This article spoke to me in terms of making active choices as a designer. Playing it safe, making everything exactly the same is undeniably clean however also deathly boring. Not only do you have to break the rules you have to do so with purpose. I made a gif saying “symmetry is boring” because it is. I stayed away from my normal color palette and tried something brighter using shapes I wouldn’t usually choose to use. I had fun.
In this insightful article, there is a deep conversation based on what web designers can do to find a balance between the real artwork versus it being placed virtually. Giampietro discusses that some viewers explain the sculpture with the smell of Walker’s installation having an impact. If someone views the artwork online none of that can be observed other than through comments on the web. However with the fast paced world that we live in today, digital databases are much more convenient than traveling an hour away from the city or on across the country to see a specific cultural art piece. Additionally, for museums to do audience research social media becomes that source instead of doing the mega slow in-person surveys. Additionally with the increase in technology, technological advances becomes an artwork and would me nothing in a 2D frozen photo. However for works that date back to the 1800s, I believe there is a disservice to the artist but possibly even more to the viewer because they don’t get to experience art by only going on online databases.
This article explains how we got to this web we have today full of unlimited use and information. As explained in the article, the intention of the web was never to have so much information available so quickly, rather have necessary information that is thoughtful with a plethora of well researched material. However, now we are left with so much information that most of the time scholars would admit to be a high percentage of the material false. If information was harder to get then the non-linear reading space would give someone all well researched truths instead of clicking through millions of contradicting articles. I do think that the linear reading spaces gives the reader an opinion to interpret for themselves what is bad and good information. Although, the non-linear reading space gives a reader all the information needed about a certain topic in the paper, for example a definition of a word and the article come together not separately of dictionary.com and wikipedia. It is a complicated topic but both have pros and cons that can be discussed over and over, unfortunately as we live in 2015 we must sort out the bads and goods of the linear reading space.
Although technology has been looked down upon over the past decade or so, sometimes it can be a useful tool. I think that expressing art pieces through a website that are located in a museum could be a great thing. Not everyone has the opportunity to go and visit all museums around the world and by show casing them through a website for everyone to see, in my opinion, is a great idea. It is hard to give people the same experience that they feel by visiting art museums, but there are definitely ways to execute that. There are some things to think about while designing the webpage. If the webpage is not designed efficiently or aesthetically pleasing it can exclude some of the experiences you would feel by physically being there. Consequently, putting museums work onto a webpage I believe can be very beneficially to people around the world, especially to inspire people everywhere.
When it comes to designing, there are several approaches that artists can take. While I personally don’t usually work with a grid or a system, yet sometimes it may be more helpful. Designing involves a lot of thinking and planning. While designing you should think about the point you want to get across, and also be aesthetically pleasing. I do not think that you must use a grid system or choose specific fonts and colors to be a “good” design, although, using a grid may be helpful to some people. I personally think that it is harder to make a “good” design when using default settings, specifically in adobe applications. Not all of the settings look a certain way and could come across and boring or unintentional. When creating designed pieces, I feel that all elements must be thought about and chosen carefully or else it could potentially come across to someone else differently. Therefore, if you’re designing an advertising poster or website I think that you should think about all of the elements and not just throw information on the page with the defaulted system.
Question: Did the internet kill the artist?
Sure, there are benefits to having a presence on the web; being able to conveniently make something visible to a large number of people at one time. In my opinion, the internet ruins a lot of amazing human experiences. The act of going to an art museum in itself is an amazing human experience. To a lot people though, this experience seems pointless when they can just view the work online. I’m guilty of this; not wanting to pay to go to movie when I can just wait to torrent it online. This is especially true for books as well. Why would a person buy a book in paper form, when they simply download it onto their ebook, or better yet find it for free online? I think performing actions online instead of having to do it in person takes away a lot of substance and authenticity of the action. The reason work is in a museum is for people to go and view it. The internet is necessary in some ways, but in other ways it is detrimental. This is why I have a conflicted relationship with it.
Is a museum website a good form to experience the art piece ?
Many of the museum these days have a online website, where the visitor could get the basic information as well as the new exhibition and new event. Many exhibitions are photo taken. Video and photography are the form of the recording. I find it useful sometime, when I don’t have time to go to museum. I could simply just get online and read about the most recent exhibition. However the Museum website does lack of pace and sense of the space, I can choose which one image to look at. Also before I get to popular exhibition. I will have already seen the image from elsewhere, such as Intagram. Therefore I think before I went to the museum, I would have a expectation of the show already. That expectation is very much influence by the photographs that I saw through digital devicec. If the photograph is displayed and shot in nice ways, I would have highly expected the exhibition.
As article mentioned, “enforce those pedagogical prescriptions through architecture, texts and other didactic materials, public programming and, of course, the placement of art works themselves—we simply have to acknowledge and even accept the ever-changing role technology plays in that experience, for better or for worse.”Technology and digital interaction between people and the art pieces change the way people approach the art. Therefore I think is important for people to look at the art pieces in its physical form. To approach to the most natural and realistic of the art pieces enable people to have deep thinking. The display space encourages people to step out of environment that once lived in and to able to experience the art piece in five sense ways. Therefore I think museum website is good place for people to get information about the art piece and to read about the story behind it, but going to museum and be in physical space is very import for the visitor as well.
This article explores a new way of accessing art museums. Particularly, through a digital interface, allowing users to view art in a different way. The issue is, does viewing art through a web-based platform convey the same real-life experience that physically going to the museum does? This modern world is very digitally driven and using these interfaces are seen as being more effective and useful. They use an example with the Kara Walker exhibition, and how people saw her work through Instagram so they felt no need to actually go to the exhibit. In doing so, viewers only get a subjective viewing of art through a digital interface. Visiting museums allows the viewer to see through their perspective and not someone else’s.
This subject also opens up the discussion for experiencing art through other mediums. Many museums have some sort of gift shop, where they sell reproductions of art in poster form or miniature sculptures. This gives viewers a way to get the art experience outside of the museum. The MoMa has different design locations throughout the city, selling hip, modern-design objects, gifts, housewares & art books. Just like through the digital interface, do stores convey the same real-life museum experience?
How much our convenience cost?
If you think about the Internet as a whole, it made everything much more convenient. All of your files are stored in one place, all of your music as well. Most of the information you need is here too, just waiting for you to click to discover it. No more piles of files or room storage for all that documentation you had to keep and no more Encyclopedias occupying a lot of space in your office.
The development of the cloud made everything even more convenient, more than we could have ever imagined, especially with the amount of technological devices we have nowadays. Storing your files on the cloud made it easy to access anything you needed, anywhere, not only in your home computer. But, how willingly are we, to leave our data up in the cloud, in the hands of a corporation, in the name of convenience?
Well, I would say a lot, putting in other words, all our privacy. With the creation of the Patriot Act, to look out for possible terrorist attacks, our information is freely seen by authorities, with no regards or care for privacy. It’s a power abuse. There are no boundaries, which would stop the government to invade personal lives. And there is no note or question whether you permit that or not, they just do it. The interesting thing is that when talking about the subject with colleagues, friends and family, everyone is, of course, angry and feeling violated. However they know that there is not much that they can do about it, I mean you would be in a fight with the most powerful government in the world. What can they do? Until today, the most I have seen, so far, is people covering their lap top camera with a piece of paper.