Some Remarks on Visual Fine Art in the Age of Advanced Technology

Abstract

The visual or plastic fine arts hold a relatively high place in Western culture. Considerable public and private funds are devoted to the making and sale of art works and to education for art appreciation. Yet, paradoxically, there is no general agreement as to what art is or what it is good for. This is causing an ever increasing uneasiness among artists and especially among art students. The incompatibility between values and instruction in traditional art education and the worlds of science and of technology is clearly evident [1]. Some of the essential factors that have led to this situation in art are the following: 1. New materials and techniques from science, industry and commerce are now available for artists to use. The best-known examples are cinema and television, pictorial techniques of social significance that are only slowly being used by artists. Only very few have come to realize that these media are suited not only for the transmission of information and of spectacles by performing artists but also for the contemplative fine arts. In addition, complicated equipment designed for technical and scientific applications is being introduced for the making of art, e.g. by the manipulation of electric light, by the polarization of light and by the use of lasers. The use of digital and analog computers for artistic purposes is also beginning to influence the adoption of new methods and ways of thinking about art. With the help of program-controlled output devices, black and white and colored, static and kinetic images on display devices can be produced [2-4]. The use of computers is important