Hologram as an art

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Dinesh

Hologram as an art

Post by Dinesh »

By the way, sorry, I do have an interesting anecdote that perhaps shows some of the differences I was alluding to. Sally Weber gave a talk in which there were some pictures of cave paintings. I noticed that all the animals in the cave painting were facing left, ie they seemed to be drawing from right to left. In a modern painting, we draw from left to right - animals face towards the right. I wondered if this meant that the neanderthals (or whoever) were left handed. Certainly the analytical language centres of the brain are on the left, which would promote right handedness. Perhaps in an era before language became formalised in a grammatical way, the analytical language centres had not formed yet. I asked Sally afterwards whether the direction of the animals might indicate that they were left handed. Sally said, "No, it doesn't mean anything that there were facing left". Craig said, "Interesting!" The artist sees the entire picture, the scientists takes apart details and asks, "what does this mean?" Two different ways of thinking!
Tony

Hologram as an art

Post by Tony »

I guess it could be said the samething about photography.
Ansel Adams was and highly technical person whose results was art by any measure.
I don't see much difference between what Jeff does and Adams. If an "artist" is given a commision to paint so and so and they wish to be painted on their horse with their favorite red jacket and look smart, it still requires a skill and knowledge to make it. Jeff's palette is a laser and film vs a brush and paint.
Artist are problem solvers just as like engineerers. They have to overcome technical hurdles all the time.
Sculpters work around flawed marble, painters try to duplicate sunsets, glass blowers have to learn not to inhale.

I guess one of the original questions before we went all neanderthal was how is art determined? If your goal is to make art and no one sees it that way, is it still art? Does someone else tell you like in Jeffs case? Tell yourself? Or does someone need to buy it to validate it? I guess it's like asking if Bjork is music.

I think we tryed discussion before and ended up in the same place.
Dinesh

Hologram as an art

Post by Dinesh »

Tony wrote:Ansel Adams was and highly technical person whose results was art by any measure.
I don't see much difference between what Jeff does and Adams.
Well, there's a middle level -artisans. Artisans are those who have a skill and an understanding of some subject such that they can make a product that is valued commercially (or otherwise) by using a skill set to create a functional item, much like the clock makers of the 18th century. I would say that Jeff is an artisan because he has a good working knowledge of holography and is very skilled in making the kind of holograms he makes. He uses that knowledge and skill to make a practical device that others use and so that's how he to earns his bread. Does it validate him? Depends on what you mean by "validate". Jeff uses his skill and knowledge to make a practical device whose value is in the practicality of the device. As an artisan - someone who uses his skill and knowledge to make a practical product for which he can command the kind of price that he needs - his validation is that his work is useful to a large number of people and so commands high prices. I don't know much about Ansel Adams, so I can't comment. If Adam's photography was strictly commissioned with exact specifications, or that he used his skill to make something practical and useful to someone, then I suppose I'd call him an artisan.
Tony wrote:Artist are problem solvers just as like engineerers. They have to overcome technical hurdles all the time.
Yes, but I don't believe that the technical hurdles are the reason that artists create art. The technical hurdles are just problems that they need to overcome to create what's in their head. Engineers have a spec against which they have to work, and the problem is to convert the spec to a working product that satisfies the spec. Artisans must determine the usefulness of the device they build and the value of that usefulness before they start. Artists are not working to a spec. but in transforming their imagination to an actual piece of work, they have to overcome practical issues.Neither are they concerned with the usefulness of their work. In this way, theoretical physicists are very similar. It annoys me that someone makes a fundamental discovery in the way the world works and the first thing the press asks is: "What's it useful for?" There's an essay by Schrodinger in which he says that theoretical physicists don't really care "what its for", they do what they do for aesthetic satisfaction and that they've solved a puzzling problem. By the way, congratulations Wler!
Tony wrote:If your goal is to make art and no one sees it that way, is it still art? Does someone else tell you like in Jeffs case? Tell yourself?
Relative to whom? Clearly, if you're making the art, you see it as art. Does it matter to an artist that "no one" see it also as art? I suppose it's once again the scientific deconstruction process, where we try to "define" art as a function of it's consequences. That is, "someone bought this, therefore this is art. No one bought this, therefore, by the theory that something needs to be bought to be art, the experiment shows that this is not art" I don't think artists see consequences like this. But I do think that artists are happy if someone values (and understand!) their work. Let me change the scenario slightly. If the artist created a work of art, then someone wanted to buy it but the artist held back for a better price, which may or may not happen, is this validation? In other words, is validation a function of the price the piece can and should command, in the view of the artist, or is validation any offer to buy regardless of price.

However, in Jeff's case, someone has said to him, "This device is very useful and I want to market it. So, if you make this in this particular way, I will buy it" and Jeff answers, "I can make it in your way because I have the skill and knowledge to do so. But, my skill and knowledge command a high price and I'll want <so many> dollars as a reward for using my skill in your service". If, one day, whatever usefulness Jeff's work has disappears and people find another non-holographic way to accomplish the same thing, will Jeff continue to make the kind of product he makes now for a living? I think not, since there are now no buyers. But, Jeff can still make the kind of hologram he now makes, only no one will buy them. Is a validation of his work that it's now useless, but once it was worth quite a lot?
Jeffrey Weil wrote:Rob Munday is one of the people I was talking to about this. He certainly understands both commercial holography and fine art. Ask Rob about this the next time you see him.
Rob is one of the people who gives you a wan smile when you ask him about art. But, in the Vienna conference (the ISDH 2000), there was a roomful of artists talking about "art". I caught Rob sitting outside the room. I said to him that I thought he'd be inside listening to the artists. He told me that he'd taken formal lessons in art and worked as a fine artist. He said that all those people inside the room were just repeating the same old stuff he heard as an art student - none of it was very original or profound and none of of was really art. He thought of everyone in that room as wannabe artists!
zipsister

Hologram as an art

Post by zipsister »

The problem with answering 'What is art?' and 'Who is an artist?' is that semantics gets in the way. At the beginning of every year I ask all my students the same question, 'What is art?'. As you might expect they quickly develop the question mark syndrome while a few brave souls name some art media: painting, sculpture or drawing. On the big white board I then write the word 'art' and continue the 't' into a impressionist drawing of something. I then ask the students where the word stops and where the artwork begins. While they struggle with this dilemma I then confuse them further by reminding them that Chinese alphabet letters are often simplified versions of pictures (pictographs). I then sum up this little intro by stating how interesting it was that they should choose a subject and don't know what it is! Fortunately most artists don't ask themselves whether they are artists, they just get on with doing what they do. If someone said that I wasn't an artist it wouldn't change anything I do. Technology can also blur the discussion. This was discussed with some enthusiasm at the Shenzhen ISDH about holographers (and other artists) who come up with ideas but do very little if any of the work because they can't...they hire/pay others to do this e.g. James Turrell. It being their idea, is it enough to make them an artist, or to claim it as their artwork? Of course this has been a long standing argument generally in the digital community where artists have no training in technology or cannot use it and so hire the services of the likes of Geola, Zebra or HoloNorth. All interesting discussions, but don't lose any sleep over it, folks; that's why we have philosophers and art critics.
Dave
Dinesh

Hologram as an art

Post by Dinesh »

zipsister wrote: I then sum up this little intro by stating how interesting it was that they should choose a subject and don't know what it is!
...and the conclusion is...?

zipsister wrote:While they struggle with this dilemma I then confuse them further by reminding them that Chinese alphabet letters are often simplified versions of pictures (pictographs).
Both the Greeks and the Romans used letters as numbers. I believe there is a Chinese system of writing numbers that are also pictographs. It's an interesting fact that there is a Theory of Knowledge - epistemology - by which you can judge and evaluate a piece of knowledge. At its most basic, you can use epistemology to determine the "truth" or "false" value of a piece of knowledge. In fact, for the past half century the scientific method has followed Popper's rules of epistemology. So it's possible to define the most abstract concepts of the thinking process, the acquisition of knowledge. But, the two most prevalent occupations of the human mind, some might say the two most difficult occupations of the human mind are almost completely undefined or even un-described except by means of their outputs.

Both art and mathematics have no definition, only a vague description and are recognised only by their outputs. If you see a mathematical equation or a piece of art, you can say, "That is mathematics", or "That is art", but ask to define in some sense either one and it's bloody difficult! In fact, its still a moot point whether mathematics is an art. In many universities a mathematics degree is considered as a Bachelor of Arts. If you studied Physics, you got a BSc, but if you studied mathematics you got a BA. Maybe art and mathematics are the Yin and Yang of the same thing.

Maybe, just maybe, that's what so appealing to some in holography. It's a blend of both mathematics and art. A kind of "Holographic Yin Yang"
dannybee
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Hologram as an art

Post by dannybee »

Best discription I have seen taken from (http://arthistory.about.com/cs/referenc ... is_art.htm)

Art is form and content.

"Art is form and content" means: All art consists of these two things.

Form means:

•The elements of art,
•the principles of design and
•the actual, physical materials that the artist has used.
Form, in this context, is concrete and fairly easily described--no matter which piece of art is under scrutiny.

Suppose you've written: "One half of all art is form. Here is how Goya's The Shootings of May Third, 1808 fits in." You would then go on to provide details about how Goya used color, value, space and line (elements of art). He used balance, contrast, emphasis and proportion (principles of design). He composed the aforementioned elements and principles on canvas, using brushes and oil paints (the physical materials).

The example just given employed a work of Western art, and was written in English. It doesn't take much of a leap in imagination, though, to understand that the concepts behind "form" could be applied to any piece of art, created anywhere on earth, at any time, using any language. With that, we have successfully covered "form."

Content, now, gets a little more tricky. Content is idea-based and means:

•What the artist meant to portray,
•what the artist actually did portray and
•how we react, as individuals, to both the intended and actual messages.
Additionally, content includes ways in which a work was influenced--by religion, or politics, or society in general, or even the artist's use of hallucinogenic substances--at the time it was created. All of these factors, together, make up the content side of art.

Returning to the Goya example, you might comment on the fact that the shootings were an actual event. Napoleon had invaded Spain, at the time, and subjected it to six years of war and revolution (political and social influences). There had been a revolt by citizens of Madrid, and they were summarily executed (historical context). Goya, obviously, didn't think this was good and recorded the stark horror for all posterity. (He was successful at conveying that which he meant to convey.) We react to the painting in our different ways - usually with mixed feeling of revulsion, anger and sorrow.

Again, we are discussing content using one picture as an example, but the same parameters apply to any piece of art.

That's my best reply, then. The first four paragraphs are applicable - with infinite variations, up to, and including, "The way my girlfriend puts on her eyeshadow is art." Just be sure that your main argument includes "Art is form and content." You can certainly think of some great examples using works of art that you know and/or enjoy.
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zipsister

Hologram as an art

Post by zipsister »

"...and the conclusion is..." It doesn't matter. Firstly, nobody including the experts agree on what art is, and secondly, and this is the good news is that, it doesn't prevent you from making art. So how do I judge what is art and good art when I assess students work? I can only go by traditional concepts: elements of art, intention behind the work ( student statements...oral/written), matching the task criteria ('Produce a hologram that uses its visual characteristics to explore the idea of 'Facebook; friend or foe?'), looking at what has been accepted as art so far, etc. Of course the power and strength of art is in not agreeing on a definitive interpretation of what it is. This 'failure' has given us the rich history where people have fought for their rights for their efforts to be recognized and accepted as art e.g. impressionism, cubism, pop art, abstract expressionism, performance art and so on and so on. The saddest part about this history for the most part has always been the rejection of woman as artists; what a loss that has been to the richness of this arena.
Johnfp

Hologram as an art

Post by Johnfp »

Ok, Ok already. Sheesh, I guess I am an Artist. Sorry.
Tom B.

Hologram as an art

Post by Tom B. »

No. Yes. Art. Commerce. Maybe. For an artist, anything can lead to good or bad art. For a technician,
perfection is the goal. Substituting holograms for books, I agree with Franz Kafka -

"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? ...we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."

Is this even possible? If so we should get down to making these deeply painful holograms right now. And some funny and happy ones too, just for contrast.
Dinesh

Hologram as an art

Post by Dinesh »

A while back, on DeFreitas site, I asked the question: "What holograms do you hate?" I got a barrage of angry responses that suggested that to even mention that a holographer might hate a hologram was the ultimate in crassness. But, over and over again, there was an outpouring of sentiment over holograms made by "recognised" artists. If Augie or Margaret Benyon or Rob Mundy or <fill in name of recognised 'artist' here> made any kind of a hologram, from a crystal cathedral to a puddle of piss the entire holographic community would "ooh!" and "aah!" as if they'd been given a glimpse of some kind of 'promised land"! If, however, Joe Schmitzellgeiser made a hologram of a sculptor with exquisite form and substance the entire holographic community would promptly ignore ol' Joe! I got the distinct feeling that "holographic artists" is the same, amongst the display holographic community, as the expert is in the more technical community! If Hans or Steve Benton or anyone from Zebra were to say 2+2 = 5 sometimes, the entire holographic community would gasp at the profound wisdom they'd just been made aware of. If Dinesh Padiyar or Joe Schmitzellgeiser said exactly the same thing, there would be a mass scorning from the entire community. I call this the "expert syndrome". An "expert" is never wrong and if an "expert" is ever wrong, it's not that he/she is wrong, he/she is simply so profound that you can't understand. Augie is the only holographer that makes wonderful dcg holograms (actually Dave Battin's work is just as good as Augie to this somewhat unschooled eye), Rallison knew everything there was to know about dcg (actually a lot of the writings are speculation that have now been shown to be wrong!) the MIT people know everything there is to know about holographic theory (not so!), Benton was all-knowing (there's a picture of me and Joel Kollin discussing some aspect of holgraphy with Steve, and we were all discussing the topic as equals!).

I got to wonder if the art world also had an "expert" syndrome. If, say, <famous artist> made an art piece of dog poo-poo, would all the art types go into hyperventilation, while if Joe Schnitzelgeiser made exactly the same piece in exactly the same way no "artists" would pay a blind bit of attention? In order to test this hypothesis, I asked, "What holograms do you hate?" It occurred to me that if one were truly judging the "art hologram" in some artistic way, then by the very nature of judgement, some would be judged favourable and some not. After all, even movie directors love some movies and hate others. Musicians who are truly judging a piece of music (as opposed to indulging in the "expert syndrome") love some pieces of music and hate others. So, if art holography truly exists and art holographers were truly judging the art as art, then there must be some pieces they disliked.

The result? Not a peep of countercriticism! Every hologram made by a "famous" art holograper was wonderful! wonderful! wonderful! Every "art" piece made by an amateur or hobbyist "was not bad" and "had promise" but was not in the class of an Augie or a Benyon! Why? No one seemed to know. Margaret Benyon made a pulse hologram of two people with no clothes and it was juust sooo aaartistic. Ron Olsen makes a hologram of two people with no clothes on and , well, it's Ok, I guess. It's a Ron Olsen, right? But, It's not art!!! (This actually from Fred Undershirt!)

So, Tom's reply seems to indicate that there must be some holograms that disturb you, and some that disturb you a lot. So, do these holograms exist, or are the holographic artists too immersed in the "expert syndrome" to actually determine the value? If art is art is art, then why do some people pay millions for a sunset scene because it's a "Turner", but pay nothing for a sunset scene because it's a Joe Schnitzelgeiser! In the end, whetever the value/definition/meaning of art is, then must be some sense of judgement from a work of art. If everyone juuust loooves everyyything, what's the difference between liking and not-liking? Merely the signature on an "art piece"?

Understand, I'm not denigrating the artists. Not even (especially?) the famous ones! There was a funny scene on the evening of zipsisters presentation when he mentioned some fact about someone called Tim Kardashan or some such. I was sitting at the bar that evening with Brittany and Pierre from the University of Arizona, someone from a research institute, myself - a physicist - and Joy - an engineer. To a man (Well, OK, two women and three men) we all said, "Who's Tim Kardashan"? Must be an artist, we all thought. I've since been told that it's Kim and she's the daughter of a lawyer apparently. All-in-all, all the scientists asked each other whether anyone understood the artists and mostly the answer was in the negative! I suspect the artists were all asking the same questions about the scientists! However, if there's one thing that really, really bothers me, it's the "expert syndrome" This destroys creativity and strangles imagination! Question 'em all and doubt everyone, I say!
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