Digital Art
May 6

Digital Art

By January 26, 2022April 29th, 2022No Comments

Our understanding of “What is art?” is a topic of constant evolution and never-ending discussion.
From the Realism of the Barbizon School, through the Impressionism of Claude Monet, the continuing development and progression of artistic style lead to the emergence of Pointillism under the influence of George Seurat and Paul Signac.

Born from the mixture of art and science, it is through the retina’s perception of the juxtaposition of colours that the image manifests from the painting. By this technique, artists construct an optical illusion that enhances the dialogue between the 3D scene depicted and the 2D surface of the canvas.

Claude Monet, The Nympheas, 1914-1926, Musee de l’Orangerie, Paris, France

Georges Seurat, Circus, 1890-91, Orsay Museum, Paris, France

Sol Lewitt, Wall Drawing #1136

Contemporary artists of the 20th century, like Sol Lewitt, brought the discussion of what we see and accept as art across new boundaries, challenging the viewer with questions of what is, can, and should be the medium. Rejecting the traditional idea that painting should be hung on the wall or be restricted to the frame, he chose instead to paint directly on the walls or floor. His paintings stretch from one wall to another, occupying the given surface complete with its imperfections, building angles, and curves.

In the modern era of rapid digitalisation of life, there is a natural, parallel evolution of art leveraging new technologies and expanding to new media. Digital art now occupies new spaces on myriad screens around the world. Science, Technology, and Art are blending within this domain to drive innovation, such as AI-based algorithms that allow us to contemplate the beauty of new pieces of Digital Art. Refik Anadol is a key figure in this revolutionised artistic movement. In his digital masterpieces, he plays with abstract various forms that take personalized sense in spectator imagination. 

 

However, it is not only visual arts that inspire from science and enter the digitalization path. Audio and video art are also undergoing digital transformation. 

 

In this Session we will be discussing:

  • The evolution of art towards digital
  • The perception of digital art through the new medium
  • AI algorithms for Digital Art
  • The intersection of Art and Science in Digital Art
  • Is NFT the future of Digital Art?

Refik Anadol, Machine Hallucinations: Coral Dreams, private collection

Experts:

Director and Founder of DAM Projects, Berlin

Wolf Lieser

AI as Artist?

Wolf Lieser is the founder and director of DAM Projects. After several years of working as a freelance art consultant and gallerist in Wiesbaden, he launched the Digital Art Museum (DAM) as an exclusively web-based museum in 1998, which was a revolutionary innovation at the time, developing it in collaboration with London Metropolitan University. At the same time he ran Colville Place Gallery alongside Keith Watson, the first ever gallery with focus on Digital Art. In 2003, DAM Gallery (now DAM Projects) was established in Berlin, followed by the DAM DIGITAL ART AWARD in 2005. Since 2006, DAM cooperates with Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, where Digital Art is presented on a public video screen in the patio several times a day.
Co-Founder of Birds on Mars, Berlin

Florian Dohmann

"New perspectives on AI"

Florian Dohmann is co-founder and chief creative of Birds on Mars, a new generation consultancy and AI agency where he and his team help organizations to create strategies, spaces teams and products, exploring the in-betweens of human creativity, machine intelligence and organizational identity. Florian is an expert for data, artificial intelligence & digital change, intelligence architect and creative, based in Berlin. He is a computer scientist, machine learner, IBM disciple, keynote speaker, guest lecturer at various universities and co-inventor of the artificial muse.
Co-Founder of Birds on Mars, Berlin

Klaas Bollhöfer

"New perspectives on AI"

Entangled Others

Sofia Crespo

Expressing Entanglement: Art and the More-Than-Human World

Sofia Crespo is an artist working with a huge interest in biology-inspired technologies. One of her main focuses is the way organic life uses artificial mechanisms to simulate itself and evolve, this implying the idea that technologies are a biased product of the organic life that created them and not a completely separated object. Crespo looks at the similarities between techniques of AI image formation, and the way that humans express themselves creatively and cognitively recognize their world. Her work brings into question the potential of AI in artistic practice and its ability to reshape our understandings of creativity. On the side, she is also hugely concerned with the dynamic change in the role of the artists working with machine learning techniques. She’s also the co-founder of Entangled Others Studio.
Entangled Others

Feileacan McCormick

Expressing Entanglement: Art and the More-Than-Human World

Norwegian artist, researcher & former architect based in Berlin whose practice meditates on ecology, nature & generative arts, with a focus on giving non-human new forms of presence & life in digital space.
Senior Curator & Project Manager

Peggy Schoenegge

Shaping Technology - AI in Contemporary Art

Peggy Schoenegge has curated several exhibitions on AI. In her lecture, she presents AI applications in contemporary art and draws a picture of this technology that reveals potentials, limitations and challenges.