Is art powered by Digital Transformation?
What is art?
“Art is the queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world.” Leonardo Da Vinci.
When I first heard this quote, I found it hard to believe it was true — but the more I thought about it, the more I was astonished how relevant it is in today’s digital world.
This quote definitely makes more sense to me now as an advertising specialist and marketing professional. The creative representation of communication or the medium to carry a message is Art for me. Art also has to be measurable in the way it creates engagement with the audience or enables the artist to connect with others.
After taking a break from my marketing career, I turned to art as a way to connect with people. I wanted to create artworks that were simple, flexible, and scalable. I began developing a digital doodle design that met all three criteria. The simplicity of digital transformation and technology has encouraged many people to explore the world of digital art.
Art speaks History
Over centuries, various artists created masterpieces that are a true reflection of their time, technology and cultural change. If today’s world is about digitization, we can see this reflected in the ways art has developed. Digital transformation has become inevitable to most segments of our day to day world. It is now an integral part of the World of Art too. It is not just impacting the way art is created but also the way it shared, promoted and sold.
Leonardo Da Vinci took more than 4 years to complete the Mona Lisa painting from 1503. Today it would not require more than a day or two to copy the same with the help of an iPad or Wacom device. In a blink of an eye, we could have multiple prints of this copied art. It reminds me of those painting by numbers kits which were created by Dan Robbins, making it accessible to learn painting a masterpiece.
One interesting example of this analogy between digital art forms and painting with numbers is how NASA’s first TV image of Mars was created around 1965. A real-time translator converted Mariner 4 digital image data into numbers printed on strips of paper. The employee of Nasa Jet Propulsion was too anxious to wait to officially process the image and decided to place the strips of paper side by side and hand-painted them. (solarsystem.nasa.gov.)
How good is good enough?
Every artist strives to make his or her work a masterpiece. This takes patience and effort. Digital tools make this process more practical in today’s world. Even David Hockney is exploring this medium to the fullest potential. In an interview in Danae, Hockney observed, “The iPhone makes you bold”. One can always go back and explore all possibilities to improvise creation. Digital technology improved 3 important pillars for the art industry — speed, efficiency, and scalability. These elements have completely revolutionized mainstream industries like advertising and also improved the value proposition of communication art. The value of digitally or electronically-generated art is increasing and gaining better acceptance now. Even a few traditional artists make use of virtual mediums to work on their masterpieces.
Animation studios are changing the way commissioned art form functions. Customized and personalized paintings are developed combining digital and traditional forms of painting. One such feature is ‘painting with your body’, which works with motion sensor technology to enable the artist to make the client a subject of his art creation process. Introducing AI and VR technology to art has exponentially changed the art development process.
One such artist who optimizes the use of digital technology is Jeremy Sutton. Sutton was introduced to digital paint in 1991 and is exploring new ways of creating digital art ever since. He has worked on projects like Live 3D painting with tools like Masterpiece VR, and the Google Tilt brush. He has experienced the use of eye tech digital systems to paint and control the cursor and painting in the air …literally! He has been associated with developing a prototype for gesture-driven painting with Lead Motion control.
Is this cheating?
This is definitely a subject of debate in the art society. Is there a hesitance toward digitally developed art? Yes, definitely! While digital art was perceived to be optimized for commercial purposes initially, soon interest grew for independent artists and also amateurs. But a machine-generated or artificially supported art form cannot be held in the same status as handcrafted art for some traditional artists. However, this is not a full perspective. Like any traditional artist, there is a thought, technique and individual style to digital art. The tools make it easier in certain aspects of the process but that doesn’t make the digital artist less efficient or less creative. Every artist starts with a similar process- building a sketch on his big idea and executing the work with precision, fine-tuning the details irrespective of the medium he or she is using. For some artists, it makes it more convenient to use digital tools than a lot of other art supplies. But the content still remains the same. Some argue that the flavor of art does not remain the same if traditional equipment is absent or it is not a complete “true” representation of the artist if the artworks are digitally corrected.
But in my opinion, digital art development requires the same skill or talent as in the traditional artforms. The method might differ but the learning still remains the same. Laura Megnot often uses digital tools to illustrate. According to her, it is just more practical as compared to traditional art. Although the fundamental of any digital art would start with the traditional format, the convenience of new digital media makes the difference. Traditional handmade paintings or sculptures are still more valued over digitally generated paintings. One of the reasons for this is, traditional paintings are harder to reproduce or rescale. It makes them exclusive, unlike digital. However, there is an opposing view from a digital artist’s perspective. Scalability is one of the best features of digital design.
This clarifies there is definitely a demand for both forms of art. Art probably in one such industry where technology may not overtake humans. If we look at art as a hobby, even then the traditional art form is a luxury while digital art is a bit more sensible and faster.
Minds behind the machine
Growth in digital art and the burst of social media acted as a catalyst for the new aspiring artist. New and young talent has come forward to share their works without any complex system and gain fame and acknowledgment for their talent. The social media platform has made it possible for unknown artists to get the recognition they deserve. This digital incursion broke many barriers or stereotypes and genuine talent could rise at a faster pace.
Not many millennials would know about Fido Dido- initially, a cool cartoon character doodled by Rose and Joanna supposedly on a restaurant napkin in 1985. Later became the licensed mascot for PepsiCo product in 1987. It took more years for this character to gain popularity as a mascot. But in this digital era popularity grows with the speed of the internet. The ability of the internet to connect the right content with the right source and more efficient time makes a big difference.
One such amazing talent I encountered on social media platform is Joe aka ‘The doodle Boy’. pure talent, who at the age of 9 became the internet’s favorite artist in recent times. Joe kept getting in trouble at school for doodling in his class. But as his doodles hit the internet, he was invited by a restaurant as an artist to design their walls. The next thing we know is Joe became the famous Doodle Boy with more 83k followers on Instagram by 2019 He soon developed his commercial website and has his series of merchandise to offer for his followers. The work was soon appreciated by many known artists in the industry like Mr. Doodle and Jon Burgerman. This is one big example of the power and speed of social media. Joe is not just a young artist anymore, in many minds he is brand now. While he is experimenting with his Sharpie, Ipad-pro and other tech-savvy tools he is also getting geared up for more projects on animations too.
Amrish Malvankar is a renowned abstract artist from India. He likes to romanticize his art process and allow the force of nature to help create the magic. Which he believes is missing in digital painting. Though Amrish has yet not explored art production through a digital stylus, he makes the use of this platform to promote and sell his work. For Amrish, online presence has worked wonders, his global footprint in the art industry has grown phenomenally. Recognition, awards at international art festival, being invited to be a guest painter, all because he chose to change his game by using social with digital platforms. Just by having a website and selling his work on international platforms make him a bigger artist in the whole value system. The digital platform did not just get him a better appreciation for his painting but also greater exposure as an avant-garde artist. Until then he was involved with a few national galleries and juggling the logistics of the do’s and don’ts which might have been harder to tackle a few years back. This also brings me to the point that some artists find online galleries and other platforms more transparent and hassle-free when it comes to selling artwork.
However, this transparency of the medium raises a concern with the security of the intellectual property of the artist. How easy will it be to copy adapt or reproduce an artwork even with copyright in place? That, clearly, is their next big challenge.
About this article
This article has been written by Kadambari Shinde, a marketing professional and a student on the Grenoble Ecole de Management’s Advanced Masters in Digital Business Strategy. As part of a content creation assignment, students are given the task of writing articles based on their digital interests and disseminate the articles online. Articles are marked but we make minimal changes to the content. Thanks for reading! James Barisic, Programme Director, MS DBS.
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