Week 5 - David Lasnier, iTouch artist, talks about his art with Wired.com.

David Lasnier graduated from Villa Arson art school, Nice, France, in 2000.  From that point he has worked as a video artist who occasionally draws.  Last month Lasnier started creating art on his iPod Touch with Brushes and uploading the art to the Brushes Gallery at Flickr. And there has been a result from his foray into digital arts. Lasnier is now painting again, using acrylics on canvas as his medium.

The app, Brushes, was the winner of the Apple Design Award in 2010 and was used to create the cover of the June 1, 2009 issue of The New Yorker.  It costs $4.99 at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/brushes-iphone-edition/id288230264?mt=8/.

In the interview at Wired.com Lasnier talks about the limitations of the iPod and how it increases his creativity which in turn increases his productivity.  He spends one hour creating an image!  The objects he chose to work with are everyday objects such as the corner of his spiral notebook, ink jar and staple remover.  He mentions the fun he had with each image. 

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According to Lasnier digital art as he is creating it is not marketable.  How feasible is it to print?  And look how readily available it is through galleries in The Cloud. 

Do I agree with him?  He certainly has a point.  Have you ever tried to print out a color document and had it match the exact color you had painted?  In my view a printer cannot mix colors as an artist can.The only place it remains as creative as the artist meant it is in The Cloud.

But there is a progression toward viewing digital art as an art form.  The Austin Museum of Digital Art - located in Austin, Texas - sums their philosophy of digital art quite aptly at their website:

"AMODA defines digital art as art that uses digital technology in any of three ways: as the product, as the process, or as the subject."

My foray into the digital arts world has included the creation of two paintings. They took quite a bit of time and effort.  I first used ArtPad and then decided to use SumoPaint because it offered more tools which I thought would be necessary for this course.  It certainly was fun. 

The ArtPad image titled “Summer in Vermont” can be see at ArtPad where they show the creation of the image from the very start.  The SumoPaint image titled "Fall is Here" is shown below.

Resources:

http://www.wired.com/culture/art/multimedia/2009/02/gallery_brushes

Interview with David Lasnier

http://www.amoda.org/about/digitalart.php

Austin Museum of Digital Art

http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/

Digital Arts Gallery

http://www.digitalartistdaily.com/

A magazine for digital artists

http://www.withdigitaleyes.com/pgs/digiart.htm

A digital artist's website

"Fall is Here"