Can anyone talk me out of this? (Or otherwise comment?)

[firecat]

For me, computer art just does not count as a creative thing. It's working at a keyboard. I apparently need some other kind of working with my hands, with a material other than plastic clakety keys and pixels.

Comments

Speaking as a sometimes computer artist

[xp85goblin.livejournal.com]

Art has two sides, a technical side, and an emotive side. The technical side is like any other skill, pressing the right keys on the piano, accurately processing visual information into strokes of a pen. It could be balancing an equation, balancing a ledger, or typing a memo...just another skill. In fact, some artistic skills, like metal sculpture, have the same skillset in common with prototyping a piece of machinery. Where Art and more wholly economic pursuits diverge is in emotive content. A delivery van is devoid of emotive content. It delivers large widgets from point A to point B as cheaply as possible and really doesnt car if it looks good doing it. A piece of sculpture on the other hand, trys to evoke emotion or make some commentary on the nature of human existance. Art lives lower on the hierarchy of disciplines than purely economic ones (ie further from the all-mighty Physics).
Of course that emotive content may be false. A romance paints an unrealistic picture of human sexual realtions for the same reason as a delivery truck delivers credenzas...to make money. But then most romances are not Art either. To me, and this is just me talking, Art involves a certain truthfulness.
So given that a piece of Art made on a computer involves just another skill in the service of (one would hope) a certain vision of artistic Truth. Whether you portray your vision of Truth on a graphics tablet or an eisel, a word processor or an Underwood, is purely a matter of taste. McLuhan aside, content matters, and while the medium is not superfluous, in most cases it is not a barrier to Art either.