New Ancient Worlds

In this new paradigm, the digital interactive artist today is no longer on a predictable path, but thrives on multiple paths that run in different directions. This new breed of artist must adapt or die. The interactive digital artist today causes change through new technologies and their innovative applications of those technologies. But the artist himself is dynamically changed by the very change he created. Artists are constantly absorbing advances and lighting speed changes across all disciplines (ie. science, art, education, research), and must become problem solvers applying their technologies to strategic solutions. Nowhere is the need more compelling than in the social fabric of man. A litany of societal forces, a global economy, failing educational systems, an ill-equipped work force, and the influx of diverse cultures are having a dramatic impact on this generation. The present day digital artist must see the big picture while attending to the finer details.


They must be aware of the forces of change and reflect the realities of those changes. As artists we get caught up in the latest software program or hardware gadget, but we must take a long term view. While there is plenty of room for short term solutions, a "quick fix" is detrimental in the long run. It is certainly appropriate for us as artists to use whatever tools are necessary to achieve our objectives, but technology should be kept behind the scenes as an enabler of the work processes and not intrude on our aesthetic focus! We are rushing to implement new technology in the crudest ways without pausing to consider whether an improved medium will result. Storytelling and Narrative lie at the heart of all successful communication, button-pushing interaction breaks the spell of engagement and it is this broken vision that misses the real point about interactive media. Media should be about pulling the audience out of its complacency and provoking them to explore the world beyond their reach. Provocation does not only consist of the primary elements of a productive (GUI) graphical user interface. I believe these elements fall into three categories, and two are obvious: usually good design judgment and nurturing a process to support the design. The third category- where most artists and developers fail is in not understanding what motivates people.


TO KNOW SOMEONE

When someone chooses to engage their time in a particular CD -ROM, Netsite or Installation they are seeking to "know" the artist. In Hebrew "yada" to know, means more than the possession of abstract concepts. To "know" encompasses inner appropriation, feeling, a reception into the soul. It involves both the intellectual and the emotional act. An analysis of the usage of the verb in biblical Hebrew denotes an act involving concern, inner engagement, dedication, or attachment to a person. It also means to have sympathy, pity, or affection for someone. The word "know" thus has an intellectual as well as an emotional meaning. The significance of any artist’s work lies not only in what they said but also in what they were. We cannot fully understand what they meant to say to us unless we have some degree of awareness of what happened to them. The moments that passed in their lives are unknown, all the viewer has is the representation of those moments as preserved in words or pictures.


Interactivity requires not only mental involvement but the physical involvement of touching a mouse or a screen or any other input device as well. But what is emotional about Interactivity? Isn’t every interaction, whether online or inserting a CD-ROM, or just talking to someone, a happening of some sort, a cosmic pause in time? Whether we engage ourselves or not, we are touched in some way directly or indirectly. This is where this nascent medium pushes our perceptions and philosophy of life. The purpose of my project is to engage the viewer to think differently about life and computers. How do we adjust our visceral and organic tendencies as artists to the sterile binary equations that make up our work? Programmers would disagree with me that binary code is sterile. Although I might think that programming is unemotional and sterile, both programming and the visual language are not different from one another. Both languages synthesize and connect a "range of vocabularies" that fit within certain limitations and attributes. Humans engage themselves with computers not only on the physical and visceral level but also the spiritual level. They are all searching for something whether it be a new software program, information, love, acceptance, etc.

© Copyright 1997 Denise Urban