Amy's E-learning and Digital Cultures site
part of the MSc in E-learning at the University of Edinburgh
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hi Amy,
your question is to me quite fundamental and something I have been thinking about in an aesthetic context for quite some time, it being my dissertation topic.
When viewing art online can we see this as the equivalent of the ‘real’, physical work of art (in the case of a painting, or print) or is it not?
I will put a post on my blog too, in this particular context.Thanks for starting this.
My initial thoughts would steer me towards the pragmatic – it depends on the piece of art and the context it was intended to be viewed in.
If art was created to be an in-person installation, to put this online as a simple snapshot picture would remove the purpose of the piece, reduce the richness, scale and make it very flat. Whereas if a collection of digital pictures were taken and digitally manipulated to recreate how a person was feeling whilst walking around the installation, new purpose is found through a new art form.
Likewise, if the Chuck Close image were made up of a series of recursive pictures, whereby each pixel was made up of grey-scale tones of the same image, like a Russian doll with no end, encouraging the viewer to zoom in on a digital screen… Continuously down the rabbit hole… To have a 2D representation of this in an art gallery would equally reduce richness, scale and produce a less dynamic piece. However, a similar idea of the Myra Hindley image made up of children’s hand prints in intended for this very purpose but in person.
It’s back to the best (digital) things are born digital, I guess
What do you think? And if you could link your blog here, that would be fab!
Also, here’s a link to Phil’s blog and a related video post: http://edc13.education.ed.ac.uk/phild/portfolio/concerning-identity/