What to learn from the evolution of digital art?

Introduction

What is Digital Art?

Digital Art is a type of art that is categorized by using digital technology to make or to present art. It can be any form that is digitalized. The term and its scope are hard to pinpoint because of its fluid boundaries through which many possible interpretations of the terminology could happen(Chatel, 2018). For example, it is also known as Computer Art in some countries and industries, where they emphasize computers that play an important role in production or visualization of the art piece. Nowadays, we could probably give a very general categorization of digital art in different art mediums. It includes digital painting, digital photography, digital sculpture, digital installation, video, animations and moving images, internet and networked art, software art and mixed media(Chatel, 2018).

Why does it matter to us?

Art is always something I am passionate about, no matter if I am the one to create or I am the one to enjoy someone else’s. It is a pure literacy of human expression and connection. Living in a cyber data world and making design using digital tools and making design decisions informed by data as a UX designer, digital art appeals to me as any unique combination of art, data and technologies. It’s simply the pioneer enabling today’s UX visual design/ UI to get here. Understanding the evolution and knowing every important milestone of digital art could shape our view of digital creativity and encourage us to brainstorm the future. 

Process

Define the Scope

As a part of the tool learning process for the class: information visualization, and given a tight deadline schedule, I decided to cover 7 pieces of digital artwork from the very early phase to now. Each of them should be an iconic work as a technology representation or an art expression.

Collect Materials

Select the Tool

I used Timeline JS developed by Knight Lab to visualize the evolution of digital art with the selected materials. TimelineJS is an open-source tool that enables anyone to build visually rich, interactive timelines. Beginners can create a timeline using nothing more than a Google spreadsheet, like the one we used for the Timeline above. Experts can use their JSON skills to create custom installations, while keeping TimelineJS’s core functionality (“TimelineJS is an open-source,” n.d.).

By simply following the Make a Timeline guide on the website, I can easily create my own timeline. Google spreadsheet template will tell you what information is needed to make this timeline, and also, you can get rid of information cells that you don’t need by just deleting the text in the cells. It is very straightforward about the visualization you can do. Images are added by image URL with image format indicated at the end of the URL. Color can be changed by entering # with numbers or syntax naming. The additional organizing feature is the type. You can choose the row of information as a title page or a content page. You can also select the row type as era to make things group together based on era.

Result

Timeline (Digital Art: Who, What, When, Where)

The final visualization consists of a cover page and 7 timeline events. I chose a digital art installation to highlight the focus on the interaction of today’s digital art on the cover page, which aimed to help people understand the subject matter instantly and look forward to clicking the next page.

In terms of the design on this timeline, I made it very minimalistic by using only black as the background color and white text, expecting the audience to focus on the content. And I decided to move the timeline bar on top of the slides to act like navigation helping audiences better understand the events from the timeline perspective. They can easily navigate through different events.

Reflection

I have tested this timeline visualization with several friends and received some great feedback and compliments. Despite the limited events I provided, they enjoyed the content and immediately understood the idea from the expression. However, they all showed a certain level of confusion on the cover page.

The first reason is that the timeline bar was showing right from the beginning, and they couldn’t relate the page as a cover. I can’t agree with them more because I was initially confused when introduced to this tool. Due to the tool limitations, it cannot be fixed now, but I acknowledged this fact and will continue improving in future projects. “I like this video, but is this a digital art?”, this was the second confusion from them, which means that they had a definition of digital art in mind and didn’t expect to see something that couldn’t relate. However, I think this is my purpose: to tell people that digital art can be anything involved with digital technology, not just a painting done by your iPad.

Overall, I have learned how to utilize this tool to tell a story through a timeline. I will continue finding more tools to help with information visualization.

References

Image Sources 

Cover | Slide 1 | Slide 2 | Slide 3 | Slide 4 | Slide 5 | Slide 6 | Slide 7

Research & Inspiration:

Chatel, Marie. (2018, August 31). What is Digital Art? Definition and Scope of the New Media. Medium. https://medium.com/digital-art-weekly/what-is-digital-art-definition-and-scope-of-the-new-media-f645058cfd78

Hommage à Paul Klee 13/9/65 Nr.2. (2009, March 30). V&A Museum. Retrieved September 13, 2021, from https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O211685/hommage-a-paul-klee-13965-print-nake-frieder/hommage-%C3%A0-paul-klee-13965-print-nake-frieder/hommage-%C3%A0-paul-klee-13965-print-nake-frieder/

13/9/65 Nr. 2 (“Hommage à Paul Klee”) by Frieder Nake. (n.d.). compArt database Digital Art (daDA). Retrieved September 13, 2021, from http://dada.compart-bremen.de/item/artwork/414

A History of Computer Art. (n.d.). V&A Museum. Retrieved September 13, 2021, from http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/computer-art-history/

Digital Art. (n.d.). Tate London. Retrieved September 13, 2021, from https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/d/digital-art

Untitled Computer Drawing. (2004, September). Tate London. Retrieved September 13, 2021, from https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/cohen-untitled-computer-drawing-t04167

Garcia, Chris. (2016, August 23). HAROLD COHEN AND AARON—A 40-YEAR COLLABORATION. Computer History. https://computerhistory.org/blog/harold-cohen-and-aaron-a-40-year-collaboration/

Allan Kaprow «Hello». (n.d.). Medien Kunst Netz. Retrieved September 13, 2021, from http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/hello-kaprow/ 

Edwards, Benj. (2018, December 31). Trippy 3D Art From the Early 90s. PC Magazine. https://www.pcmag.com/news/trippy-3d-art-from-the-early-90s

JODI.ORG. (n.d.).  V2_. Retrieved September 13, 2021, from https://v2.nl/archive/organizations/jodi.org

Jodi (art collective). (2021, February 17). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodi_(art_collective)

Chayka, Kyle. (2012, May 10). [#DIGART] JODI Makes Art Online, But Don’t Call Them Net Artists. Vice. https://www.vice.com/en/article/8qmy73/digart-jodi-makes-art-online-but-don%E2%80%99t-call-them-net-artists

Jodi. (2019, January 20). Found You. Retrieved September 13, 2021, from https://foundyou.online/artists/jodi

Rule, Instruction, Algorithm: Generative Measures. (n.d.). Whitney Museum of American Art. Retrieved September 13, 2021, from https://whitney.org/exhibitions/programmed?section=2&subsection=2#exhibition-artworks

Timeline JS. (n.d.). Knight Lab. Retrieved September 13, 2021, from https://timeline.knightlab.com/