Articles & Comment
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 Evolution of Digital Art

-Preeti Gopalkrishnan

India has been the center of Art and culture since time immemorial. Man's creativity has been evolving and taking different shapes as he started honing his skills. At every stage of his life, he has been using different tools and techniques to unleash his creativity.

Besides artworks themselves, even the tools and techniques give an idea of the lifestyles in those times.

Sculpting, easily among the earliest forms of art, involved giving shape to wood and stone. Such carvings were an integral part of the creative expression of the Stone Age, and still an important artform today. These ancient artforms then gave way to newer ones like painting on walls with natural pigments and then on cloth and other media.

Thus, art has undergone a total metamorphosis and has evolved over the years. Each era has seen the evolution of a new artform and we now being in the Cyber Age are experiencing what is called Computer Art or Digital Art.

Huge strides in technology have paved the way for a whole new artform. In the conventional form, creativity manifests itself through the paint and the brush while today, in this age of technological revolution, it happens through the mouse and other tools and software. That's what Digital Art is all about. The creative mind is the same, only the means are different.

Digital Art has some wonderful prospects- creating a fusion, for one. A fusion of creativity and technology- 16 million colours to choose from. One can't fathom what variety and scope computers give the artists. Using a computer to create art gives one the flexibility to undo any mistake that is very possible by the human hand. Ask how valuable this feature would be to all those artists who probably spent so many hours and materials to paint on, only to discover that there is a mistake and all their effort is in vain!

Creativity knows no bounds and there could be no better way of expressing it than through Digital Art- the art of the millennium.
 

 Digital Art: An evolving medium

-Reilly Rebello

Digital Art. What is Digital Art? Isn't this the most frequent reply you've got, when you ask someone about Digital Art. So what really is Digital Art?

Putting it very simply, Digital Art, is art that is created with the help of a computer using varied computer graphic softwares. Digital art is also referred to as Digiart or Digital imagery. Digital Art is a new phenomena emerging in our world...the Art of the future This new form of art is emerging naturally from within the new global online society as it matures and evolves to form online and real world artifacts. It has an individual identity as distinct as photography or acrylic painting. What makes it so unique is the fact that it is a virtual, digital rendition of actual computer art or electronic imagery.

Digital artists experiment with new visual effects made possible with the help of a computer and incorporate these visual elements into a historically new visual art form. They use the computer to make art instead of the traditional canvas or paper. There are many software's available in the market that can be installed onto a computer, by which an artist or rather any person can experiment with and learn the various intricacies of art. These software's, or can we call them our paints and paintbrush's, help us in the process of making an artwork.

There is now another aspect of showcasing art, which goes hand in hand with art mainly, Digital Art, i.e.; the Internet. Through the various breakthroughs in technology and telecommunications, this form of art can be presented to a worldwide audience, by not even getting up from your chair. The Internet has become an unavoidable part of our lives. Over just the last few years we have seen radical changes in the way this new technology is changing the way we live, think and shop. Although many artists, collectors and galleries continue to have fears and concerns, even their reluctance is slowly beginning to erode as they accept the inevitability of this powerful, wide reaching tool. Therefore art has to choose to cooperate with science in order to continue to be a viable vehicle to expand our reality and to keep up with the changing conditions of the world, and therefore life itself as we experience and perceive it. Art therefore represents artifacts of, past world realities and is a predictor of future changes of the evolving society, which lags behind the avant-garde in art in changing with the pressures of contemporary life.

At present the parameters and boundaries of Digital Art have not yet been defined, it is still evolving and will continue to evolve for as long as technology progresses, the boundaries of Digital Art will also be pushed further and further. We are the pioneers for this new technology that is exploding with opportunity on a daily basis. Let us explore it, embrace it and experiment with it. Above all, let us continue to be creative and have fun!