OUAN 401 : Context of practice - lecture 6: Digital culture

Today's lecture went into undoubtedly one of the most relatable subject to out generation , that is the digital aesthetic and culture that was brought about the information era. Right at the start , Fred really pointed out a very interesting fact about how we are essentially the first generation , born and raised in a digital-driven society ,while he was there at the beginning of it. Sometime taking a step back to view the bigger image like this really astonished you , and have been the case on a lot of occasion for me : Taking Youtube and Facebook as examples, both websites have played such a large part in my social life and we take it as norm so much that we don't even realised , they have been only around for 10 years or so. Or perhaps even  a bigger picture , in the 90s they were bringing out the first Macs and PCs, (in all their clunky glory ) and now we have laptops and processors that are twice as small and hundred times as powerful. Without a doubt , the advancement of digital technology has been one of the fastest in human history , and in turn has been one of the most influential to human behaviour, as I can see right now in my nephew , who is only 3 years old yet he is proficient with an ipad and the Internet. This was one of the major point that this lecture mentioned. Its also extremely interesting when Fred pointed out that this idea had already been existed and predicted in as far back as the 60s , by Marshall Mcluhan, philosopher and public intellectual.

Of course , the art industry has had an major influence from this change, especially in the field of industrial art production and professions like graphic designer and typographers. For example , the introduction of the Apple Mac, the first commercially affordable PC really propelled the industry to new heights , on the one hand , creating new platforms for designer to work on that is more accurate , more productive, more editable , making physical forms of production becoming more and more obsolete, and on the other hand, create an emphasis on individual creativeness that has been bounded by the rigid rules of modern and post-modernism aesthetic of the 60s to 80s. Especially right now , the art industry is ever moving toward digital production , especially noticeable in fields of graphic design and animation ( 2D animation - the most traditional form of animating, has , in the West , has move nearly full-digital , with old methods done purely for stylistic values and short films. ). Even in traditional art, digital painting has become a major player, and with the rise of the Internet and mass media , the distribution of it only becomes easier and easier , and kick start a whole new generation of artists and art types , such as , fan arts. 

During this change , the aesthetic is also gradually affected, which is the topic that Fred bring up next : The digital aesthetic. This is pushed by the increasing appearance of the visual language of digital technology and the blending of virtual reality. One of the interesting point of this is how our current technology alters our representation of the future. Take the image of the future in say Back to the Future and The new rebooted Star Trek, it is very different ( the BTTF being a cornier type of future, of crazy rubber suits and punk-type fashion that is very much influenced by the trends that was going on in the 80s and 90s , while Star Trek , uses our current view of the future, dominated by touch-screens, space exploration and high glass towers. 

 

With that said , it should be mention how much technological aesthetic has also had a hand in the overall aesthetic : like the association between "futuristic" object with the colour white and blue for example ( brought on by Apple ) , or starting with a single letter word for a name like an I phone , or an X box, and not just limited to real technology , but even fictional ones like the gadgets in Mission Impossible or Star Trek. As an illustrator and digital artist that have done many character design with futuristic aspects , I'm very aware of this aesthetic trends and always prepare myself to adapt to newer changes which will surely come. 

However , what happens when we cannot catch up to such fast-growing technologies, well that is discussed in one the most interesting part of the lecture : Nostalgia vs Innovation. Sometime , the innovation reach a point that we ourselves can not cope to comprehend ( aka , Snapchat ) , so we almost instinctively revert back to the aesthetic that we are familiar with ( Facebook in this case ) . For example , the re-introduction of Vinyl records or the recent re-production of the old NES ( that sold out COMPLETELY , how about that for nostalgia ) . In the animation industry , studio Ghibli would be a perfect example , as even though most animation nowadays are done fully in digital , they still take a stand on creating hand painted backgrounds and very traditional method of animation , that in turn ,  have the most artistic value that all modern animators, who while still focused on evolving CGI and 3D animation would still revert back to and praise them . So that idea of making everything seem "hand-made" again is a concept that many aspiring animators , especially this generation really strive to achieve, myself included. 

What I have taken from this is that , changes in society through time affects the cultural values and aesthetic of it , and it is my job as an animator to be able to acknowledge and  adapt to that change , and among it , find my own representation of what is considered "aesthetically pleasing "