Does technology actually hinder creativity?

[sneed]

Computers (yes, even macs ;) ) have gotten to the point that with a little skill, there are no limits to the imagery one can create (still or motion,) but is that a good thing?

If you are focusing on what the image represents, rather than what it looks like, I would say no. Having a broad toolkit has made people lazy, and computers, with all their potential uses, have reduced design to eye candy.

What do you think?

[kettle]

accountants kill creativity.

no one could build a machine to emulate what I see going on in my imagination.
and if they tried, an accountant would close it down beacause he couldn't sell people what they already had and no space to put another.

[Ifeelbloated]

Maybe for some people. I know I had a devil of a time getting use to vector drawing programs. I was a pencil sketcher and it was hard to just get the "feel" of what I'm intent on making on the computer. I'm left-handed but I mouse-click with my right hand. Weird.

[job]

Computers though have also allowed for advancements in art that by hand would by neigh impossible. The scope in some of CG artwork is absolutly amazing.

And if all else fails, you could always buy a Wacom tablet. :D

The best of both worlds. :)

[Mr. Anderson]

I think what you're reacting to is the ability of non-artists to start producing things and then think they too are artists. So even though I don't believe technology hinders or helps, its just caused a bit of confusion.

Talent is still talent, you have or you don't. Knowing how to hit the button to put a drop shadow on some text is all well and good, but you still need to have an artists 'eye' to really understand and *feel* what you're doing.

In the end the computer and its assorted programs are just another medium that artist can use to create their art.

D

[job]

Originally posted by dukestreet
Talent is still talent, you have or you don't. Knowing how to hit the button to put a drop shadow on some text is all well and good, but you still need to have an artists 'eye' to really understand and *feel* what you're doing.

Exactly. That's what sets a real artist (computer or not) apart from people who simply press a button or use a filter to create a certain effect they want.

[mcrain]

Originally posted by dukestreet
I think what you're reacting to is the ability of non-artists to start producing things and then think they too are artists. So even though I don't believe technology hinders or helps, its just caused a bit of confusion.

Talent is still talent, you have or you don't. Knowing how to hit the button to put a drop shadow on some text is all well and good, but you still need to have an artists 'eye' to really understand and *feel* what you're doing.

In the end the computer and its assorted programs are just another medium that artist can use to create their art.

D

No offense, but that's a load of crap.

What are the criteria for someone being an artist? Some sort of special eye? Eye hand coordination? Imagination? What? I've seen stuff that's less than noteworthy made by well respected artists, and stuff made by little kids that was quite interesting. Who's to say the artist has the better eye?

Sorry, but if I click a button and put a "drop shadow" (whatever that is) on some text and it looks better than something an "artist" with an "eye" has made, I'm more "artistic."

:)

[mcrain]

Originally posted by hitman
Exactly. That's what sets a real artist (computer or not) apart from people who simply press a button or use a filter to create a certain effect they want.

Isn't that exactly what an artist does with a computer? Click, click, filter, filter...

The only difference in your minds is that the "artist" has more "talent" or a better "eye" than the non-artist.

Sounds awfully elitist if you ask me.

[kettle]

Originally posted by kettle
accountants kill creativity.

When I say Kill I mean if anyone can stop you from achieving something, an accountant can stop those really big projects. Other than that I don't think anything could stop personal creativity. Public expressions of creativity can be stopped once started, but not prevented in the first instance. Even death might not fix it for good. Is this sort of post just tarted up spam?

maybe I should start another thread?

[job]

Originally posted by mcrain


Isn't that exactly what an artist does with a computer? Click, click, filter, filter...

The only difference in your minds is that the "artist" has more "talent" or a better "eye" than the non-artist.

Sounds awfully elitist if you ask me.

I was not saying that people who use Photoshop filters are not artists.

[Mr. Anderson]

mcrain, there are all sorts of ways to interpret art. What I'm talking about is the ability to *see* like an artist - its an unfortunately generalized term, but its all I've got for now.

Basically its the ability to understand the relationships of solids/void, light and shadow, color, composition and a whole bunch more concepts. Someone who is an accomplished artist has a keener sense of these things.

You'd be surprised how many people really don't understand how to see. The good thing is that it can be taught, to a certain degree. Next time you're in a book store see if there is a copy of Drawing on the Rightside of the Brain in the art section. This book is a great example of how people are hindered sometimes by not looking at things correctly and making simple interpretive mistakes.

I understand art is subjective, not everyone is going to like all types of art. But we're not talking about the edgie stuff that is harder to grasp in general. My understanding is we're talking about the ability to actually draw or design something that looks good, that everyone agrees is artistic and talented, and the fact that computers aid non artists in making shortcuts that would normally be beyond them. Basically because those filters and tools are made or based on artistic ideas, made by artists.

If you want, start a thread and we'll debate the philosophy of art, that's a whole different subject and too big to mix with this one.

D

[job]

Originally posted by kettle


When I say Kill I mean if anyone can stop you from achieving something, an accountant can stop those really big projects. Other than that I don't think anything could stop personal creativity. Public expressions of creativity can be stopped once started, but not prevented in the first instance. Even death might not fix it for good. Is this sort of post just tarted up spam?

maybe I should start another thread?

as long as you are talking about the subject matter it is not spam.

have fun in the forums.

[sneed]

Originally posted by mcrain


No offense, but that's a load of crap.

What are the criteria for someone being an artist? Some sort of special eye? Eye hand coordination? Imagination? What? I've seen stuff that's less than noteworthy made by well respected artists, and stuff made by little kids that was quite interesting. Who's to say the artist has the better eye?

Sorry, but if I click a button and put a "drop shadow" (whatever that is) on some text and it looks better than something an "artist" with an "eye" has made, I'm more "artistic."

:)

I don't think that an artist needs to be trained to be artistic, or even to be considered an artist. That said, there is a huge difference between applying an effect because you know it will work better, and applying effects randomly hoping one will work better...

[job]

Originally posted by sneed
That said, there is a huge difference between applying an effect because you know it will work better, and applying effects randomly hoping one will work better...

Indeed.

@mcrain : This is what I meant with my previous posts.

[sneed]

Originally posted by kettle


When I say Kill I mean if anyone can stop you from achieving something, an accountant can stop those really big projects. Other than that I don't think anything could stop personal creativity. Public expressions of creativity can be stopped once started, but not prevented in the first instance. Even death might not fix it for good. Is this sort of post just tarted up spam?

maybe I should start another thread?

Some would say that if an accountant can kill a creative work, it probably wasn't art to begin with. Not saying that's true.

I don't think that creativity can be preempted, but the expression of it certainly could. Advanced technology gives creatives the luxury of not having to be innovative in their expression, and that luxury has had an affect on their output.

This is a tad out of the box, but think of the shower scene in Psycho. There were some real limitations to showing a naked girl being stabbed to death in a shower when the film was made. Now, those limitations are gone. Has there been a better shock since? Of course we can show the gore and the nudity, but do need it? Should we use it?

The attitude today is, and I'm back in the box now, is that we can, so we do. No thought to whether there a better way without it. Design is all about making choices. Technology allows us not to.

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by sneed


I don't think that creativity can be preempted, but the expression of it certainly could. Advanced technology gives creatives the luxury of not having to be innovative in their expression, and that luxury has had an affect on their output.

Design is all about making choices. Technology allows us not to.

What you might be getting at here is 'settling' for something. You can do a lot with technology that is almost impossible with traditional media. Look at Disney cartoons (not the best example, but the best one I can think of right now). They create scenes in 3D on the computer, render them and then have the technicians draw over all the images by hand to get the hand drawn effect. The benefit is that you can actually get true perspectives instead of simple ones. Imagine zooming in to the corner of a building from a mile away. With computers this is easy. With traditional animation techniques, not so simple and it definitely won't look perfect. There's a trade off, for sure, but in this case, someone had to come up with the scene, do a storyboard, create the 3D models, set up the animation just so it could be copied by hand. Surely at some point in the process you can look there and say 'That's art'

[sneed]

Originally posted by dukestreet


What you might be getting at here is 'settling' for something. You can do a lot with technology that is almost impossible with traditional media. Look at Disney cartoons (not the best example, but the best one I can think of right now). They create scenes in 3D on the computer, render them and then have the technicians draw over all the images by hand to get the hand drawn effect. The benefit is that you can actually get true perspectives instead of simple ones. Imagine zooming in to the corner of a building from a mile away. With computers this is easy. With traditional animation techniques, not so simple and it definitely won't look perfect. There's a trade off, for sure, but in this case, someone had to come up with the scene, do a storyboard, create the 3D models, set up the animation just so it could be copied by hand. Surely at some point in the process you can look there and say 'That's art'

Actually disney cartoons are a great example... If you look at the cartoons they did in the forties, and compare them to most of the shlock that's out there now, they are incredible, simply incredible.

The good new for Disney is that they are using technology, not to reduce cost, but to open up new vistas in feature animation. The bad news for us is that not every animation studio is Disney.

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by dukestreet
I think what you're reacting to is the ability of non-artists to start producing things and then think they too are artists. So even though I don't believe technology hinders or helps, its just caused a bit of confusion.

Talent is still talent, you have or you don't. Knowing how to hit the button to put a drop shadow on some text is all well and good, but you still need to have an artists 'eye' to really understand and *feel* what you're doing.

In the end the computer and its assorted programs are just another medium that artist can use to create their art.

D

the state university near where i live makes sure all of its applied computing and multimedia students are artists first before they are computer users...why have engineering be the focus when with the computer, art is the final goal?

teach programs, programming, and no art then you will see a lot of junk come out

...composition, negative space, color sense, and art history are all necessary to help make a good computer artist

too many techies, programmers, and gearheads just try to wing it and thus we see what many of us see...ugly computer art if you can even call it art (i am a techie and not an artist, so i don't try to call myself a multimedia artist)

actually, the whole university was built as an arts school from the ground up and their philosophy is to infuse the arts into every subject matter

www.csumb.edu

[Cursor]

I work as a creative, and I think that, as long as you drive the art, tech is a great help. The problem begins when technology starts to control the art. I see this hapening a lot more with new grads coming out of school and into the workforce. Tech should support the creative not take it over.

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by Cursor
Tech should support the creative not take it over.

That's exactly the point, use it as a tool, don't let it tell you what you can and can't do. Its only going to get worse, because technology is going to get smarter and allow you to do things with a button click that took experts a good amount of time to do by hand.

Its almost scary what it will be like in 10 years, if you think back to what the state of computer graphics was 10 years ago.

[Cursor]

Yeah, I remember Photoshop 1.0. We used to do mechanicals for ads all the time. Now, I am lucky if an intern even heard of a mechanical.

[AlphaTech]

mcrain, go back to counting those beans and leave the art to the actual artists. I have a bfa in graphic design, and can do art work when I feel like it, but I am also intelligent to know that there are better artists out there. I have a friend from college that IS an artist. He can use just about any medium, and computers are just a medium for real artists. :p

I will get the url for his site the next time he is online and post it up then. He kicks serious ass with his artwork. There are some that he does pencil drawings for, scans them into the computer and then does them there. Other times, he does sketches first, and then all of it in the computer. He uses everything from Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand all the way to some 3D applications (such as Poser and Bryce).

In his case, the computer, and technology, has just opened up another medium to be used.

[eyelikeart]

Originally posted by Cursor
Yeah, I remember Photoshop 1.0. We used to do mechanicals for ads all the time. Now, I am lucky if an intern even heard of a mechanical.

he he....the other day at work...someone gave the go ahead for a blue-line...something they haven't used in years...

to be honest...I didn't even learn about that in design school...:rolleyes:

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by eyelikeart


he he....the other day at work...someone gave the go ahead for a blue-line...something they haven't used in years...

to be honest...I didn't even learn about that in design school...:rolleyes:

We learned the old school method at college, but we also learned the new school method of using computers as a tool. It makes for faster, and cheaper, revisions. Need to shift the type over, or flow it around an image, click, click, it's done. Try to do THAT with a mechanical. :p

[iGav]

NO...... to put it simply.....

Talented, creative people will always be able to get more out of technology than a non-talented person. It's about utilising the tools to your advantage and this is not unique to the design industry.

Maybe we should consider that 'Technology' is not just computers.......... it will be whatever tool has evolved from a previous version....... this can be traced back from hand engravers to hot metal type....... Magic Markers to Photoshop........

[Gelfin]

Pencils and brushes and paints and easels and paper and canvas and on and on... these are all technology. In fact, one might observe that there is no art without technology. You can't have cave paintings unless you come up with a way to derive pigments from natural sources. That's a technological advancement.

Computers make certain techniques much easier, and make some people think they have artistic talent who otherwise wouldn't, but the computer is limited to technique. It can't help you with the composition and semantics of art. That continues to be an exclusive part of the human creative process no matter how sophisticated the tools you use to express it.

[iGav]

Originally posted by Gelfin
Pencils and brushes and paints and easels and paper and canvas and on and on... these are all technology. In fact, one might observe that there is no art without technology. You can't have cave paintings unless you come up with a way to derive pigments from natural sources. That's a technological advancement.

Computers make certain techniques much easier, and make some people think they have artistic talent who otherwise wouldn't, but the computer is limited to technique. It can't help you with the composition and semantics of art. That continues to be an exclusive part of the human creative process no matter how sophisticated the tools you use to express it.

Exactly...... and very beautifully put....... ;)