There’s a lot of discussion of the political import of this or that type of art as well as a really lengthy amount of discourse about what is and what isn’t “art”. When it comes to the web there’s a few key differences in what defines them as art and the thin line (that’s really non-existant) differentiating web-art from art. It’s all art some is just customized for digital mediums. This entire post is part of a conversation I had a few months back at the Cathedral forums.
Fine Art
I’d say that fine art galleries such as dlaakso.com for example are minimalist frames to display the artists work, anything else begins to detract from the point of the site which is to further the spread of the art being offered. In the case of the webcomics, there are a few webcomics I’m a diehard fan of either due to word of mouth or friends working on them. Those comics don’t have the commercial appeal that other comics do however they’re still quality from my viewpoint. I wouldn’t consider either to be web art however since they are both offline mediums delivered via the web.
Photography
Looking at the example of photography on the web you can use one of two methods in moving the images into an online environment. One is to simply throw them up in a size saving manner(such as I’ve done with: My photos section ) which is an honest way to show photography skill and the ability of your eye to discern natural artisticness (In my opinion really the skill of a photographer is simply being able to spot beauty where it stands and then frame it rather than truly “creating” art. Not that I’m saying photography isn’t artistic mind you). On the other hand taking images and altering or modifying them to reside in a digital environment (such as taking a photo and changing it in subtle ways to add nuance in order to make it a desktop wallpaper) can be quite impressive as well.
Blogs
I think personally in the case of blogs that while the content matters greatly it’s important that the overall design of the site graphically and layout-wise be synergystic to each other. When something is going to be presented to people it should have similar tendencies. I think the reason blogs are so prevalent is the same reason people write graffiti in national parks. When made to feel utterly tiny and insignificant people have a need to place themselves somewhere in the infinite. I think that being able to read the viewpoints of thousands of others and to a certain extent expand the social aspects of the internet can be quite cathartic when you stumble across a post that is similar to something you’ve experienced. As far as the Reality shows go, I’d actually disagree. I think Reality shows have more in common with fiction than with any sort of biographical work.
The blog world (not going to say blogosphere) is actually in many cases authentic viewpoints vs a carefully edited version of reality on the television. Granted writing in a blog is nice since you can communicate, offer your views in a semi-anonymous environment and edit those views before posting, but I think authors personalities and quirks come out in anything they write causing a certain amount of raw honesty not always shown in reality.
The ability to add interactivity to a personal journal (comment systems, forums, etc) creates an interesting situation. On the one hand it leads to the creation of melodramatic posts but on the other hand you can see a blossoming of new points of view.
To a large extent I really think that art is simply looking at something from a different perspective and showing others how you see, hear, touch, feel and taste something (or any other sense really).
Web Design
Ah at last a subject near and dear to my heart (not that the others weren’t). Web designers come in a few different models before you even aproach the artistic styles. You’ve got your content designers “the overall look is something that will enhance the information on the page”, your artistic designers “screw the content, isn’t the page gorgeous” and the hybrids who understand that the two worlds require each other and must be symbiotic to truly succeed.
Beyond that you can look at what is being done on the web and see that there are many elements of every style ever used in every other medium being changed, manipulated, trashed, worshipped together in new unique ways. As the web design world enters it’s 1st large renaissance. Back in the early days it was a techie playground untouched by marketing or anything remotely commercial. A lot of people wanted to express themselves and discover new ways of doing it. At the time there weren’t many tools other than html which in no way was designed for graphic layout handling. As capitalism pushed it’s way into the web the entire artistic movement was suddenly restricted to a smaller niche. with the advent of cheaper hosting and people familiarizing themselves with the massive different technologies and tools many artistic sites sprang up and now we’re hitting a point where artists have grown up using the internet and are truly leveraging all of the current potential.
The artistic side can be expressed through amazing projects like the CSS Zengarden
where artists are limited to only changing the look/layout but keeping the exact html and content. there are a huge number of sites devoted to helping people to explore and push the envelope of web design and to create something truly unique.
Overall I think art is anything you observe or experience. Some art is personal and other stuff is quite public. Anything that causes an emotional response (of any sort) must be considered art. While I don’t agree with or like certain artistic expressions I understand some works are intended to create a feeling of anger in the audience. A great example would be from an artistic environment near and dear to me: Drum Corps. In 1993 a fantastic (near legendary) corps performed a show written to anger the crowd. Every single facet of the show was breathtaking but many didn’t like it and many didn’t understand it.
The works of Robert Mapplethorpe also caused much debate over their “artistic merit”. Perhaps causing discourse is just as much art as taking a risque photo. Art is something we have all around us. As time passes we are inundated with digital imagery and for most of us the web is something that isn’t a separate part of reality anymore. It’s just a different place to experience the full gamut of existence.
At least that’s my two cents worth (I adjusted how much I wrote to account for inflation).
A collection of some of my favorite artistic places can be found on my links page.
Your thoughts?
