Art and Technology [Part Five]
Mosaics to Pixels: Picking Up the Pieces

by Kristin Redpath

Since this is the last installment of the opus, it's time to tie up the loose ends - make some observations, some generalizations (and maybe some prognostications) - and try to find a common ground upon which we can relate to technology and art as they have influenced each other over the centuries.

The Slow Revolution

How can we understand today's technological art when we do not yet fully understand the multiple technologies behind it and the enormity of the artistic movements they are helping to achieve?It is far easier to look back on movements and trends and see the whole than it is to define revolutions while we are living them. I doubt the Founding Fathers, while certainly recognizing the importance of their task, thought more about what history would say of them than they did about the heat in Philadelphia that summer of 1776.

We are sitting smack-dab in the middle of a huge revolution in the arts that began early in the Nineteenth Century and won't end - if it ends at all - until long after we are all memories.

In September 1990, I was on a faculty panel, asked to predict what would happen to technology in the 1990's. Not long ago, as I was cleaning out years of accumulated paper, I found the notes I had used. This is part of what I said:

--Increased automation of the home through the use of computerized heating, lighting, security, etc. systems.

--A decrease in paper mail and an increase in electronic communications, both within organizations and among the public as more and more people get equipment into their homes and offices....

--Less personal contact in service industries such as banking, retail, insurance, and medical care, and more reliance on computer systems to provide at least the most common, everyday services from the home.

--Walk-in computer centers - for a fee, use a personal computer to order from catalogs, order groceries for later pickup, use expensive  software packages.... [They] might be located at a computer center in a shopping mall.

--More work-at-home situations (telecommuting) through the connection of the home to the office via computer.

--The disappearance of all but a few computer hardware vendors, making choices about what computer systems to buy much easier.  All systems will be compatible with one another.

--In progressive school systems, children will begin to go to school with their laptop computers rather than their books and pencils.

--A decrease in paper required for ordinary living - we will submit our tax returns, make bank transactions, renew our driver's licenses, file for insurance benefits, collect our wages, pay our bills, read books and magazines, receive and send mail...electronically. Almost all these things are available now, but people will begin to do them as a matter of course from their home.

--Potentially catastrophic consequences created by a lack of education about social and ethical concerns [relating to computers]...will increase incidents of computer terrorism, such as viruses (or worse).

--We will use the computer in smaller, cheaper, faster forms in the same way we use our checkbooks, pocket calculators, calendars, books, pencils, etc. now - as a common tool for everyday living. I do not believe the next decade will see astounding new discoveries such as the invention of the television or the computer, but it will see the integration of the computer into our lives even more thoroughly than the television is now, since it will serve us in more ways."

You get the drift. How did I do? Now, there was nothing particularly magical about predicting those events; all I had to do was think about them a little. But what surprised me most that day was the opposition displayed by the students, particularly about working at home. How would we communicate socially if we didn't go to work? My answer was that we would find other ways of socializing, since social interaction is a basic human need.

Confession

At this point, because I am going to use so many examples taken from the genre, I think I ought to confess: I am a Sci Fi junkie, er...aficionado. It began when I was only a child. I blame my parents. They gave me an Oz book. After that, I couldn't get enough. I needed more and more Oz books. Eventually, I graduated to the hard stuff. In my teens it was Heinlein, Asimov, Clark; now it's Robinson, Le Guin, Tepper; the late, greatly lamented Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Star Trek (thank you, Gene Roddenberry, wherever you are!). I warn you, it's an insatiable craving, for those products of other people's imaginations. Now that I've got that off my chest, I'll try getting to the point.

Small Steps

The late Carl Sagan (another great mind gone from us), in his novel, Contact offers the message, "small steps." This isn't a new idea. You know the adages: the longest journey begins with a single step; mighty oaks from little acorns grow, etc. But, we humans are so small, in terms of the size of the planet, the solar system, the galaxy, the universe, that we must, of necessity, approach our understanding of them in small steps. I have found that art and technology both progress not only in small steps, but also in small physical pieces. Mosaic, for example, is an art form found in abundance from early recorded history. If we look at a mosaic floor, from inches away, we might marvel at the skill of the artisan; if we look from a distance, we marvel instead at the artistic genius that made a cognitive and beautiful whole from tiny pieces of glass or stone. In his Art and Physics, Leonard Shlain put it this way:

"The result of the destruction of Greco-Roman art and thought led to the long night of the Dark Ages. Antirational mists enshrouded these early centuries of the medieval period so that the artists emerging in the middle- and late-medieval period had no traditions on which to base their work. They were forced to invent new forms. Their new start would contain an accurate reflection of the larger culture's thinking about space, time, and light."

This "new" form was the mosaic, "a perfect metaphor" for fragmented western European society. However, it is doubtful that anyone working with mosaics at that time saw them as a metaphor for contemporary culture. We can look back now and see that theory as a logical one, but they were too close. They were living the times, not analyzing them. To illustrate, here is a piece of a glass mosaic...something.

Images courtesy of the author.

For the whole work of art to be understandable, it must be viewed as a whole. To see a master painting as it was meant to be viewed, as a whole, we step back; to see the technique of the master painter, we move closer to observe the brush strokes. Likewise, to make ourselves understandable to one another, and to see the artistic and technological revolution in which we are immersed, we must step back and view ourselves from a distance.

Only then can we recognize the one thing we have in common: We are all born into the same universe. True, we will all live and die, but under such diverse circumstances that they are not common enough experiences. We all have the same basic needs - food, shelter, protection, love, but these, too, come in so many forms they cannot be considered common to everyone on earth.

After we are born, environmental, genetic, and cultural influences lead us to express ourselves as who we are and how we perceive our lives in this universe. From pure theoretical science to absolute creative art and all in between, we make our choices of self-expression based on that one common circumstance. It is only in this way that we are comprehensible to one another. We all (assuming our senses are not impaired) see, feel, hear, smell, taste. A stick figure drawing of a human is comprehensible to an Inuit and a Masai, a Laplander and a Maori. We all see the stars and we all ponder the night sky and the wonders there - from the early celestial observations that gave us the awesome majesty of Stonehenge to the magnificence opened to us through the Hubble telescope.

Age of Electronic Art

But where are we now, in the midst of this revolution that began over one hundred years ago? We can mark the beginning of the age of electronic art at the height of the industrial revolution in the Nineteenth Century. Art became less the privilege of the rich and more a part of everyday life through the Arts and Crafts Movement in England, followed by the Art Nouveau and Jugendstil design movements in Europe. Artists like William Morris, Henry van de Velde, and Hermann Muthesius each took a leadership role when opposing, as Morris did as early as 1861, the contemporary definition of art as non-functional.

In his book Art of the Electronic Age, Frank Popper explains how Henry van de Velde, deeply influenced by Morris, searched throughout his career for "a harmonious solution to the problems posed by the machine-artisan-art triad." This controversy continues today in science-technology-crafts-art combat.

While Morris insisted that the utilitarian products of his studio be unique, man-made, and of fine natural materials, Hermann Muthesius favored the use of newly developed industrial products, such as plastics. Muthesius was a practicing artist and theoretician who, along with the German art historian Alfred Lichtwork, advocated art theories such as Objectivity, Utilitarian Art, and the Machine Style. These theorists mixed the fine and applied arts, by encouraging the development of a style that applied the aesthetics of art to utilitarian objects. Works influenced by the Art Nouveau movement and its counterparts became both aesthetic and functional. Ultimately the work of these three artists and their followers led to the establishment of the Weimar School of Arts, which became, in 1919, the Bauhaus. The Bauhaus and its offshoot, the Chicago Institute of Technology, founded by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (see Part Four) in 1937, brought the art of the machine age into contemporary life.

Three Art Nouveau treatments of sunflowers, from elaborate to simple:
(1) reproduced from an original edition of Vorbilder fur Kunstverlagsungen
im Style der Neuzeit, in Masterpieces of Art Nouveau Stained Glass Design,
New York, 1989, plate 18; (2) and (3) Art Nouveau Floral Patterns and
Stencil Designs, Dover Publications, New York, 1998, plate 89 and plate 151

Integration

A thread weaving itself throughout the Twentieth Century has been the integration of art and technology. In Art of the Electronic Age, Popper quotes Marcel Duchamp: "... we must bear in mind that, when we consider the movement of form in space over a certain time, we are entering the realm of geometry and mathematics in the same way as when we construct a machine."

Other Twentieth Century movements - Futurism and Dadaism, in particular - influenced the birth of electronic art. Futurism, along with its portrayal of speed, movement, and dynamics, attempted to find abstract equivalents for all the forms and elements of the universe - much as the Greeks sought ideal, archetypal forms (see Part Two) - and endorsed the blending of art and science. Dadaism concentrated on parody of the machine (somewhat before the manner of Theater of the Absurd of the mid-Twentieth Century).

Duchamp's series Nude Descending a Staircase is one of the most frequently cited examples of machine art. Duchamp himself said of these paintings that they were not paintings at all but organizations of kinetic elements. Certainly, he conveyed to the viewer the feelings of speed, space, and time.

Kinetic and Lumino-Kinetic art (use of light and motion), which is so prevalent today in art using technology, can be traced back to between 1913 and 1920. The first mobiles - mechanical art in which movement plays a part - emerged at about that time, introduced by Rodchenko, Tatlin, and Man Ray (see Part Four) and by artists from the Bauhaus.

I could go on with examples of the integration of technology into art. Suffice it to say that artists today are using media undreamed of even fifty years ago: lasers, computers, copiers, printers, video, digital imaging. Today, the man-made and natural worlds converge so much that a casual observer may not be able to distinguish the difference. Leaf through a magazine. Which advertisements are "real" images and which have been enhanced by technology in some way?

In an article in Art Journal (Computers and Art: Issues of Content, New York, 1990) dedicated to the subject of art and the computer, a case is made for the importance of photography as the basis of computer art (see Part Four). It draws parallels between the reproductive capability of photography and the reproductive qualities of computer art. In the same issue, Terry Gips writes "the ...dissolution of rigid distinctions between art and non-art ...had dumped computers right on the artists' doorsteps."

From spectator participation in the 50's to interactivity with computers today, the viewer has become more and more an active participant in the work of art and less and less a passive viewer. We have laser art, holographic art, video art, communication art, digital photography, digital collage, and on and on. There are wonderful websites, CDs, videos and books devoted to technological art - too many to list - containing eloquent descriptions and carefully researched historical documentation.

The last artist I discussed in Part Four, M.C. Escher, should be heralded again in this final installment. Escher's work in the first three-quarters of the Twentieth Century (he died in 1972) is a primary example of the point I want most to make here. He worked in "small steps." His method of reproducing his work through woodcut, wood etching, lithograph, etc. - using the available technology of his time - required him to use small, repetitive lines and figures, much like the principle behind the use of mosaics. But what most appeals to me about Escher's work is his imagination. A science fiction writer could use Escher's pictures as inspiration for a life's work of novels and stories. I would so much like to see what Escher would have done with a computer. Do look at his work on the websites listed below (and in Part Four Resources) or in books readily available at libraries. Immerse yourself in them. Be amazed.

Machinery

Over nearly twenty years of working with computers, I have picked up one or two bits of information along the way.There is one thing of which I m absolutely sure: Computers are machines. A computer is no more capable of producing art without human intervention than is a vacuum cleaner.

[See About Computers at the end of this article for basic information about computers and their component parts.]

Three Spheres, from left:
(1) drawn by hand and then scanned;
(2) drawn with a computer drawing's circle tool and commands for
radial shading and light source;
(3) drawn "by hand" on computer
using a painting program and a mouse (the most difficult method of the three).

To be called "art" there must be human imagination and intervention. NOTHING RANDOMLY GENERATED BY A COMPUTER PROGRAM CAN BE CALLED ART! Yes, I am yelling. Art is an expression of humanity, and computers are not human; they do not work like the human brain works, and they cannot generate original art or anything else original for that matter. Admittedly, wholly computer-generated images can be pleasing or disturbing, induce emotions or memories, even, by chance, follow the rules of perspective, shade, light, and so on. But computers are not artists. Artists using computers can make art; computers alone cannot. Computer generated images are based on algorithms (mathematical formulas) programmed by a human to create images, some predetermined, some random.

Without a human being to turn it on and make it go, a computer is only an expensive doorstop. We don't have to be afraid of them; they're not going to take over the world. They do what we tell them to do (not necessarily what we want them to do). Here's an analogy: You are driving your car and wish to make a left turn. You click on the left turn signal and turn the steering wheel to the right. Which way will the car go? Correct. It is the person turning the steering wheel who controls the car, not the turn signal. If you want the computer to be a useful tool, you have to follow the rules.

Take the Y2K bug - please. When I learned to program a computer in the early 80's, I didn't think about 2000 either. I thought about saving space. I did what everyone else did; I used a two-character date field. I don't know the first person upon whom the Y2K problem dawned. But, when the panic began, I wasn't overly concerned. I believe in the creativity and indomitability of the human race. One of my favorite poems, Locksley Hall, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (read it, it's prophetic), contains the following line: "...the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe." It certainly did on New Year's eve. And it was the humans, not the computers, who kept catastrophe at bay.

Tools

So, now that we've established what computers aren't and can't be, let us see what makes them valuable tools for the artist. Let's also establish that I'm talking about ordinary, state-of-the-art systems available to us common folks, not obsolete systems, nor high-end graphics workstations, the likes of which were used for Jurassic Park or Star Wars.

First, they can display almost 17 million colors, including tints and shades of all the colors of the visible spectrum as well as many, many shades of gray. This is, supposedly, just about the maximum number of colors the unaided human eye can perceive. (Try mixing 17 million paint colors.)

Second, they can produce multiple iterations of the same image or, along the same lines, repeated stepwise images (images with only slight alteration in each reproduction according to a predetermined mathematical formula); and they can keep doing that longer than any of us can stay awake. Though the iterations would be finite and, at some point, would begin to repeat or would end, depending on the program, there would be enough of them to give the artist more choice than he or she might want. So an artist can use a computer as a sketchpad, eliminating hours of tedious repetition to find just the "right" composition, color, and so forth. Think how a textile or wallpaper designer or landscape architect might find this feature the answer to prayers. To the artist who works in oil paint, charcoal, pastel, watercolor, silk screen, or other so-called conventional media, it offers the opportunity to try a composition in many variations before one or more is chosen for the final work.

Third, computers can draw and paint to pinpoint accuracy. Think of the boon this feature is to the architect, interior designer, civil engineer, and the others who have to get it right, all the time, every time (and to those of us who want to get it right the first time).

A computer can open to the artist the concept of virtual space, producing images that could never be reproduced in reality and only by hand on a flat surface with great concentration and difficulty. But it's not all that easy for the computer, either. Anyone who thinks becoming a computer graphic artist is easier than becoming a paint artist is mistaken. For instance, here is a quotation from the back cover of a computer graphics textbook describing the process of creating the cover design of the book. The image, called Raytracer's Recess, is of really cute, little, round chess pieces in clever poses, including swimming in a little pool on a chessboard - obviously taking a break from the arduous work of being a chess piece. While copyright issues do not permit the reproduction of the actual image, you can get the idea.

This image was rendered using Rayshade, a freeware ray tracer written by Craig E. Kolb. Rayshade was adapted for the MacIntosh and compiled using Think C. A separate program, Guygen, was created to translate lists of arm- and leg-joint angles into Rayshade compatible input files to define the little characters in the scene. The final image was transformed to a 35mm slide using an Autographix film recorder.

Including eye, reflected, and shadow rays, 67 million rays were traced to render the 1800 x 900 pixel image, taking 213 hours.... Antialiasing was provided by subdividing each pixel into a 4x4 grid of sub-pixels, and soft-edged shadows were obtained by tracing multiple shadow rays to an area light source. Wood, marble, and other surface textures were rendered using the 3-D solid procedural textures available in Rayshade.

Got that? Now you, too, can do this. (Don't feel too badly - neither can I.) Although there is a very steep learning curve to becoming a computer artist, the path to using the computer as a tool in the creation of art is a relatively short one.

Tools in Use

In previous installments, I've mentioned more than once the creative freedom the computer can give a student who does not believe he or she can create anything. I am pleased to be able to show some of that work. These are neither the best nor the worst, but they are representative. Most reflect the results of an assignment that required the use of basic shapes, called primitives, to create a design. Some students chose the abstract style; others "drew" pictures that could be considered cartooning. A few are original works by students or former students. It should also be understood that the class that generated the primitive designs is not an art class. It is a computer class, focused on using the computer to create images. Considerable technical material is included, after which the students use the computer to demonstrate the technical principles through an assignment. Students are not judged on how "good" their artwork is, but on whether or not they fulfilled the assignment.

Student portfolio:

(All images courtesy their makers and the author.)

We are seeing more and more the convergence of science and art. Nobel Prize winner Dr. Roger Guilliman has given up his medical research and turned to using the computer to create art. Another Nobel Prize winner, Richard Feynman, in his autobiographical Adventures of a Curious Character, includes a chapter entitled "But Is It Art?" that describes his attempts to learn to draw - in small steps. Dr. Leonard Shlain says of Leonardo da Vinci that he is the only known person who could be eligible for the Nobel Prize in both science and the arts. Maybe, had world views been different over the centuries, there would be more people like Leonardo. Maybe, someday, someone will be nominated and, perhaps, win the Nobel Prize from both sides of the creative fence.

Prognostication

In 1985, with a small group of faculty, I was privileged to visit and tour the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I recall most vividly the research being done to duplicate the precise movements of the human hand. The object of the research was, if I recall correctly, to develop more sophisticated prosthetic devices. It was fascinating and far beyond my basic understanding of computer programming at the time (I'd only been in the field about five years then). Now, after nearly twenty years of working with, studying about, and teaching the use of computers, I probably would be, comparatively, even more ignorant, since the technology has been growing exponentially.

Can I predict, in 2000, what will happen to art and technology in the next decade? I can try, just as I tried ten years ago. Whether or not I am correct, only time will tell. My predictions:

--We have not even begun to scratch the surface of technological and technologically aided art.

--The traditional arts are not threatened.

--There will be no huge breakthroughs in the next decade. Reason: there are limitations. One of them is the speed of light. Once computer speeds approach the speed of light, they can go no faster and still remain in the perceivable human universe, since, according to Einstein's theories (very simplified for me and others like me), the faster an object goes, the more time slows down. What we will do is continue to integrate what we have, as we did through the 1990's.

--Computer memory size is probably unlimited, but a computer will still only be able to do one thing at a time. They can only do one operation at a time now; they just do them so fast it seems that they do more than one. The human brain really can do more than one thing at a time - like walk and chew gum - but the computer "brain" can't and won't ever be able to. Doing more than one thing at a time (called multitasking) requires more than one processor.

--How we put the products of technology to use will determine the course of art, not how much better the technology gets. Artists will continue to experiment. There are fewer and fewer rules and that is a good thing.

--Computers can't really think! Humans can program them to seem to think, learn from their mistakes, react to human responses, "see" patterns, but they will never really be capable of original thought (I hope).

Benediction

"May you live in interesting times" is supposed to be a curse. But times are really interesting right now, especially in the art/technology world. I can't wait to see what happens. If I could pick one thing to know before my time on this earth is over, it would be to know whether we really are alone in this fascinating universe. Carl Sagan thought not.

Since this is the final installment in this series, I thank the Arts4All Newsletter for giving me the opportunity to expound at length on just about anything that suited me. To end with the immortal last words of Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise: "It's been...fun."