Fake Art
Is something art if anyone can do it?
I was reading this thread on the usually interesting Hicks Design Journal pages yesterday and was struck with annoyance. If you haven't clicked the link he's talking about some 'art' a friend of his made by stretching a tiny portion of an image so that it becomes stripes in a natural colourway. Pretty—I'll admit—but hardly 'art'. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of Photoshop can do these so either Siobahn (the artist) is a little naïve, simply pretentious or so full of ego she thinks that because she's done what any 1st Year arts student could do it somehow elevates it to the podium of Artistic Merit™. Whichever way—I could rustle these off at a rate of about 10 an hour but would never have the audacity to call it art.
It's this easy:
1) Get an image; A nice photo off Flickr maybe.
2) Select a 1px row in it
3) Crop it so that it’s one px high (or wide)
4) Resize the height (or width) so that it stretches the 1px to a reasonable stripe.
That’s it. Not art. Simply process. I’d be a millionaire if this was art.
The image in this post (click if for bigger) took me 5 minutes last night as I did a little graphics 'show and tell' with the Mighty Boosh image below to illustrate my aggrievance to The Wordsmith. Just don’t show it to Peter Saville… :)
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4 Comment(s):
It's even easier than that.
1. Select single row of pixels.
2. Hit Ctrl+T.
3. Stretch to full height.
It's the age-old debate, but I'd say this is even less 'art' than a Jackson Pollock painting is.
I guess the problem is that one can easily become annoyed if one confuses "art" with "talent". Art is this undefinable thing (or "paradigm" if you're being pretentious) of which art tutors and professors will ramble on about endlessly. It has been analysed, synthesised, chopped up, spat out and in the end, it appears the only meaning left to art is that it should make someone or anyone just think.
That's why people like you and I get so wound up by someone who comes along, messes with Photoshop for 2 minutes and pops this out the other end. An art student would argue that it's not the process that is important, but how and why the artist came about his or her decision to do it that way. Cue long ramblings about Post-Modernism...
From a design point-of-view, I am in complete agreement. It's a piece of cake and the choice of colours in my opinion isn't exactly worthy of major praise. As a piece of art, however, I reluctantly have to disagree... After all, it's done what "art" sets out to do, and quite successfully so too... It's made us think and ramble on endlessly about it.
Pah.
I read with intrest the threads on hicksdesigns blog and had to wade through 30 sycophantic back-slapping naffness until i found the voice of reason.
A 1px image shift.
As old as photoshop is itself. Mess around with the saturation, levels and hue and hey presto, a work of art. I couldn't beleive the utter nonsense spouted about choosing the right row. Your focussing in on 1 px for friggs sake, its completely and utterly random, and therin lies the 'enjoyment' of it.
Digital art is in a different realm to fine arts. Take the works of Joshua davis, aeriform and Jens Karlsson. Try telling them this is art of a digital nature.
Thanks people for a voice of reason in the sychophantic wilderness that is The Design Site Comments Thread.
I get sick of all this "Oh isn't this or That amazing..." on this ever growing (groaning? network of design wank sites. I kinda hoped Hicks' site was above it but he's just ruined his corporate ID with some yukky 70s hoops so maybe I was duped.
Everyone is afraid of getting flamed for saying honestly and constructively what they think on these things so I take it upon myself to be at the vanguard of toppling the crap. Or laughing at it. ;)
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