Week 1: Introduction to Digital Art

So why am I here? Well, the really cynical and pragmatic answer is: I could could fit two units into one day, which is convenient given my cross-institutional enrolment. And the other reasons? Truth, maybe? That phrase, 'the camera never lies', such an untrue statement in itself, is worth exploring. Can greater truths actually be told through digital manipulation? And can those truths be extracted using not necessarily the most complex tools and techniques, but by stretching the most basic and most widely available tools? Can those truths be found in the most mundane subjects and themes rather than the most extraordinary? I mean, look at this photograph (ABOVE) of the northern lights in the Yukon, Canada. This extrordinary moment is a photo of 'nature', it is 'natural' and stunning - what would be the point of me trying to replicate that unless perhaps it was a SFX for a film?

I'm a blank wacom drawing tablet really - whatever that is. I've dabbled in the most basic image enhancement and audio file stuff that's been useful for everyday purposes and to get from this through education and research to art will be an interesting journey.

Before the semester began I was looking at faces particularly from the 'Black Saturday' Victorian bushfire media coverage (see http://www.theage.com.au/national/bushfires), a documentary on the origins of facial plastic surgery (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00dd18c and also http://www.gearability.com/2007/11/03/the-origins-of-plastic-surgery/). Plastic surgery is an example of discovery following the need for innovation in war, in other words it was developed and practised largely upon male soldiers with facial injuries but becomes transformed into an industry practised largely on women who have been socialised to be dissatisfied and anxious about their bodies. And, finally, my interest in a new US drama,'Lie to Me', which is based on uncovering the villian by analysing facial micro-expressions (see http://www.fox.com/lietome/).

Faces seem to be such a vital seat of 'identity' and the items above raise such questions for me as: What or where is my identity if I have no face or a damaged face; particularly as a woman and that whole history of investing worth in beauty? If we give away our true motivations through our faces, why do most of us miss most of the clues and get into so much trouble with each other? Are my expressions me? Do I control them? Or are they biology and evolution?

In addition, faces are also used for 'identification' as in 'I identify with this other person because they seem to be like me' or 'there but for the grace of God go I'. So in terms of the February 2009 bushfire coverage there is an astonishing array of photography, much of it Destruction Beautiful, and much of it tugging at our emotions by displaying faces unmasked, naked, raw. This is a sort of commercialised truth. This collecting and publishing of what seems to be to be private grief and trauma, clearly, is not a neutral activity: there are reasons for printing such photos. They create drama out of emotion. Emotion and drama cue responses in us, including anxiety through identification. To soothe, or further excite ourselves, we buy more papers and more commercials (through tuning into TV news)...when and why did such graphic, extensive and personal coverage of disaster, funerals and accidents become news?

It seems likely that in these aroused states people become more open or susceptible to other actions or forms of persuasion. For instance, a political agenda has been attached to this tradegy, that is Kevin Rudd's Annual National Day of Mourning, these events appear to be being moulded into 'Our Australian identity'. Maybe the thinking is something like this, 'If bushfire is a way of life in Australia...even back into Indigenous burning practices...and, after the disaster, 'we' show our 'true colours', our 'unique' Australian 'values', through our compassionate response, then QED it must be part of who 'we' are as a nation. Thus, if an overseas early 2oth century military disaster can be converted into a location for national identity, why not this which happened in our backyard?'

Anyway, I like to pay attention to the 'coincidence' of these materials coming into my attention and I hope that something will emerge from this, maybe family photos and holiday films and the truths and lies that they depict? Maybe it would be very cool to learn how to use Second Life, build a family home, create a family and run the films and slideshows there? I've got no idea how long that might take...anyway onto the journey.