Technological Advances and their Effects on Media of Art
Some people find comfort in being involved in art. For them, their creations are the product of self-expressions that have no other better way of being expressed than through art. Some feel that they connect to the world or to their surroundings and arouse feelings through art. There may be some people whose passions center on art. For whatever reasons, art has become one of the areas where changes took place. Particularly, the media of art changed through the many technological advances that were introduced into the public. Art can be defined in many ways.
There were traditional and contemporary definitions of art (Adajian). Generally, art refers to creative human endeavors. It also refers to any product of a creative impulse. Although it usually refers to visual arts, art also includes music, plastic arts, performing arts, and decorative arts. Moreover, art has many forms, including music, sculpture, painting, literature, performance art, drawing, and architecture. With the changing times and new technologies, art has included other forms such as conceptual art, computer art, photography, comics, video art, and film (WordIQ).
All of these forms of art evolved as the world slowly became modernized. Recent technological advances have also placed great burden on some of the traditional media of art such as pencil and canvas. Many people think that along with hi-tech devices such as computer and camera, the use of pencil, coloring materials, ink or paint would become obsolete. Other technological advances that affected the media of art will be discussed as follows. The Quantel Paintbox The Quantel paintbox, which was launched in 1981, is a computer system which aids in manipulating video and in creating graphics.
Through Quantel paintbox, the production of television graphics was further developed and improved. Quantel paintbox can now be run on workstations, unlike before when only hardware can run it. Moreover, professionals use Quantel paintbox up to this day for TV production. It was used extensively in creating artwork for the “Painting With Light,” which was a 1986 BBC series. Additionally, the Quantel was used in Arte, a European Network which created original TV designs. There were also new designs made for Quantel, namely: the Paintbox, Paintbox gQ, and QPaintbox (BroadcastEngineering).
Computer Computer impacted the media of art in such a way that no traditional art media is needed to create art. For instance, with just the mouse, an artist can create cartoons and visual effects, unlike before when artists really must use pencil and paper. Artists before used materials for creating a film and sometimes these materials were unstable. For instance, images were placed in cels, or sheets of clear plastic. To avoid creating brushstrokes, colors must be manually painted from the back of the cel.
Artists also used substances such as cellulose nitrate and cellulose acetate during the early 1900s. But today, artists are spared from using materials that decompose (Worth). Moreover, the ease of using computer and saving the works in it is an advantage that traditional medium cannot compete with. An artist can make use of visual or special effects with just a few clicks. A lyricist can write his songs in the computer. There is even software which allows the recording of songs. The invention of the computer has encouraged artists to use it for art purposes.
Animation Software We see it on movies. From The Lion King to Bolt. There are even movies where humans and cartoon characters were incorporated as though the world of humans and that of the cartoons are one. Thanks to animation softwares that are of much help, everything can be possible today. The implementation of animation softwares among artists has also affected the media of art in major ways. With these softwares, it is much easier for artists to make animations. However, traditional media of art is still used.
For instance, an artist creates a storyboard using pencil before the output can be fed into the computer for further changes or improvements. In another instance, character designs are created first by animators or artists. Then these designs would be produced on Model Sheets (or photographic stats) before distribution to the other artists (Worth). Camera Camera was first invented in 1841 by Joseph Nicephore Niepce. It has evolved from the machine that only takes images from the dark to the high-tech ones today (ShotAddict). With the invention of the camera, photography became the “in” thing.
As time passed by, many more persons added features to the first camera. There was the invention of film, and now there are digital cameras which do not use films. It is also much easier to print out pictures taken by a digital camera. With the appearance of digicams, the traditional cameras slowly become obsolete, although there are still some artist which prefer using ones that they can manipulate Paints From the paints that were used on canvas, now there are paints that can be used for clothing, foils, and specialty papers.
With these paints, artists can turn any flat surface into printable surface. These paints have affected paint as a traditional medium of art because now paints are not only limited to paper or canvas (ArtMedia). With the fast paced world, art has been under a lot of changes, particularly in its media. Pencils, markers, paints and the other materials that were used before were now substituted with more hi-tech materials such as computer, camera, and animation softwares. However, despite the technological advances, art has always been there and man continually seek art.
