After reading Section 1 “Media Forms”, Chapters 1-6 in our text for our class was assigned to select one essay (section) from the chapter to analyze it to discuss with the class.
I choose chapter 5 entitled “Four Digital Media Art Practices: Moving Beyond Drawing and Painting on the Computer” By Ryan Shin
The essay by Shin is about breaking the misconceptions of digital artwork and getting students and teachers to see digital art made with computers as a new medium, not just something that tries to mimic the effects of traditional drawing and painting.
Shin found that students (and teachers alike) often see digital art as a joke, and that it is fake and artificial art, not bothering to give it a chance over using traditional media.
Many people when trying to create digital art think it takes no creative ability from the individual, and that all it is, is picking different pre-designed actions in a program. They focus too much on the “cool” effects, as the author puts it, and not enough on expressing an idea/concept in their piece.
Digital Art is about more than just drawing lines or making forms and filling them in.
Shin goes over four digital media practices/projects that he uses to try and change peoples misconceptions about Digital Art.
1. Visual-cultural Autobiography Beyond Self-portrait Collage
Having students make a digital collage about visual cultural images that have influenced themselves, that way the artwork has more meaning and students focus less on the “special effects” and more on expressing themselves in their artwork.
2. Visual Culture Analysis and Digital Collage
Students were assigned to take an image from popular visual culture and criticize it, to get their own opinions tied into their art. Looking at “visuals, sounds, music, time, motion, text, and words” the students were to make a visual representation of the critique over a span of multiple images. This also showed the students “art does not need to be confined to single picture frame” (Shin).
3. Digital Story Telling
Shin had his students create their own stories by using photos, scans, video clips, music, and their own voices for commentary. He had his students use iMovie, a video editing program by Apple for Mac products. He explains the program is very easy to use and is simple to implement into and art lesson plan for k-12 classes.
4. Narrative We Art: Dimonscapes (digital online artwork by Roz Dimon –>her website)
Shin focuses on the digital artist Roz Dimon’s work. Emphasizing the fact that artwork can be made specifically for viewing on the internet. Dimon’s works consist of images connected to hypertext in a written piece. You can autoplay the story, so the images change as the text is read to you by a computerized voice. Or you can select to go through the piece at your own pace scrolling over the hypertext and looking at the separate images as long as you want. Dimon’s artwork helps art students see a new way to put “poems, personal diaries, or essays” into their artwork (Shin).
Shin finishes off his essay with saying the best way to educate students about digital art and to see it as its own medium of art by encouraging it more in the classroom. And that one should focus more on putting their own mind into their artwork instead of just seeing the “cool” effects and simply drawing with a mouse.
LShinnArtEd 