| Lillian Schwartz |
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Schwartz is an artist who has a long history of using computer technology to experiment with ways of creating and manipulating works of art. She has also written extensively about the topic of computer influence in art, and about art produced by computers. She made many experiments with Computer Art during her career. Computers are being used by contemporary artists as tools with which to analyse and create works of art. Schwartz was one of the first artists to experiment with computer images and computer effects on art. She worked closely with Scientists in the 1970s in the early stages of computer development, and developed one of the first Rock Music videos. She also made one of the first digitised films to be shown as a work of art, her video ''Pixillation'' showing Diagonal red Square s and other shapes such as Cone s, Pyramid s on black on white backgrounds. This video is regarded as one of the most important early works of computer film art. She worked in the early stages of her career with scientists at Bell Laboratories developing mixtures of Sound , video and art. Later on, during the 1980s, Schwartz made many experiments with artworks manipulating images using computer technology and creating some artworks of her own. EXPERIMENTS WITH LEONARDO'S WORKS Schwartz used the works of Leonardo Da Vinci extensively in experiments with computers. These experiments demonstrated some of the ways in which computers could be used to change and develop images. These images expand the audience's perception of artworks with which they are already familiar. She used a 3D computer generated model to show that the lines on the Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan match the perspective lines of Leonardo's Fresco painting of the Last Supper , showing that his painting may have been designed to appear as an extension of the room within which the monks would have been sitting and observing it. Thus technology has given a new dimension to the painting by allowing viewers to better understand why it possibly had been made. Similarly, in Schwartz's most famous work, the Mona Leo, she spliced the left side of the Mona Lisa with a flipped left side of the red chalk portrait of Leonardo, arguing that the Mona Lisa is a self-portrait by Leonardo. She shows that the Leonardo self portrait and the Mona Lisa line up perfectly, as when the two images noses were aligned the rest of the face lined up exactly. Using lines drawn on the image, she shows the bottom of the Eye , Eyebrow , Nose and Chin all line up together. She also removes the Grey tones in the Leonardo self portrait and superimposes the Mona Lisa eye over it in further experiments to show how the images are closely related. Without the aid of a computer, these experiments would take a much longer amount of time, for instance if she was to paint the Mona Leo by hand. Critics of this theory suggest that the similarities are due to both portraits being created by the same person using the same style. Additionally, some would claim that the drawing on which she based the comparison is not a self-portrait. Her new works each function as separate works of art in themselves with all the characteristics of a work of art, so the computer is a tool which creates art just as a Paintbrush does. This can be considered an art of Appropriation , as where an artist has borrowed the images of another artist to create a new work. COMPUTER IMAGERY Schwartz uses computers to manipulate many other images which relate to art and art history, creating new works of art. Schwartz's experiments with computers to manipulate images were done decades before Digital Art became popular in the late 1990s. She used shapes generated by a computer to make images on the computer screen, such as using Trapezium shapes to create an object recognisable as a Cat , as well as Triangle shapes to represent a human Head . She also experimented with ways to superimpose multiple images onto another recognisable image in an effect of a Collage , as with '' Statue Of Liberty '' and ''Homage to Van Gogh ''. Computers applied in such ways can create collages and images faster than is possible by hand. These images function not only as experiments with computer work, but also as works of art in themselves. ''Statue of Liberty'' is composed of different elements which have been put together using a computer, similar to Cubist collages and Dadaist Photomontages of the early 20th century. She warped images of faces of Rembrandt into a photo of Einstein , showing similarities in the facial features (Fig. 12), a task which would be almost impossible to do by hand, but only take a few seconds with the aid of a computer. She similarly combined images of works of art in a poster for the Museum Of Modern Art in New York in her poster ''Big MoMA'' (Fig. 13), also a nearly impossible task by hand, but relatively easy with computers, and in the process created a legitimate work of art. ROLE OF COMPUTERS The role of computers in the work of the artist has been addressed by Schwartz. Computers can today perform many functions for the artist, from creating artworks through altering photography or by flipping shapes, changing colours, adding tones and a seemingly infinite amount of other uses. Computer artists can create interactive images, Robot installations, digitalised and/or 3 dimensional images. Many of the ways which this latest technology is used to create art makes art into a genre becoming close to being a Video Game or a movie. In her research on computers, Schwartz discusses whether art produced wholly by computers can be considered as art, the question is asked as to what a work of art means. She asks whether it means that something must be produced creatively, or are people impressed with the craftsmanship and effort that has gone into a work such as a Michelangelo or Titian when they think of it as art. For if it is only the craftsmanship which makes a work of art then computers can surely produce artworks since they have the ability to work faster than humans in many ways. Paint and Brushes can be regarded as technology of sorts because they are implements which are made for the artist to use in his painting, just as a painting computer program is there for an artist to create his works on. The Renaissance artists had assistants to mix paints, prepare canvases, or in the case of Rubens even finish off the painting. The computer can be regarded as an assistant which allows the artist greater time to put into creative ideas, and less into repetitive tasks which can easily handled by a computer. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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