Chapter 1 Response

Reading Chapter one of my Digital Art textbook I have learned the evolution of the Internet and the digital image. During the cold war the United States developed the Advanced Research Projects Agency. This agency was within the Department of Defense and was created to stay on top as technological leaders of the world. The agency wanted to create a communication network that was safe from nuclear war. During the 1960’s four supercomputers were built, networked together and placed at universities across the country. They called this network ARPANET and this was the beginning of the Internet.

The first creation of digital artwork was also developed in the early 1960’s and was created by a research technician from Bell Laboratories. His name was Michael Knoll and his computer generated images were abstract in form, created out of mathematical algorithms, (like a geometric drawing on a etch a sketch). As computer technology advanced so did the application for digital art forms. Early digital art was not considered art because it did not have a physical presence and was thought that the computer did all the work not the artist.

An artist featured in chapter one that is fascinating to me is the work of a German artist by the name of Jochem Hendricks. He has made organ response art called Augenzeichnungen when translated to English is Eye Drawings during the 1990’s. A subject wears an eyeglass like device which measures eye movements as the eye traces a target like text or an image then digitized this information into a line drawing. He accomplishes this with the use of infrared, video and a computer. He describes his work as, “Eye-drawings are drawings done directly with the eyes, without the slightest interference of the hands - the organ of perception being turned into the organ of expression.” (Hendricks n.d.) Since the 1990’s eye tracking technology has advanced so much and is now a standard features to some digital cameras. This brings me back to the thought of technology doing all the work and what it means to have an eye for photography.



Hands



Desk

Face

Works Cited

Hendricks, Jochem. Jochem Hendricks. http://www.jochem-hendricks.de/englisch/w_augen/non_index.htm (accessed February 22, 2011).

http://www.jochem-hendricks.de/englisch/non_index.htm

http://www.clavius.org/img/whirlwind-computer.jpg

http://noll.uscannenberg.org/