Art and Technology

Creating imagery is a human instinct. History has proven that pictorial imagery (Cave Art- 32,000 years ago) had developed long before the emergence of written text (Vinca Signs 9000 years ago). Pictures are somewhat, "universally fluent", to all human beings. When a child first learns to read, his/her books are dominated by pictures, to aid the young reader to a better understanding of the text. If a pencil is given to a young child, the child will eventually start to make representational marks on to a surface (as my very young son did this weekend- which left us a lot of cleaning to do!). This instinct is often suppressed as a child gets older and becomes aware of his/her own perceived abilities and the judgments of other people. But, somewhere, between the logic of Charles Darwin (survival of the fittest) and the concept of predestination (believing that something is supposed to happen), artists emerge and leave their marks on the world. Over the centuries, artists have used the "technology" (artists’ materials) available to them, over the course of their lifetime, to make images that they deemed important. Cave artists used charcoal, fat and natural pigments to make remarkable images of animals. The Romans and Greeks were famous for their lifelike stone sculptures. Other innovations followed: such as, oil paint, a printing press, a still camera, a video camera, a television and a computer (I am leaving out quite a bit). Today, there are countless image making possibilities for artists. The computer has added another dimension to my own work (I am a tradigital artist) and creates many possibilities for artists to communicate to their viewers. Between, traditional media, photography, computer media, dancing, acting, animation and (to a certain extent) music, humans have a wider range of proficiencies that enable a person to be creative and speak visually.