What is digital art?
- You know, right?
- I know, yes.
Digital art is art created in the digital age.
- We've been trying to look
at the kind of materiality of data,
or what that might mean to us artists.
- In a sense, digital art has been around since the 1950s,
but not many museums and galleries really pay attention to it as a serious subject.
But I think in the last ten years, that has completely changed.
Many venues around the world are taking a serious look at the field,
and the artists working in it.
There have been a series of recent exhibitions at VAN, Tate,
and a major exhibition currently at the Barbican.
I think there will be more related exhibitions in the future.
I am the curator of The Digital Revolution
, an exhibition at the Barbican Centre in summer 2014.
This exhibition looks at a wide range of digital creativity,
so we are focusing on the fields of art and design, film, music and video games.
The exhibition covers some general overview of the subject,
but also the essence of the historical context.
One of the most significant pieces in the exhibition is the Pinokio lamp.
It's learning from you. It has a built-in camera.
Gestures and facial expressions are recognized.
It leverages the art and camera-based technology we already know.
On one level, it's a design, but I think
in a way it shows that objects can have real character
and interact with us in new, exciting ways.
To me, that's why it's called art.
Another key highlight of the exhibition is
Chris Milk's Betrayal of the Sanctuary,
a massive three-screen narrative piece that uses technology based on linked cameras to
allow visitors to interact with their own shadows.
- 15 Folds is a digital art gallery.
We choose a theme each month and invite 15 artists
to interpret that theme as GIFs.
When we first started the project, we
would go out and invite artists,
we found their work online, and we really liked them and wanted to add them to the gallery.
We're definitely still doing it now,
but we're getting more and more people contacting us,
people all over the world are creating works like this,
and we're one of the very few spaces online that specializes in GIF art.
Giving everyone's creativity the home it deserves is
truly magical.
I think we are the real artists, and the data is our material.
You use the website to enjoy the work we create.
It's easy to describe us as digital artists,
but in our view, we're just artists working in the context of contemporary art.
We've really overcome all kinds of concerns that we share with other artists,
whether they're creating sculptures, paintings,
or using any material.
- We're thinking, if the data is our material, can we paint with it?
So this is what we're trying to paint with live news headlines.
"Decoration News" is an automatic drawing,
it's some kind of endless animation.
Created using broadcast news headlines and RSS feeds.
Then randomly select news and
display it on the screen according to aesthetic rules.
So this is instruction-based artwork.
Of course, news emerges as a form of fact, and
if we cross two or three headlines together,
maybe it will prompt you to notice what is fact and
what is put together.
Some great new platforms have been developed to showcase this kind of work.
One of my favorites is the Creators Project
, the result of a collaboration between Intel and VICE,
a great repository for new digital works in contemporary art, film, and music.
Space is a new platform that has only been in existence for a few months,
it is a great platform for our brand new committee and digital realm,
a fantastic space for artists to showcase their latest work, it is a free and extremely accessible web platform . There are many job opportunities
for young artists, designers and filmmakers who can step into the field
.
- If you want to get involved, I think the
blogging culture is strong right now.
You can set up your own blog in seconds and
start publishing your own creations.
You gain followers and
people see your work.
Also following and retweeting other people's work
and building a sense of community, which I think is very important.
- You don't have to be alone anymore. Gone is the concept of
down-and-out artists waiting in their studios for their next gallery opportunity
.
You can practice with very smart community members
and get instant responses, and I think that's what makes
digital art so exciting.