Gagnon Responds to Kuspit

Gagnon Responds to Kuspit

Lou Gagnon responds to Donald Kuspit's words on digitalism.

Response to Mr. Kuspit

By Lou Gagnon

This is little more than the coupling of both tired arguments - "Abstraction vs. representation" and "painting is dead" – with a technology twist.

Having used both "analog" and "digital" tools in my career as both an architect and an artist, I can say that they are not equivalents in the creative process. The fatal flaw of this elaboration is assigning the "code" or concept as the primary creative act.

Every creative human that I know starts with an analog process - a sketch, note or diagram. Digital tools are mainly production tools used in the refinement and analysis of the original concept (to produce not create the "code"). Powerful as they may seem, the cumbersome complexities of navigating a digital tool system (CPU, software, visual interface, input device and power supply) cannot currently compete with the fluidity and focus attainable with the analog system - (pen and paper). All digital characters are modeled and animated using haptic and visual input from analog (real & professionally trained) humans.

I resist digital art as "art" for the following reasons: Digital Art has no haptic record of human activity imbedded in the final object. No under painting, no sketch lines, no corrections; just slick and polished representation (yes it is still just representation), whether it is rich in information or not.

More simply: it does not smell. Are we to lobotomize our senses to accept Mr. Kuspit’s premise and thereby prefer lots of limited information to less information that actually "touches" us? We can relate to haptic records because we share a tactile world, because we make mistakes and we incorporate or work around them. We need that tactile feedback. I can take all the digital images that I can store of my children and all of them combined will pale in comparison to the fleeting power of holding their hand, smelling their hair and thumbing through their drawings.

Many modern and contemporary buildings, while brilliant records of design and building technology, fail miserably to address the human, both in scale and in relation to a community. That is why there is a sculpture, fountain or garden in front of most modern buildings.

The most powerful tool is the one that gets used. The most powerful form of communication is the one that actually communicates.

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Article Author: Lenny Campello

F. Lennox Campello is a widely published Washington, DC and Philadelphia based art critic, as well as an award winning artist and curator. He is also often heard on NPR and the Voice of America discussing visual art issues. …

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