGI animation) is the art of creating moving images with the use of computers. It is a sub-field of computer graphics and animation. Increasingly it is created by means of 3D computer graphics, though 2D computer graphics are still widely used for stylistic, low bandwidth, and faster real-time rendering needs. Sometimes the target of the animation is the computer itself, but sometimes the target is another medium, such as film. It is also referred to as CGI (computer-generated imagery or computer-generated imaging), especially when used in films.
Digital Art
According to wikipedia, digital art is an " umbrella term for a range of artistic works and practices that utilize digital technology." Digital art was launched in the 1970s because of widespread availability of computers, appropriate software, video equipment, sound mixers, and digital cameras toward the end of the 20th century. Digital art can combine and transform such elements as painting, filmmaking, photography, sculpture, animation, and sound.
Digital Artists
The Science Behind Art
The relationship between art and cognition has grown to be an enthusiastic topic amongst psychologists, philosophers and critics. As theorized by most scholars, art, although bearing multiple definitions, is produced as a prototype of our conscious mind. There is a connection between the arts and our perception as it is influenced largely by our imagination, memory, emotion, thoughts, logic and neurological processes. We tend to create art as means to conceptualize our ideas about reality; meaning art is a unique method of grasping our consciousness directly and conceptualizing our perceptions. so the question remains: how is art a derivative of our minds?
The link above covers a concise introduction to understanding the relationship between Science and Art, ranging from psychological, evolutionary, and logical explanations to theories of art and the mind. To understand how art changes, it is first important to understand what enables the change. Only then, can we understand how art is a derivative of our minds, and even more interestingly, a portrayal of our advancements over time due to environmental, social, political and technological changes.
When we look at art, we are not just viewing colors, lines, and shapes. Rather, we are experiencing the creative flow that streams through the minds of the artists, and are becoming engaged in their cognition. In other words, an artist's work is a portrayal of his/her cognitive state/perceptual reality. Interestingly, over time, art has changed and evolved, representing the evolution of the mind as it adapts to current environments to increase efficiency. This is where new media has become a useful resource in which artists evolved and found it more efficient to use more technology for instance.
To show a visual of art over time and new media's effects on works, three artists, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Roberto Blake, can be viewed side by side in order to show how the mind expresses its consciousnes differently as new modes of efficiency emerge:
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
From Left to Right: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) Three Musicians (1921)
Pablo Picasso was a famous painter and sculpter from the Modernist Era. The Modernist era introduced a new form of art, most commonly known as Abstract Art. Modernism attempted to express the movement away from traditions and rejected any activities that were thought to be outdated, ranging from political, social and economical standpoints, as well as the arts in the name of innovation. The use of abstractions, vivid colors and bold statements were a projection of how people viewed their society and art as a media form, became the new median to express the views of society. It is important to note that Modernism was more of a rebellious movement that thought itself certain, and confident, as it posted a Critique on Enlightenment thinking, and objective truth.
After the Modernist era, Post Modernism kicked in as a Critique on Modernism.
Andy Warhol 1928-1957
From Left to Right: Campbell Soup (1964) Marilyn (1962)
Not only was Post Modernism different from Modernism in ideology, being that post modernists cared more for objective truths, empirical realities and even more so, pop culture, Post modernism differed also in how art was itself created. With new and improved modes of art, many artists such as Andy Warhol, were fascinated by mass production and advertising. it is the art of capitalism so to speak, portraying the culture's reliance on heavy marketing. Interestingly enough, we see that Post Modernism was unlike any other art movement because it made a parody of mass production as it exploited the generic, and deferred individualism. Here, we see the repetition of Campbell soup cans as a portrayal of mass production and generic products, illustrating the culture's current state. Also, because in the 1950s and on, much of American culture was influenced by media, and popular culture, the portrayal of Marilyn Monroe emphasizes Media's influence on people.
Roberto Blake Present day
From left to Right: Devine Rhythm & G.O.D is a Girl
Roberto Blake is one of the many digital artists who represent where art is at today. Technology and software have given a new rise to art, continueing the path of Post Modernism as it prevails in advertising, but also improving the quality, and visual imaging with technological tools. Today, most art is computerized and manipulated via high tech usage. Media has become the most influential way to reach audiences and the visual content in which the audience perceives, makes most of the impact we want to have on the audience. Therefore, today art is not about rejection of tradition, or an expression to the search of objective truth, but rather it is a derivative of our current state. It is a portrayal of our desire to maintain capitalism, and most importantly, to continue excelling. Both the works "Devine Rhythm" and "G.O.D is a Girl" are fantastic works using technological softwares, and creative skills.
Whether looking at Modernism, Post Modernism or Digitalization, art has always been a response to our cognitive states and have been influenced by our environment, political/religious beliefs, and social postions. Each era marked the common perspective of society, and the way society evolved is easily identified by comparing one artistic era to the next.
Articles
Photography is the best kind of art
Software
Art is being shaped by new media now more than ever through the use of various editing software. Software that can completely change a photo or video. Although new media has increased efficiency in editing and also opened new possibilities to touching up art, it is also important to consider that too much if it can take away from the purity and originality of art.
Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop is a software used by professionals to beginner photography editors. Its capabilities of manipulating and revamping any photograph to exactly how the owners wants it, makes it one of the most powerful tools used by artists.
Adobe Illustrator
Illustrator is a software used by professionals to create many different kinds of graphics ranging from business cards to billboards. Mainly used graphics by graphic designers, it can also be used by artists who prefer paint as it is essentially digital art at its best.
