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#76
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
I'm sure the computer crowd finds all the pecking and clicking plenty fun, and plenty challenging. And I'm sure the screen is thrilling them just fine with the growing of their visions. People get "into" all kinds of things. But I'm certain that this "feels" nothing like making sculpture to the do-er. All the things that we love about interacting with matter, and occasionally "winning" a struggle with some stuff...and by the achieving of the absolute validation of our independence as a being, by finally relevencing an act (as opposed to merely "performing" an act)... those things will not be experienced by the computer designer.
Someone said "the history of the human race has been a quest to make life easier". I'll buy that. But the "easing away" of life is a travesty to the individual. Its a sad tale of masses of concsioussness not getting their due, not becoming anything more than a participant; a "culture". Now I'm damned glad I can swipe my card at Mcdonalds and get my order in 36 seconds as opposed to the mind-numbing 98 seconds that it used to take (see, life got easier), but dont push that logic into fine Art. All the worthwhile things have come from unusual efforts, assumed against the grain of human tendency. Purposely and puposefully difficult. Unbeknownst to most people, sculpture, as the few of us enlightened ones experience it, is the supreme application of an awareness. Other stuff is okay, and there will always be something new to toy with, but the sculptors are reaping - by the authenticity of their brand of labor - all the best that there is to get. It would seem that makes us here potentially very fortunate. Last edited by evaldart : 01-06-2009 at 11:26 AM. |
#77
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
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Gary |
#78
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
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![]() ![]() Ivan |
#79
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
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People get bored with just pushing buttons, so they invent other things that seem hard at first & then they invent more ways to make it easier. Some justify doing things in archaic ways because it is the fall-back manual hard thing to do. Other people invent new & creative mental problems for constructing their technology asissted art. They just go to the gym they can afford to expend their extra energy. They have a soy latte while they're there too. If digital sculpture doesn't have the same life as that done by manual means, it's probably on someone's to do list... just another problem to solve.
__________________
Taking my own advice |
#80
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
Right G, they'll come up with a "soul" program or a "manually minipulated" program or "click here to engage unexpected , yet desireable, flaws" program.
And, everything you might do at the gym is exactly the things you SHOULD be doing to make sculpture...besides, sculpture is way better than a personal trainer - the trainer is gonna try to make you eat VEGETABLES! ![]() |
#81
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
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![]() But, you know, that's what the "realists" always tell me, though. Never thought I'd find myself agreeing with them. Gary |
#82
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
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![]() Gary |
#83
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
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__________________
Taking my own advice |
#84
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
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This bring up an interesting point. What kind of freedom do you have as an artist if your given a series of choices by someone else...the programmer in this case. There is also the limitation of the hardware (keyboard, mouse, digital pad etc) . So over the long term, instead of computers freeing the artist it may have just the opposite effect. G |
#85
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
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#86
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
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__________________
I know you understand what you thought I said BUT what you heard IS NOT what I meant! |
#87
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
While I am a big believer in hand craftsmanship, and, I would guess, I own more hand tools and manually run power and machine tools than most anybody here, I dont buy the argument that somehow using a computer takes out the soul, or the human element.
If the computer did all the work, then every single computer assisted artwork would look pretty much the same. But they dont- a CNC tool has a whole LOT of personality of its own, and mastering that, and forcing it to do what YOU want it to do, is no easier or more predictable, than mastering a cutting torch or an air chisel. In each case, the artist has to make multiple decisions that affect the way the final piece comes out. Its the decisions that the brain makes, not the actual work of the hands, that makes EVERY piece of art. If all you had to do was pound on something, gorillas would be making better sculptures than they do now. Anyway, if you have ever actually used a CNC machine, you realize that Evald's prized "unexpected , yet desireable, flaws" are all to common. Any CNC machine has a personality, quirks, and yes, flaws, that must be massaged, worked around, and generally persuaded to work with you, rather than against you. They are tools, just like any other. I dont do a lot of button pushing in my work- today, for example, I was forging hot stainless on the power hammer, twisting it hot, needle scaling sheet, running a milling machine, drilling, and bending stuff with the hossfeld and the brake. But as soon as I can afford one, I will be buying a CNC milling machine, and I know it wont make things any easier- instead, it will give me whole volumes of new problems to work out. Nope, I wont be chiseling by hand- but if you think you just push one button, and the machine does all the rest- well, I have several bridges to sell you. I currently do some work on a CNC embroidery machine- and, again, it is a totally artistic process. I hand draw images- on paper, or on a computer, sometimes both. Then I redraw and realign every point on the curves and lines, point by point- no bitmap to vector program I ever saw actually works very well without artistic massaging. Then, I run the stuff on the sewing machine- and every fabric, type of thread, size and shape runs differently. Unintended flaws are my middle name. In mass production, maybe after the 10,000 part, you can get button pushing uniformity- but as an artist using CNC equipment, I can tell you that no two artists will get the same result with the same machine. Besides, my knees and elbows are giving out as I close in on 60, and I aint no gorilla.
__________________
Been There.
Got in Trouble for that. |
#88
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
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Give me some clay and the only limitations on what I can do with it will be dictated by my own imagination, my skills and how much clay I have to work with. Gary |
#89
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
One day the tech slaves' advances in robotic surgury will allow for the head of a human being to be sewn onto the body of a gorilla. There will then arrive levels of true sculpture like the world has never seen. If I'm around, they can try it out on me.
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#90
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
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#91
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
No, Glenn, not even close. It has been estimated that a Silverback male gorilla could be upwards of 8 times stronger than your average human male. I, on the other hand, am only two or three times stronger
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#92
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
Alas, unlike the superhuman Evald, I am more like Warren Zevon, in his song where the Gorilla steals the keys to his BMW, and leaves Warren in the zoo, while the Gorilla proceeds to live his life, sleep with his girlfriends, and generally live it up at Warren's expense.
http://warrenzevon.lyrics.info/goril...desperado.html As Warren says- "I wish the ape a lot of success". Here is a link to Warren singing it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2O91T6ZeW0
__________________
Been There.
Got in Trouble for that. |
#93
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
I went into digital sculpture after many years doing traditional.
At the time it felt like trying to work with boxes on your hands-because you wanted to grab the piece but couldnt. Then Zbrush came along-which allows a much more fluid approach. But--I would not consider it the same as sculpting. You cant use your hands, you only use one, you move it over a flat surface(either a mouse or wacom tablet). Digital sculpture is more of an illustrator friendly medium I think. It allows illustrators to sculpt without any of the hassles that traditional sculptors face(symmetry, smoothing etc). And they do it all with a pen(or mouse). Though they are developing newer haptic technology that will allow one to wear a glove that can "feel" the sculpture as you manipulate it. The most amazing thing I found about digital is that you can do symmetry without having to think about it. You have to deliberately add imperfections. 3D printing is interesting in that it promises to allow very complex forms without any thought to moldmaking issues--undercuts etc. One example would be, you could have a character with an open mouth and a full set of teeth inside--you could sculpt the inside of the mouth and the tongue and have that transferred to a real object. Or at least that's the test I would put it through. It has definitely changed the commercial sculpting world--I have heard about traditional sculptors doing toy sculpts who are being forced to learn digital because the industry is switching production methods. Its just easier for them to have the model made in computer. But its definitely not the same as traditional sculpting. You can do highly detailed and expressive work, but there is something a bit cold about it. I learned digital originally so I could try for modeling jobs, but after getting into it I decided it was more interesting as a whole process--modeling through animation). As a job, I think sitting in front of a computer screen doesn't seem right. I would much rather be standing over a sculpting table if I have to do it for a living. |
#94
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
KelEG, I had exactly the same experience with most of the software I've tried, only I described it as trying to sculpt with boxing gloves on.
![]() Also, the need for deliberate additions of imperfections is yet another reason why I've come to the point of preferring traditional sculpture tools and techniques, as opposed to virtual. That, plus the tactile sense that is missing from the experience when one goes digital. Gary |
#95
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
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to quote the philosopher Hakim Bey- they are "fortuitous mistranslations" He has a whole theory about Cultural Drift- that is, unintended results. He likes it, and thinks it produces most of the interesting innovations and creative developments in the social and physical world of human beings. Similarly, David Pye, who I think is a far superiour writer about aesthetics and their production than somebody like Clive Bell (although I liked ol' Clive in Children of Men) discusses this very point at length in his great book, The Nature and Art of Worksmanship. http://www.woodcentral.com/books/pye.shtml these basic principles apply to most anything that humans make by hand, regardless of whether or not you feel obliged to call them "art" or not. He advances the proposition that there is an inherent feel to the seemingly random textures, the unconscious hand/eye patterns, and those imperfections, which humans prefer to the machine made. I think some of this is similar to how an animal will find its mother in a huge herd, or flock of ten thousand penguins. We humans are mysteriously drawn to the work of other human hands, on an unconscious level, we sense the phermones or something. So while I can appreciate the cold and beautiful perfection of the machine made, and make plenty myself with machines, I am also totally seduced by those manmade patterns and "mistakes" that result from human beings using their brains, eyes, and hands, to create something.
__________________
Been There.
Got in Trouble for that. |
#96
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
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Gary |
#97
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
Ries wrote:
there is an inherent feel to the seemingly random textures, the unconscious hand/eye patterns, and those imperfections, which humans prefer to the machine made. Gary wrote: I couldn't agree more. As one of my professors once said, the more things become "high-tech," the more humans yearn for the "high-touch." To an extent, the machine age has alienated man from the products of his own labor. [While it's certainly easier to produce sculpture with a coldly geometric aesthetic feeling when you use digital technology, it's also perfectly possible to introduce subtle semi-random patterns and yes, even "imperfections". I think you're reacting to a stereotype image you've built up in your mind, instead of realizing the possibilities that digital technology opens up for sculpture that goes beyond the limitations of the common concept of "machine-age" art. There's no inherent contradiction I can see between "high tech" and "high touch"; it just takes some pushing of the envelope to merge the two.] Andrew Werby www.computersculpture.com |
#98
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
Not at all, Andrew. As you know, as a member of my Digital Abstract Sculpture Group on Flickr, I've been involved in using digital means to produce sculpture since 2003. Furthermore, my own use of it has been chiefly aimed at producing, not "cold geometric" forms, but rather, organic forms, like those I exhibited at Intersculpt 2005.
No, I'm not in any way condemning digital sculpture or saying that it is in any way invalid as an art form. I'm simply saying that, personally, I find the technology rather limiting, and perhaps that's more a function of my own skill level with the software I've used, but it still always lacked the tactile sensation I get from making something with my own two hands. It is that difference that I'm talking about here, and yes, it is only a difference. It doesn't mean that one medium is "better" than the other. Gary |
#99
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![]() When a computer is able to create 'Art' on its own that will be the true definition of 'digital art'. Until then it is an 'Artist' using a computer to create his/her definition of Art. It is a tool that makes it easier to envision your concept in 3D as you rotate the image on the screen. But, in my opinion, it takes away the 'surprises' that sometimes make a piece 'Art' and sometimes, trash.
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#100
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Re: Is digital sculpture....sculpture ?
I use digital to do animation models, but I do not like using it to make "art piece" statues.
It just seems weird to me. Tried starting a few but didnt like it. Plus I like to add and subtract and move things around instead of always working from a drawing, and its harder to do that in digital. Although I am noticing that cg sculpting has made me try to make my real clay work smoother, cleaner and more detailed (since you can zoom in on a digital sculpture). |
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