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Articles Inside the 'New White Cube' Over the past two thousand years the fundamentals of craft have not changed. We basically form craft objects and craft products with our hands. This century has seen the rise of electricity aid us in the making of craft, but still its broader practice has changed little. Now at the close of the 2nd millennium craft is being revolutionized by bytes and bits - the art of computing. From the first self-conscious steps with Photoshop to the higher sophistication of 3D imaging, VRML, animation and multimedia, craft is breaking its age-old shackles of materiality and entering a new dimension - the dimension of virtual craft. Craft is beginning to inhabit information space. It is merging with computer technologies to create a new hybrid art or craft form, informed by equal parts of the old and the new. This transformation of craft will be unexpected and rejected and attacked by many. The proclamation of a new computer craft will be seen as a sacrilege by many. But we are not inventing something that does not already exist, but acknowledging tendencies already well under way, giving them a name, making them easier to recognize. Those who are attentive to, and do not close their eyes to the 'new technologies' will see its influences already manifesting in craft: laser cutting techniques, stereo lithography, mathematically influenced CAD, 3D rendering, VRML craft worlds et cetera. Ceramics have played a significant role for mankind and have literally been around for millennia. We may look towards the ancient Egyptians, the Phoenicians, Assyrians or even the native peoples of the ancient Americas. From the first clumps of earth accidentally fired in a campfire to the first functional pit fired vessels. Little has really changed since that time. We still use fire to create our pottery - in wood kilns or gas kilns. The ancient techniques of raku and pit-firings are still very popular. We form works by using our hands to deform, mold and assemble the clay and throw pots on wheels. In some quarters - I am told - the kick-wheel is still alive and kicking. We may now have electric wheels and kilns and other gadgets, but these items don't really constitute a fundamental change in, or addition to our tools and materials. However, I would say that things are looking a bit different now as we rapidly approach the third millennium. Technology is advancing at an ever-increasing speed. Today anyone can buy a computer with more processing power than a 1960's mainframe computer which took up a whole office block, for around $1000. In western societies at least, the computer is becoming a ubiquitous tool, with a strong presence in universities, schools, libraries and of course business and the workplace. Even primary school kids are going to school with their own laptops. They may spend most of their time playing games on them, but that will be the fertile ground on which their other digital capabilities will grow. The possibility of purchasing great processing power at low prices has had a tangible effect on the arts and crafts with more and more artists working in the digital area, not to mention other applications like desktop publishing, word processing, spreadsheeting etc. The computer screen lends itself to the production of 2D images, which are not that far removed from traditional paintings, prints or watercolors, so a fairly strong arena of digital art has established itself. But Digital Craft? Virtual Ceramics? Can there really be such a thing? Well, yes, some ceramic artists and other craftspeople are incorporating the computer and its multitude of possibilities into their work. The notion of digital craft is being talked about and written about - here in Australia by such people as Kevin Murray, or in the United states by Malcolm McCullough or Stanley Lechtzin. Ceramic artists are not just by creating web sites for themselves, or storing their images digitally, but also manipulating their images, and creating work, which at least initially exists in the virtual space of the computer monitor, by using 2D software programs like Photoshop or 3D modeling programs like Lightwave or 3D Studio Max. The way we view these types of works is usually on a screen. Actually we may not be so aware of it but we are surrounded by screens: the computer screen, the TV screen, the slide projection screen, the cinema screen, even the advertising billboard. The computer screen itself appears to contain the images or data we are looking at within its physical dimensions, although it actually only displays the data which is stored somewhere else, the hard drive. This virtual space of the computer monitor can be viewed as an exhibition space of sorts. Of course you do get 'virtual galleries' on the Net, and the data stored on computers around the world is often referred to as 'information space' - an alternative type of space or reality. But the computer monitor also physically extends itself into space with its external dimensions and the possibility of creating 3D worlds on the screen creates an internal visual space. This alternative exhibition space could be called the 'New White Cube'. That other 'white cube' being of course the traditional gallery space with its four neutral white walls. These are works, like all others, which are initially conceived in the mind - a type of virtual space in itself - and then realized using computer software. They are made of the stuff of the digital realm, namely bytes and bits, which are basically combinations of the digits zero and one. Inside the 'New White Cube' Part II |
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the 'New White Cube' - A Journey into the World of Virtual Ceramics is
the transcript of a keynote speech given by Ceramics Today Guide to Ceramics
Steven Goldate at the '