Laurence Gartel and Four Decades of Digital Media Art

Laurence Gartel, widely known as the “Father” of the digital art movement, is speaking at NAEA San Diego on Sunday, March 29, at 9:00 am on Four Decades of Digital Media Art (and Counting). His iconic work spanning four decades has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world, and has linked him to visual artists such as Andy Warhol, Nam Jun Paik, and musicians including Debbie Harry and Sid Vicious. He recently shared some of his thoughts with SchoolArts:

SRX 137

SA: How long have you been working with digital art?

LG: I have been pioneering Digital Art for nearly forty years. There were people before me experimenting but they were mostly engineers and programmer types, not necessarily people with aesthetic goals and values.  These people were more math-driven than anything else – which is not to say it wasn’t valuable, just not necessarily about beauty.

Caddy Water

SA: Isn’t beauty or what’s beautiful a subjective question?

LG: Actually it’s not. That’s the problem with contemporary art these days. Someone can call any object art and they feel they have justified their position.  Art is created by man(kind), which follows a human plan. If there is no plan, no aesthetic, then it’s not Art. I think Marcel Duchamp changed the rules with his “urinal.” People merely agreed or disagreed with what he did turning a utilitarian and functional object upside down into what he deemed art. The public was fooled. I guess it’s a matter of changing societies view that is the real Art and considering this was at the turn of the last century, it was surely a triumph (of sorts).

Car 3D

SA: So share some more of your thoughts on digital art.

LG: Digital Art has infiltrated every person’s life. The transmission of pictures through computers and cell phones has altered social functionality, human condition, memory, and how we perceive our past, present, and future. These days all states of being are ever present. This has never happened in the history of man. We have just changed or shall we say, “reshaped,” how human beings interact with people who have been part of their growth.  Through the sharing of pictures, “strangers” become “friends” and friends can also become superficial. For example, someone from childhood has as much novelty as someone you have just met on the street. Hence, we quantify our connection to people through the quality of photos judged by body language and lighting.

Ferrari Red Car

We are at the point in life where technology has shaped our vision, judgment, and our perception of living. What are the moral codes? Where do we go for protocol, manners, etiquette etc? Seems like we live in a society where “anything goes.” Thank goodness for “red lights” and “stop signs” because today in 2014, we have complete access to everything and, without being told to “halt,” we would have complete anarchy.

Caddy CTS 062

Jewel Nile

SA: So what does all this look like visually?

LG: It depends what you are talking about. If it’s architecture, just look around.  New buildings and structures are made with accessible software packages.  Everything looks the same from Texas to Ohio to upstate New York.  It really does not matter where you are. Design in the hands of those that are creating something for utilitarian use, say a mall, a multi-use dwelling etc, made by average people, you wind up with sophomoric construction. It is the exact same thing for the automotive industry. Can you tell one brand from another these days? They are all the same. Equals boring.

Glass Car Red

I bet if you took a course in architecture today you would come out of your class creating the same buildings as everyone else. To be an artist, you have to be different. This equates to making very different decisions and to take risks. (Which of course sounds very cliché but true.)  An artist is an innovator, someone who thinks “outside the box.” Currently the box for everyone is in doing the same processes as everyone else.  “Click and send” or press command P for print, or press the “F” key to redo your “swirl” filter in Photoshop. What has to happen is innovation. Take something and change it.  Invent another use or methodology.

SA: What do you see in the future for digital art?

LG:  Well, I see the future is Digital Laser Printing - printing on various substrates and multi-layer printing to have depth in a two-dimensional image.  Depending on the substrate (wood, glass, plastic, marble, etc), this will bring forth varying and unique results.

Maybach

SA: Tell us about your Art Cars.

LG: I try to stretch the limits, raise the bar, and also try to top myself or shall I say, “discover” more both for the viewer/appreciator and myself. If everything looked the same, it would not expand a person’s life. (Why read the same book over and over again?) Often an artist reaches a pinnacle of success in a style and he/she gets stuck doing the same thing because it is accepted and sells. One could sell “pizza” and get the same result. It’s a redundancy over and over again just for commerce’s sake. I think at that point, it stops being Art and becomes a factory of manufacture. The Artists who have impacted our world never did that. (With the exception of Warhol, of course.) “The Factory was the Art.” Vision in pop culture however long it dates back to always elicited a spiritual excitement.

Art is about new discoveries. Placing my Art on cars allows the public to see something new. After all, I am the only one on the road with such a vehicle. It makes a statement. People now know what the possibilities are, and what they can do, which they never knew they could before. It is a very exciting time to be alive. I hope it lasts indefinitely!

Rolls Print N

Self Portrait