Art in the Digital Age
Head in the clouds or feet on the ground ?
Yesterday (may 15, 2013), in the crowded subway from Saint-Denis to center Paris, we were reading the fresh issue or ArtPress2 Art in the Digital Age. The contrast was striking betwwen the convivial simplicity of a digital expo in a popular district and this collection of texts by the best French signatures on the domain.
In Saint-Denis, LMQTP4 , organized by Synestyésie art center and its perserverant manager Anne-Marie Morice, the works could appear rather simple, but they result of a local residence of artists integrating local people (specially children) in their crative process. Anne-Marie is not alone in France to lead this fight against the digital divide. We think for instance of Pierre Kueny, in Le-Val-Fourré (Le Chaplin), Pierre Amoudruz and his team in Lyon (AADN) and many others. Their engagement keeps up along the years. It does not prevent centers like Synesthésie to propose sometimes much more ambitious exhibitions, for instance the bold animated sculptures or Pascal Bauer in last december. They show digital art as friendly and affordable, without hiding the dangers.
In ArtPress, most of the articles combine abstraction and despair. We would say that they project on digital art the philisophical vacuum of contemporary art (even if it blossoms in grand shows all over the world and finds collectors ready to pay high prices). Catherine Millet writes indeed on end of her editorial page : "Clearly, we have outgrown our fascination with the digital tool (the gadgetry), and this has transformed practices so deeply that it now offers us the chance for what is a much-needed renewal of theoretical thought".
We shall come back on the contents of this dense issue, would it be only to understand better why and how far we don't feel in phase. But at least one of its contributors opens happy and creative perspectives : Annick Bureaud (besides managing Leonoardo/Olats) with her richly illustrated "The resurgence of the real : weaving, crochet and embroidey in anthropocene art". Are'nt women the future of digital art. You bet ?
DICCAN'S PARTNERS:
Paris ACM Siggraph, the French chapter of ACM Siggraph, worldwide non-profit organization of computer graphics.
Les Algoristes, an association of artists using their own algorithms in their work.
