The Digital Image and the Pleasure Principle: The Consumption of Realism in the Age of Simulation

        In Digital Visual Culture: Theory and Practice pages 89-98, the author, Hamid van Koten begins by explaining the difference between hot and cool technology and how these different technologies affect people around the world. He says, "'Hot' and 'cool' can be applied to all cultural forms, not just media, but then...there is very little that is no media." He explains that things like the cinema, photographs, lectures, prose, the alphabet, and the radio are all examples of hot media, but things like television, casual conversations, poetry, ideograms, hieroglyphs, magazines, and telephones are cool media. One is not better than the other and one is not more advanced than the other, they are just different. Later he explains what 'light-on' and 'light-through' mean and how they relate to these types of media. 'Light-on' simply means that the light source is coming from behind the viewer, so something like a projector screen at a movie theater would be a good example. "Light-through' means that the light source is coming from in front of the viewer, so things like televisions and computer screen would be a good example. I thought it was interesting how van Koten explained that, "A 'light-through' medium draws us into a symbiotic relationship" meaning that because the light source is in front of our faces it gives the sense that the light and whatever is on the screen is pulling us in, so that we become apart of that world. The latter part of the reading mostly talks about video games and the effects they have on people, playing a part in development of who we grow up to be. I really liked that he covered this topic, because it is something that I also believe to be true. "...what is portrayed in the media is built from the social values, attitudes and beliefs that are manifest throughout our culture, in out everyday face-to-face interactions, economic exchanges, legal and educational institutions, artistic production and so on." I think that it completely makes sense for the things that we do and see and play on video games affects who you are as a person out in the real world. In the last paragraph of this section van Koten says that it is not surprising that people who live in a digital world can easily become extremely addicted to it. I totally understand what he is talking about because of all these 'light-through' mediums people have today, they get sucked in and find it very hard to take a step back to realize that other things are happening in the world around them. 

'Digital Visual Culture: Theory and Practice' Edited by Anna Bentkowska-Kafel, Trish Cashen and Hazel Gardiner

    The section on pages 33-45 of Digital Visual Culture: Theory and Practice is titled Invisible Work: The Representation of Artistic Practice in Digital Visual Culture by Ann-Sophie Lehmann. Lehmann begins the section by talking about how the construction of many pieces of art are overlooked by the viewer. She explains that what the viewer does not realize most of the time is that when an artist is making/ creating a piece of work the artist has to, "be engineer, programmer, graphic designer, and hardware constructor all at once..." (pp. 33). I think that this is a very important point to make because as an artist works toward completing their piece of art the artist and the artist alone is the one who is ultimately responsible for getting the artwork completed. An artist does not rely on anyone else to complete their artwork for them, they are the ones who do, so they are the ones who get the credit. After working so vigorously on their piece, an artist can get a great feeling of accomplishment from working on it by themselves and completing it by themselves. So have a well rounded knowledge base can only help an artist because the more you know the wider you artwork can span across an array of ideas and concepts.
    The next few pages of this section begin talking about the materials used by artists overtime. What artists began with in the pre-photographic era isn't too different from what artists have today. Early artists started with a studio filled with the materials needed for each and every piece of art they produce, but in the 21st century artists have more of a laboratory setting to produce their work. With new technological advancements 21st century artists use computers and computer programs,advanced cameras, and new instruments/materials to complete their art. In the digital era that we live in today, art and art materials become digital and the mouse, keyboard, and even the hand (with touch screens) become the tools we use to be creative. 

Launching the Imagination By Mary Stewart

        Chapter one of Launching the Imagination: A Comprehensive Guide to Basic Design really put an emphasis on the fundamentals of art design. Things like line, shape, texture, and value seem to be things that most people would take for granted when producing a piece of art. Even looking and critiquing a piece of art all of these things are needed to fully understand the message the artist was trying to give. The line was something everyone learned about when first beginning to draw and write, but the older we got the more value the line seemed to have in your lives. We learned how to make lines have different meanings and actual and implied lines can do to influence our lives. While reading this section of the chapter it occurred to me how much lines are used in everyday life and how much they are over looked. There seems to be lines in everything around us and in everything we create. There are lines in my house, on the road, on a sports field, on our computer screens, etc. Another thing the chapter talked about that is also in everything around us is shape. Anything and everything has shape and texture to it. There are all these different kinds of shapes around us and the different ways that they are represented and oriented that many people do not notice. But what really caught my attention in this chapter was how all of these things, line, shape, texture, and value, combined together and related to one another. They all work together to create beautiful and interesting works of art.

'Digital Visual Culture: Theory and Practice' Edited by Anna Bentkowska-Kafel, Trish Cashen and Hazel Gardiner

        In pages 15-22 of Digital Visual Culture: Theory and Practice there is a lot of information crammed into those few pages. The section I read titled, Aesthetics and Interactive Art, Karen Cham describes the separation that has occurred, and still continues to occur, between art and technology. I think that because art has been around since the time of the caveman and technology hasn't, they are hard to correlate with one another. It's hard to take an old idea and combine it with a new one. Cham says that an aesthetic can be, "driven by the senses, emotions, intellect, will, desires, culture, preferences, subconscious behavior, conscious decision, training, instinct, sociological institutions, or some complex combination of these", which I believe can be the case with art and technology and a combination of the two. I wouldn't go so much as to say that the two are interchangeable, but they are definitely factors that should be working together instead of separately. The old concepts are driving the new ones, and, in a way, the news ones can also drive the old ones. Art and technology are two great 'inventions' that serve a great purpose and should be used to together to achieve greater things.