My aim from doing an art degree is to eventually become an art teacher, I have a passion for the subject that I want to share with others, inspiring them and helping nurture the passion and love of art in others. Last week I was at an interview for a teaching course, one of the things that they asked us to do was to talk about how our own practice could influence a lesson. I decided to talk about technology’s influence on art.
I hadn’t really realised before but my art is incredibly reliant on modern technology and computers. I source my material from the internet before printing them out and creating drawings using these photographs. I will then scan the drawings and edit them in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to make them absolutely perfect – I like to make the lines crisp and smooth, taking away that hand drawn feel. I then have these printed bigger onto acetate and drafting film before putting them onto silk screens for printing. I then photograph the work and edit the images to put onto the internet.
This struck me as being actually incredibly reliant on technology and learning technical skills to be able to make my work in this way. So how has technology influenced art over the last few decades? Even in the last 5 years the programs have come a long way, Photoshop is now a predominant program that is used even in schools. When I was doing digital photography in 6th form my teachers didn’t know how to use Photoshop, me & a friend taught ourselves, I can’t imagine not treaching children how to use this now, it has beome so important and everybody expects you to know how to use at least the basics.
Artists use a web presence like this blog site as well as Tumblr, Facebook and personal websites to promote their work which involves not only photographing the work but being able to manage online content. Another skill that children are picking up younger and younger and I believe is going to be a key part of their learning in schools the further along they get. I want to look at the way technology is influencing children’s perception on art and the work that they are making; this stemming from my own work. Printmaking is such a traditional skill and technique going back to Albrecht Durer and his prints, yet now we are able to add a modern twist.
My own work would not be possible without the aid of technology to create my designs, I wonder how my work would differ if I wasn’t able to use Photoshop and whether I have become overly reliant on this as a tool for making my work? I am very interested to know how other students feel their work is influenced by technology, more so with people using traditional techniques such as drawing or painting. I think that people would be surprised at the amount of computer work that is involved in making a lot of art work.
