Proposal for Project #1:
Concerning People & Technology:
Issues of Privacy & Control

As our society becomes increasingly technological there are two related issues which are of particular concern to me. Both of these issues have to do with the erosion of boundaries, one boundary is that between private and public, the other, between human and machine. First, then I wish to address the increased invasion of privacy via, to name only the most prevalent and obvious, surveillance cameras, monitoring of phone conversations, and especially web-based data mining. Second, and related to the first, is the potential effect of the increased interface, even interpenetration, between man and machine.

Allow me to clarify my concerns. I am not at all against technology; rather, I am for it. Its benefits are too numerous to mention. To oversimplify: there is technology in the hands of the "good guys" which already gives us advanced communication, entertainment, travel, medicine, and much more; its trajectory leads us to some version of what we see in the world of Star Trek's Federation in which everyone has a chance and no one is left behind. But then there is technology in the hands of the "bad guys" which can lead to a nightmare world of control in which no one has any privacy and everyone is taken over by technology to the point of complete dehumanization, the classic science fiction example being Star Trek's Borg.

In approaching these related and rather complex issues I plan to glean images from the Internet, some from everyday experience (like the ads that pop up in my g-mail account, ads that are, amazingly, always relevant to the subject of the e-mail I have just opened), some from scientific or medical technology sites, and others from media sites such as screen shots of science fiction episodes having to do with controlled societies like the Borg. There may also be some use of text, perhaps articles pertaining to these issues, perhaps my own thoughts. My goal is to present two works which will address these issues, cast light on them, indicate possible trajectories, and, hopefully, encourage thought and dialogue. Following are some of the images I have begun gathering to aid in the creative process.

Autumn Quarter & another course in Photo Shop, this one in CS4. Promises to be a good quarter. Another small step. Oh yes, & on the first day of class I discovered that instructor, Eddy, & I went to the same high school!

Okay, & here is the way the final project looked after cut & mounted. This is a digital recreation of the way it looked when presented.

Have changed the direction that the final project is taking. The DVD project will have to wait. I've decided to focus on painting w/ Photo Shop using one of my paintings of Cornwall (the hillsides as seen from Trellowarren) as a template & from there explore various ways of painting over it, transforming it w/ gradients & layers, etc. @ this point I'm not sure what the final work will look like or even if it will be 2-dimensional; I may use the images in 3-D space as a sort of model for an installation piece. Here are some of the versions thus far.

Oh yes, & I'm here including 2 book covers recently discovered on the shelves of the Whetstone Library where I work. Please note the presence of sheep on the covers .... my sheep are thus vindicated! (not that they need to be. This is just a note to those who might still be skeptical. In addition, there is a "Sheep Grazing on the Oval" project now documented & exhibited in the Wexner Art Museum on the Ohio State Campus. @ some point I'll try to bring that into my Blog -- sheep are social animals, remember? That's from an article no longer posted on the web, otherwise I'd quote it & include it. I hate it when good stuff just, poof, vanishes from cyberspace, especially before I can grab it & save it for posterity).

Rough Draft for Final Project: Mapping of Cornwall (Including Some Works Inspired by a Summer in Cornwall)

Proposal for Final Project:
A DVD-Pro Presentation of a Creative Mapping of Cornwall

For my final project I would like to create a work done in DVD-Pro. This piece, a continuation of themes developed in Project #3: A Creative Mapping of Cornwall, will consist of a basic map of Cornwall plus images of my paintings of Cornwall. This will involve creating a Photo Shop file consisting of layers created specifically for this project. This file will then be imported into DVD-Pro, utilizing its capability to present an image with areas that, when accessed by a mouse cursor, open up to reveal additional images embedded in the original Photo Shop file layers. Although I have been exposed to the basic procedures for doing this, I do not yet know how to successfully complete the process. Thus realization of this project will depend not only on the creation of a Photo Shop file with appropriate layers, but also upon the utilization of a software application still very new to me. This presents me with the unexpected challenge of learning the rudiments of DVD-Pro and of burning a DVD for the first time. I intend to make the most of this opportunity, hopefully to the end of creating a meaningful presentation to share.

David Hockney:
An Influential Artist in Both Traditional and Digital Media

Before examining the works of David Hockney and their influence on me and upon this final project, I would first like to look at the more general issue of Digital Art as Art and the legitimate use of it by more traditional artists like Hockney as well as by a new generation of artists for whom working digitally is as normative as painting on walls and boards and canvases has been for artists throughout past centuries, even millennia. Over seventy years ago, in the conclusion to his classic work Meaning of Art, Herbert Read addressed the issue of the validity of artists' utilizing new technology in the creation of art. Concerning the transition to and assimilation of new materials and methods of creation Read stated the following:

The ultimate values of art transcend the individual and his time and circumstance....the artist will use materials placed in his hands by the circumstances of his time: at one period he will scratch on the walls of his cave, at another he will build or decorate a temple or a cathedral, at another he will paint on canvas....The true artist is indifferent to the materials and conditions imposed upon him. He accepts any conditions, so long as they can be used to express his will-to-form. Then in the wider mutations of history his efforts are magnified or diminished, taken up or dismissed, by forces which he cannot predict, and which have very little to do with the values of which he [or she] is the exponent. Read, Herbert. Meaning of Art (London, Pelican Books, 1954), p.191.

Writing those words around 1930 Read could not possibly have envisioned the technology that has been placed in our hands or the seemingly infinite variety of ways in which it could be used. Since the advent of the computer and computer graphics capabilities artists have been making the kind of transition that Read pointed to. David Hockney is one of those artists who has successfully made this transition from traditional media to digital media, currently incorporating both in his works. He thus has become a sort of bridge into the present era.

As to Hockney's influence upon me, I have always liked his works, especially his landscape paintings of the British countryside. In particular I like his use of color and his exploration of a variety of subjects and forms. Several years ago I became aware of his use of digital technology as a prt of his creative process. Moving beyond the use of photographs as a source for compositions, he employed scanners and computer images as part of a sort of creative feed-back loop in which paintings and digital production and reproduction informed and inspired one another. More recently he has begun "painting" images on an iPhone (http://andybutler.net/blog/2009/07/01/david-hockney-phone-art-free-download/). He has for me thus become an example of an artist who has successfully incorporated digital technology into his works without abandoning the traditional forms of drawing and painting.

His influence on my own work, in particular this final project, is perhaps more indirect than direct. My own paintings of the countryside and seaside in Cornwall were actually begun before I was aware of Hockney's British landscapes; his paintings thus became a confirmation of my own works as well as an inspiration to continue and develop those themes. His use of digital technology encouraged me to explore the possibilities of developing those images via the computer. I plan to further explore those possibilities. The final project gives me the opportunity to incorporate some of my previously created pieces (a scanned painting, a photographed painting, and a computer-generated seascape), into their geographical context, thus reconnecting them with their place of origin and communicating that experience to others -- those paintings will emerge from a map of Cornwall just as they were created out of my experience of being in Cornwall.