Geeks and Artboys

The short article, “Geeks and Artboys,” by William Gibson, discusses the various contributions to multimedia art by those who Gibson places into two categories: geeks (people whose work was not self consciously “artistic”), and artboys (whose work was). Gibson seems to state in his article that the contributions of geeks often outweigh those of artboys. But is this true?

It is difficult to answer this question. It is clear that many of the geeks Gibson references made tremendous contributions to the multimedia field. Vannevar Bush, for example, who served as one of Roosevelt’s advisors, had amazing foresight. He spoke of “walnut-sized ‘dry’ cameras” (which we have now in the form of tiny digital cameras), and “glass-topped desks wherein … rear-projected images [are] collected” (perhaps television). Clearly Bush's thinking was before his time (albeit only slightly), and perhaps this is why he is credited with the creation of the “military industrial complex.”

Gibson seems to see artboys as not having the same open-minded thought process. He discusses himself as a younger man, and how, seeing himself as an artboy and choosing to act as such, he and his friends focused entirely on one emergent technology (virtual reality) and ignored another (the internet). Looking back on it now, it’s clear which one has had a greater impact. The internet is used by millions upon millions of people, whereas traditional virtual reality has, for all practical purposes, completely died out (of course there are still video games, which are similar, but they’re not the same).

This, perhaps, is Gibson’s true point. It’s not that artboys are less intelligent than geeks, or that they’re focusing on the wrong types of multimedia, but simply that due to the why they’re forced to think (on the production of art), they end up concentrating on specific details as opposed to the big picture. Nor are artboys failing to add to the field of multimedia, they’re simply not doing so in the same way that geeks are. The geeks Gibson speaks of dealt with issues that would still be striking years, decades, even centuries later. The artboys, like most artists, dealt with issues that would, eventually, be seen as slightly prosaic or obsolete as the next great art movement took over.

Nancy Davenport: I call Photoshops!

The photography of Nancy Davenport is not something that one would normally call “fine art photography.” In her photographs, she combines various elements clearly taken from other images and changes their meaning entirely.

“Accident Prone,” and “The Apartments,” in particular, create slightly unrealistic scenes where horrible things are taking place. For example, in “Accident Prone,” one image shows a person standing on a cliff, waving to the camera while massive boulders appear to be falling directly above him. The viewer knows that this person has only moments to live, but the action has been frozen. “The Apartments,” shows various tragic and/or violent events occurring in a series of apartment buildings. One image, for example, shows a huge smoke cloud rising from behind some buildings while in the foreground, a missile is only seconds away from hitting the same buildings. Another image shows a group of masked men descending down the side of a building as if storming it during a revolution.

All of her “photos” have a similar theme. Action is frozen moments before something tragic, violent or bloody is about to occur. If these were real images, they would be amazing. However, these images are not real. Upon close inspection, it is possible to tell where editing has occurred in most of the pieces. For example, in the image where men are storming a building, the light being cast on the men in comparison to the light being cast on the building is extremely different. There are small “errors” like this in all of her pieces.

One must ask oneself, however, is this intentional? It’s clear that Davenport is skilled with Photoshop. But if she is so skilled, why has she made it possible for viewers to see where she’s edited her images? Does she perhaps want us to know that we’re being drawn into her own fantasy world?

A New Semester, A New Class

It's time to reboot the good ol' multimedia blog for a new semester. This post, as Professor Packer has requested, is simply for testing and to explain our aspirations for this class. My main aspiration is to gain knowledge that will be useful in my independent study and to further my understanding of multimedia art in general.

For your enjoyment, here is a picture of a toaster: