I used Photoshop quite a bit to abstract some of the pictures I had taken and some just to practice confusing the technology into creating interesting textures, patterns, and sometimes even illusory three dimensional spaces and objects. I included an example of this to the right. I took one class at an art college in 3-d modeling and animation with computers, but I didn't stick with it long enough to make anything notable. Throughout this time I've always sort of seen computers as a bit of a battle. I don't really like to use things when I don't understand how they work. They have always been a sort of tool to me, rather than a sort of defining characteristic of my education as the case studies seemed to frame them as. To my eye, computers have the effect of removing the individual from a lot of what we do. The visual arts, music, and even text based media have been dominated by computer use in the recent past. They make it simple to do extremely complicated calculations that mathematize artistic output. They provide us with shortcuts and because of it everyone's art sort of looks, sounds, and feels the same. When we see a Photoshopped image or a landscaped rendered on Maya, it doesn't have the same effect as a work where every marking or physical occurrence is the direct action of some artist making their thoughts real. We just see the program.
Monday, April 23, 2012
8. The future of literacy, a reflection about the influence of visual and technological learning in my education
Outside of school I have been using computers for quite a while. My dad taught computer science at a local high school and his interest in the technology made computer use at least available to me at a young age. For some reason however I never really learned too much about the code and logic that makes their functioning possible, which is slightly disappointing to me. I'd just use computers for the little games they had on them and occasionally a bit of word processing. My elementary school didn't really teach us much of anything about them. They just expected us to be good enough at typing to do all of the writing assignments so I eventually learned. As far as my visual education goes, that is something I've focused on to some degree. I enrolled in a high school which allowed me at least two hours every day to focus on the visual arts, and while there I learned quite a bit about the many approaches to making images and what to look for in them. Most of my output was through physical media, but I did make sporadic use of computers to these ends too and I have rather mixed feelings on the subject.
I used Photoshop quite a bit to abstract some of the pictures I had taken and some just to practice confusing the technology into creating interesting textures, patterns, and sometimes even illusory three dimensional spaces and objects. I included an example of this to the right. I took one class at an art college in 3-d modeling and animation with computers, but I didn't stick with it long enough to make anything notable. Throughout this time I've always sort of seen computers as a bit of a battle. I don't really like to use things when I don't understand how they work. They have always been a sort of tool to me, rather than a sort of defining characteristic of my education as the case studies seemed to frame them as. To my eye, computers have the effect of removing the individual from a lot of what we do. The visual arts, music, and even text based media have been dominated by computer use in the recent past. They make it simple to do extremely complicated calculations that mathematize artistic output. They provide us with shortcuts and because of it everyone's art sort of looks, sounds, and feels the same. When we see a Photoshopped image or a landscaped rendered on Maya, it doesn't have the same effect as a work where every marking or physical occurrence is the direct action of some artist making their thoughts real. We just see the program.
I used Photoshop quite a bit to abstract some of the pictures I had taken and some just to practice confusing the technology into creating interesting textures, patterns, and sometimes even illusory three dimensional spaces and objects. I included an example of this to the right. I took one class at an art college in 3-d modeling and animation with computers, but I didn't stick with it long enough to make anything notable. Throughout this time I've always sort of seen computers as a bit of a battle. I don't really like to use things when I don't understand how they work. They have always been a sort of tool to me, rather than a sort of defining characteristic of my education as the case studies seemed to frame them as. To my eye, computers have the effect of removing the individual from a lot of what we do. The visual arts, music, and even text based media have been dominated by computer use in the recent past. They make it simple to do extremely complicated calculations that mathematize artistic output. They provide us with shortcuts and because of it everyone's art sort of looks, sounds, and feels the same. When we see a Photoshopped image or a landscaped rendered on Maya, it doesn't have the same effect as a work where every marking or physical occurrence is the direct action of some artist making their thoughts real. We just see the program.
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