3 ways art and tech could create something entirely new
I remember the first time I saw someone using technology for art. It seemed like he had fallen from a sci fi novel into my little hometown. In a way, he had: he was from a big tech company (which might explain why he had access to something that seemed to function a lot like an iPad all the way back in 2005). A few years later, though, the same technology became more widely used and less expensive. It became cheap enough that I was able to afford my own Wacom tablet at the age of 12.
I gained access to so many incredible things through that simple, beautiful piece of technology. One of the most important was a collaborative drawing board. it function like a forum where people could create different rooms. In those rooms, people could create works of art with anyone who entered. The topics were limited only to the imagination of the participants. People created drawing games and themed artworks and push the boundaries of traditional genre and style.
Having creative control through such an intuitive device actually made me think in an entirely new way. I formed relationships with others and created collaborative worlds that none of us could have dreamed up on our own. I discovered a way of creating that gave me unprecedented freedom- and that’s something I wish more people could get access to.
A few years afterwards, I was lucky enough to visit an animation studio in California. They were in the middle of creating Snow White and the Huntsmen as well as Life of Pi. I watched a room full of people argue about the level of detail needed on the tiger’s hair. And I saw a man take a video of a regular forest and fill it with magical plants and moody lighting.
At the rate I had seen technology expand and spread to the masses, I figured I would soon have access to the same type of asset libraries and collaboration on broad creative projects that I saw in this professional world. After all, that’s how it usually works- right? Technology starts being used by professionals and then filters out to the general public?
Unfortunately, this hasn’t been happening the way I expected and hoped. In some ways technology is actually backtracking. The website I used to draw on collaboratively lost funding now that Flash’s end-date is official and closing in. Either its code will have to be entirely rewritten, or the site will be lost forever. The deletion of flash has actually spelled doom for a lot of creative freedom on the internet. There is no corporate incentive for personal creativity, and especially not for small personal projects. Of course, artists will always find ways to play off the newest mainstream technology- even if it wasn’t created for them. There are a few particularly promising trends with art and technology that may create such interesting results that a corporate demand for individual art technology is created. Here’s how I could see that happening.
1. Open source asset libraries
When you create art in a digital space, you have unlimited access to 2d imagery- created by you or repurposed from the internet. However, 3d art is a newer frontier and a place where there is already explosive growth. In this arena, asset options are a lot more limited. Art asset libraries definitely exist, but often have incredibly limiting paywalls. The most interesting free ones are for game design. Browse free game assets on itch.io, for example, and you can get everything from stylized trees to lifelike full body riggings (essentially a puppet that you can customize and add to a still image or animation). The overwhelming majority of assets like this are for animation rather than art.
That’s not to say people aren’t creating interesting 3d art assets. I wonder where those tiger hair animations went- probably locked away in a hard drive somewhere, outdated and unused. So much of the commercial art world is locked up behind copyrights, making entire genres only accessible to professionals- or people who are so highly practiced and diligent that they’re willing to create these assets themselves. But with large, complex asset libraries, anyone would be able to create complex scenes and convey complex ideas with the touch of a screen.
2. Creating unique assets without art skills
This takes me to the next point- how will we create asset libraries that aren’t just for gaming? One way to do it is to upload artwork that can be downloadable within Unity or whatever program an artist chooses to use. But to make the creative aspect truly accessible, people would have to be able to create their own art assets without painstakingly honed traditional art skills. This is a place where 3D scanning technology could really shine. Apps like Trnio and 3D scanr allow anyone to use their phone to create 3d models of objects or their environment. There are devices designed specifically to do this as well, though the most accurate ones still cost an absurd amount of money. There are even new precision 3d cameras that clip onto phones, like the StructureSensor- a promising mid ground for accessibility. The issue with all these technologies is quality. In my ideal world, you would be able to scan a clump of moss and have a perfect, incredibly detailed model of it to use.
3. Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia’s GauGAN feels like a glimpse into the future of art. With it, you can draw a shape and fill it with a texture- and AI will turn it into a photorealistic masterpiece. These AI assisted assets would work well in a VR, 360 space.
With these technologies combined, people who don’t understand traditional art methods will still be able to create complex and beautiful worlds of their own. I believe this could give people an innate understanding of design, as well as a sense of creative agency and autonomy- both things that the modern world has trouble delivering to every person. If you give people fluency in such a creative technique, they will learn to think differently. If you learn to easily change something that looks like the real world in a digital space, you will understand how easily real-world design issues could be changed.
