Two Stop Bits | I've to admit, I don't see computers and Andy Warhol as that perfect match, I ha...

masswerk 158 days ago | parent

I've to admit, I don't see computers and Andy Warhol as that perfect match, I have seen it been suggested to be. Warhols' approach to serialization built on this as an industrial process, and this being an industrial process almost exclusively. Graphical computers suddenly made this accessible to individuals. From now on, there was really no difference between a single copy and serial reproduction, as exposed by what became known as the Desktop Publishing revolution. Which pretty much led to Warhol falling out of favor.

(My impression of that Amiga demo is really more that of Warhol being lost, and realizing that he was going to lose his claim to the machine. Like any great artist, Warhol was reflecting the cultural and productive conditions of his time, and this time was coming to an end, as the gap between the kind of imagery corporations could produce and what was available to individuals was closing.)

bmonkey325 157 days ago
I liken it to the “bicycle for the mind”, it enables more people to do great things - but in the hands of a skilled master it can be quite something.
At one time artists could only make one of something. Later with 4 colour processes you could make a lot of something so that more persons could have and enjoy the creation. With digitsl even more could enjoy something - created by a master or not.
- masswerk 157 days ago
  Idk, given that Warhol's mastery was in reproducing – and elevating – that kind of blunt impression, serial corporate imagery was dumping ubiquitously onto the public, the fact that now everyone could produce a false-color image in solarized aesthetic (something that had been previously a complex process, involving various crafts and a certain amount of sloppiness) by 3 clicks anywhere on the screen and send it off to serial reproduction by another click, was not great news.
  To me, the demo has something morbid about it. It's a bit like demoing a generative AI interface with Hayao Miyazaki, showing how everybody can now impersonate his style – and everything that had been sacred to him, like the combination of craftsmanship and imagination to capture a personal expression of a fragile world – by typing a few careless words into a chat prompt. ("Totoro in a vintage seaplane, Miyazaki, award winning, high resolution.")
  - bmonkey325 157 days ago
    I see it in a way but you still had to have eye for composition and style. There are still videos of people wielding MS paint to produce art that awes me and produces something I could never do.
    In the era of dall-e or midjourney feels like a cheat code in comparison.
    - masswerk 156 days ago
      I guess, it's still somewhat similar. For example, producing a posterized image previously involved separating and clamping brightness ranges using orthographic film and expertly judging exposure time, and masking these masks by other masks, or tracing images on masking film, before you could even think of preparing the actual printing process. Notably, both methods involved an interpretation of the image, aesthetic judgement, and expertise, guided by experience how this would behave robustly in a printing process. Now, there is a "posterize image" dialog, which does the same by a single click. – The modern approach is hard to control, though, which may be one of the reasons, we don't see that aesthetic not that much, anymore. It practically vanished from common experience. The impact of "easy to use" technology on our culture and shared imagination is not to be underrated, and may not work out the way, we may have expected.