What is hybrid art? What makes it special or different than ‘regular’ art, that is; paintings, sculptures, photography? These are the questions that popped into my head when I read the description for the assignment. I had never heard of hybrid art, so I looked it up on everyone’s favorite website… Wikipedia!! Wikipedia described Hybrid Arts as “a contemporary art movement in which artists work with frontier areas of science and emerging technologies.” Wiki also directed me to look up ‘computer art’ which is “any art in which computers play a role in production or display of the artwork.” I decided to focus my search for a subject on this area of Hybrid art because it seemed like it would be the best visual display of this concept. Searching the internet for one example of computer art to use I found a very broad spectrum the use of computers in creating computer art. The piece I chose to focus on uses computers in several distinct ways. The use of computers in the creation of this piece of art evokes an emotion to the painting while also creating an intriguing and thought provoking visual display.
The woman’s face in this picture is not a photograph, as it may appear, but an image created by vectors. Using vectors to create an image is a very precise and technological procedure. It is something that can only be done using a computer. The images created by vectors are very realistic, and can be used to create 3D images and animation. When used in art these images can also be very powerful. The realistic qualities to this woman’s face make the viewer feel as if they are looking at a photograph, but the actual picture itself is clearly digitally created. This creates an abstract quality that helps bring emotion into the picture. The eyes in this picture, for example, are very life like and evoke a sense of longing. This feeling is strong in the picture because of the fact that the eyes are so realistic. If this picture was drawn or painted this emotion might not be so strong because the eyes would not be as clear and detailed.
Another way emotion is conveyed in this picture is through the images on the woman’s face. The face itself is very life-like, but these images are more obviously digitally created. This creates a sense of entrapment because the images look like a part of the woman, but the viewer knows this is not a normal face. The woman looks as if she is trying to see beyond this digital mask, but is trapped behind it. Perhaps the artist was trying to show how technology is captivating, beautiful and intriguing, but confining at the same time.
One intriguing aspect of this picture is the mixture of the familiar with the unfamiliar. If this was just a vector image of a woman’s face it would still be art, but the combination of the vector image with the digital pictures makes it much more fascinating. It is easy to say that this picture is realistic, but at the same time it is so unlike anything the viewer has ever seen in the ‘real world.’ For me the most interesting part about this work of art is that it looks like a photograph, but at the same time I know it cannot be real. Because I know it is not a naturally occurring thing, I also know it must have been created by technology. When I consider this I also consider why the artist created it in exactly the way that he or she did. This makes me look more closely at the way the image was created and put together.
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