NEW MEDIA?

Kenseth Armstead asked:
What are your favorite sites for viewing design? How have your experiences
as a commercial designer affected your notion of new media art in general?

khyal braun, partner, blowtorch responded:

NeW mEdIa InFlUeNcEs, NoT wHaT yOu'D eXpEcT

[…]

I am looking, bored, as pixels gather, vying for my split second
attention, huddling their tiny pixel bodies so tight and quick to form a
message, which damn-well better be good, 'cause time is money, baby. I like my
information fast.

[…]

As always and ever, i want to use my mind to create fresh new ideas, i want
to employ these ideas from my mind into "reality," as seamlessly as
possible. Artistically, i do not enjoy being bogged down by the trend of
proper media, the learning curve on technical aspects (which i find
completely uninteresting,) or the overt fashionable nature of the current
beast. i remember when no one would show my work ten years ago because it
was made on a computer. Now it's almost mandatory. go figure.

Jackie Lightfield, partner, blowtorch responded:

SAD TALES FROM THE INFO HIGHWAY

The buzz about technology and art hypes the wrong things for the wrong reasons.
The greatness of a medium is not so much the technical aspects of it, but the
delivery aspects. Did the Gutenberg Press make the bible new? Did egg tempera
make the Renaissance happen? Did the pencil make words poetic? A computer and a
modem are simply tools. In the hands of creative people these tools will
allow artists to make more, and distribute ideas broader and quicker.

What we see on the web these days misses this point. We get slower and
fewer original works. As artists converge in this medium, they are
succumbing to the
techno-geek compulsion to be feature rich instead of impacting. Great design
should not come between purpose and audience. There are some great sites on the
web that deliver the mix well. The IRS site, the Connectix site
(http://www.connectix.com) and the RocketScience site
(http://www.chiba.com/clients/rocketsci/demo), come to mind. Each site has
a specific purpose, and the design holds the content in a tight container
that delivers the content in a way that makes best use of technology.