Internet Art - Chapter 2

Vuk Cosic's Deep ASCII was the most interesting piece out of Chapter 2 in my opinion. The fact that the "first ASCII film" was made from a pornographic movie for Vuk's own reasons is faciniting. He admits that porn has the best qualities to convert into ASCII information - the closeups, 75% of which make up the porno. The fact that the film is based on a program that makes up the old Pong video game and the porno Deep Throat were released in the same month and year provided a good excuse as to why that particular movie was chosen to represent the first ASCII film. I remain cynical and consider that it was made from a porno for the sheer indecency. If the film created was of anything else it probably wouldn't have had as much impact.

Cosic mentions in his interview that pornography makes up 50% of internet traffic, using this as a reason as to why the porn was chosen for it. I enjoy how he defends the video game industry, how it has surpassed Hollywood in terms of money-making for years on end. He compares Porn and Video Games, pointing out that Porn is decent while Games are not, Porn is more underground, while Games are out in the open, yet games are not immoral and do not garner attention as art, while it is a serious medium in terms of art. I agree that video games should receive more attention from the art community.

Digital Self Portrait

Internet Art - Introduction & Chapter 1

In the introduction, the author points out that today's museums and galleries will distance themselves from today's "net.art" because it "lacks the craft and direct impact" of traditional mediums such as painting and sculpture. Internet Art is viewed as created by immature and derivative artists. The art-form becomes much too like graphic design and commercial work.

To me, the difference between Art and Graphic Design does not exist. In fact, I consider many of the contemporary works I come across to be much closer to how this author suggests commercial design to be exploitative of cheap and flashy tricks. How one artist may incorporate shock factor into their work is cheap and trashy to me.

Out of any of the examples present in chapter one, which details Early Internet Art, none of them had any of this "craft and direct impact," so vitally described in the introduction to make art Art (visually anyway.) Without detailed explanations accompanying these examples in the text, they have little to no impact or value. If the art needs to be explained in such detail, I cannot consider it to be art as it should speak for itself.

Digital Art - Chapter 2

I found the section on Film, video, and animation (page 96) with its statement that "Film is grounded in the concept of 'recording reality'." - which also goes on to suggest Films to one day be made entirely from digital worlds - to be incorrect. First, I consider Films, from the early past to recent memory, to only ever capture the imitation of life. Recording reality is left to CC security cameras as even documentaries are edited to emphasize particular aspects, which are victim to the whims of the director and are thus Art. Second, films have already been produced, years before the publication of this book, entirely out of digital medium. Virtual worlds have been present in Film for decades, nearly a century, as Animation.

Fruit and Vegetable Monster