Technology is something that is becoming more and more advanced as we go through the years. Many artists use technology to produce art in a new kind of way that can be visually tricky. Maria Fernandez states in "Life-Like" that, "In the contemporary context, process-oriented art is facilitated by computer technology. The computer enables instantaneous communication, the creation and proliferation of images, creatures and enviroments, and permits the acceleration of processes such as development, reproduction, and death of synthetic life forms" (Fernandez, 558). Digital art can be many different things from algorithmic art, video art, or music, and "contrary to the widespread assumption that the history of digital art is short and simple because it is relatively recent, the history of digital art is vast and multidisciplinary" (Fernandez, 559). Digital media has a way of tricking the viewer into believing that what he or she is seeing is actual reality. Jeff Wall is a photographer who uses the technique of photo manipulation to force the viewer to rethink what reality means.
Jeff Wall's "photographs are complicated productions involving cast, sets, crews and digital postproduction" (Wikipedia). In his photo manipulation, the artist photographs a subject, inputs the information into a computer, and then manipulates the picture to produce a favorable outcome. Jeff Wall sets up fake scenes and photographs them in sections. After that, he takes each section and fuses them together digitally, creating a larger believable picture. In doing so, he also made the viewer question his or her views of what reality is. We assume that a photograph is depicting reality, and when we realize that hat we see is not reality, we are shocked. Digital art forces the viewer to rethink reality, and Jeff Wall is successful in doing that with his digitally manipulated photographs.
Bibliography:
Fernandez, Maria. '"Life-Like': Historicizing Process and Responsiveness in Digital Art"'. eLearning. p. 558-559.
Wikipedia. "Jeff Wall". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Wall. retrieved April 20, 2010.
Jeff Wall's "photographs are complicated productions involving cast, sets, crews and digital postproduction" (Wikipedia). In his photo manipulation, the artist photographs a subject, inputs the information into a computer, and then manipulates the picture to produce a favorable outcome. Jeff Wall sets up fake scenes and photographs them in sections. After that, he takes each section and fuses them together digitally, creating a larger believable picture. In doing so, he also made the viewer question his or her views of what reality is. We assume that a photograph is depicting reality, and when we realize that hat we see is not reality, we are shocked. Digital art forces the viewer to rethink reality, and Jeff Wall is successful in doing that with his digitally manipulated photographs.
Bibliography:
Fernandez, Maria. '"Life-Like': Historicizing Process and Responsiveness in Digital Art"'. eLearning. p. 558-559.
Wikipedia. "Jeff Wall". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Wall. retrieved April 20, 2010.
I think this blog is very interesting because I am familiar with Jeff Wall's work. Digital art is tricky because we are more susceptible to believe what we see in front of us because it looks so "real." This notion makes me wonder what people thought one hundred years ago when trompe l'oeil was tricking the human eye. i can only imagine how digital art will have changed in just 50 years from now. Will we be able to separate digital from reality?
ReplyDeleteAn interesting thing about Jeff Wall's work is that so much of it depicts very mundane, uncomplicated events. Because the scenes appear so simple at first glance, the viewer does not at first suspect they involve or require computer manipulation in order to make a "larger believable picture." In this way, it is very much like trompe l'oeil paintings because it depicts something that a viewer probably would not look at very carefully if the actual object were sitting there. With that in mind, the viewer can start to doubt other seemingly normal pictures they have encountered.
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