It's Digital, but Is It Art

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It's Digital, but Is It Art?

Judy DeMocker 02:20 PM Sep. 08, 1998 PT Is it a photograph, a watercolor, or a print? With digital art, it's impossible to tell exactly what you're looking at, how it was created, or who else might own a copy of the same image. But computer-based art is catching on, as evidenced by the first major showing last weekend at the Sausalito Art Festival in northern California. In the high-falutin' world of fine art, digital art hasn't yet gained acceptance on a par with more traditional, physical media, in part because art brokers can't quite handle the logistics of computer-based art. "Gallery owners get confused," said Joel Mariano, a digital artist who uses Fractal Design Painter 5.0 to create his abstract images. "They say, 'What's it doing on paper if it's a computer image?' It's all very new." And it may take art collectors a while to tune into fine art's latest technological advancement. For although foot traffic was heavy in the Digital Art tent, the colorful, surreal, and occasionally overwrought images were not to everyone's taste. Digital artists create their masterpieces within software programs, such as the popular Painter 5, and then have them printed professionally using expensive light-safe inks that can last for as long as 70 years. The end products fetch from US$25 for a very small print to hundreds, even thousands, of dollars for larger works. Several artists said they're still experimenting with their new-found medium, and they're excited by the flexibility and frivolity that is possible using a computer instead of a canvas. "It allows me to push the envelope," said Cher Threinen-Pendarvis, an artist who works digitally so she can zoom in on small areas of her California landscapes and hand-work vivid color into each agave leaf or stem. "Working on a computer allows me to save a version, work like crazy on the file, and still go back to the earlier version." It may seem that anyone with a computer can create digital art, but it's not that simple. First, it isn't cheap. To be sold as a piece of fine art, digital art must be printed, and made tangible. For the artist, the printing cost can be as high as $400 for a single piece, though prices are coming down. Also, storing art in a digital file makes artists more vulnerable to piracy or unauthorized reproduction of their original work, whether by an unscrupulous print house, an online shoplifter, or one of an emerging group of "appropriation artists" that pirates the work of others. "I have artist friends who collect other artists' [promotional] postcard images and rip them up, creating a whole new art form," said digital artist Bonny Lhotka. To keep her art original, Lhotka keeps tight control of her digital files at all times, not even sharing them with customers, as some of her comrades do. "Giving them the file would be like a lithographer handing the customer the stone," she said. All digital artists will guarantee the authenticity of their work, and many promise to print only small editions of each work, making each print more valuable. But when it comes down to it, there are no hard and fast rules that a digital artist cannot fudge, and the new media is bending traditional concepts of originality, editioning, and forgery. "I own the copyright to my art. It's at my discretion what I do with it," said Sandy Young, who creates mixed media images with her own photos and paintings. Although Young does not condone or engage in such practices, she said there's nothing preventing her from printing more copies of popular prints, or from changing an image slightly and calling it an entirely new work of art. "Could I do a slight variation on an image and call it another art piece? Yes, I could. It's up to the guidelines you set for yourself."