Computer technology and the artistic process: how the computer industry changes the form and function of art

create a dialog between artists and engineers, people in the computer graphics industry and those in the field in academia. The panel will discuss the roles that engineers, commercial artists and art academicians play in influencing the development of the process, the content, the product and the context of computer art. One of the main social functions of art is to understand and communicate the human experience. Because the foundation of understanding is creating relationship and correlation between thoughts, computer technology, with its ability to store many “thoughts,” is ideally suited to expanding our base of understanding. And because the nature of communication is connection, computer technology, with its ability to connect the “thoughts” it stores and present a variety of different views and relationships of those thoughts, is a powerful means of elucidating the very process of communication. However, as Richard Saul Wurman stated several years ago, from his position outside the computer technology arena, “There are only three businesses involved in communication today. The first is the transmission business, all companies starting with tele: television, telephone, telex, etc. The second is the storage business. There, the technology is exploding because of the compression of storage: laser, compact disk, ROM, CD ROM, CDI and all kinds of floppy and hard disks. The third business is the understanding business, and nobody is in it... writers... serve the god of style and the god of accuracy. Graphic designers... and all the universities serve... the god of looking good.” If we notice how other high tech communication forms of this century such as film and video have evolved, we can see what Mr. Wurman means. Both media have been influenced greatly by the gods of style and looking good. In addition, because of the high cost of use, mass market saleability has dictated product and the limited accessibility of the media has led to a narrowness of the language and a dearth of form. If we do not want the high tech nature of the computer to force the art which it mediates to devolve toward either the banal or the overly precious, and if we desire the growth of the understanding business, we must become aware and make use of the essential changes that the computer has wrought. This awareness is being forged in a number of ways: peoples work and leisure are merging as computer technology becomes a presence in all aspects of living; engineers and artists are becoming collaborators in ways that breed a healthy respect in each for the process of the other; engineers are noticing how people really work and incorporating the unintended use that people make of their tools back in to the tools themselves; artists are rejecing the classic role of standing outside the culture in order to see it and instead infusing themselves into the very heart of the culture... the computer communications industry... and changing it. We are at the crossroads of development of this tool and each of us, by virtue of being a part of this community, can guide that development. Perhaps a bit of hindsight and a bit of projection will illuminate our task: The limits of communication and understanding inherent in how the printing press developed has lasted for 400 years. In fifty years will the computer have become just another toy, a pastime? Will it have become just another way to do the same things we’ve always done? Or will we develop it and, in turn, allow it to change us, so that it becomes the most powerful tool we have seen to date, a tool that allows the artist to create with thought itself and for all of us to realize the basic artistic nature of our work? I believe that the crux of these question lays within the institutions of business and academia. If the changes that we see in individuals can begin to trickle upwards into the larger institutions of which we are a part and become incorporated into their processes before they trivialize them or make them too precious we may actually see a whole new culture emerge. If academia could share with industry what it knows about thought, reflection and learning for the sake of learning and help create products that are essential, not frivolous, enduring not throw-away; if industry could share with academia its wealth and what it knows about pragmatic application of knowledge and help connect ideas to realities... perhaps we will create a culture of learning companies and working intellectuals, with more inherent balance than our current culture of excess.