Editorial of the special issue ‘‘Technology and digital art’’
Digital art, as it is known in our time, entered the world the possibilities of instant access to media elements that can of art in the late 1990s when cultural institutions such as be reshuffled in ostensibly infinite combinations. Instruc- museums and art galleries started progressively to include tion-based algorithmic creation is related to the combina- digital art installations in their exhibitions to support tion of strict rule-based processes, where the instruction is initiatives in this field. This was the result of some 50 years adopted as a conceptual element in the creative process. of previous experiments and seminal works exploring Presentational virtuality allows the shift from physical technology and mechanical devices to render artistic objects to the manipulation of pure concepts in the form of creations, a process that started around the 1920s. Artists ‘‘virtual objects’’ that can become dynamic and volatile, like Marcel Duchamp and László Moholy-Nagy intro- provoking (highly) expressive effects on the side of the duced the concepts of interaction and virtuality in artwork. observer. This later may assume a more active role as John Cage has explored the new concepts of automatically player, when interacting with the artwork itself by controlled randomness and instruction-based algorithms in exploring new forms of human–machine and human– music composition; pioneers as Grahame Weinbren, Nam human interaction and interfacing. June Paik, Michael A. Noll, John Whitney and Vera From the point of view of the Computer Graphics Molnar, to mention only few names, have explored the community digital art has been considered one of its concept of random access in audio and computer- application areas. The great achievements in Computer generated images. Animation of the last two decades and the growing number Digital art applies digital technologies from multimedia, of worldwide Digital Art and Edutainment fairs and virtual reality, computer vision and/or digital sound with expositions organized in the last years are an indirect digital storytelling technique in order to create aesthetical acknowledgement of the success of the applications and channels of communication in the form of interactive exploitation of technologies developed within the Compu- installations and digital artifacts. On one hand digital ter Graphics community for artistic, educational and artists consider computer technology as a means of entertainment purposes. enhancing creativity, and on the other hand, as a final Digital art represents the last vanguard where creative artifact (artistic object). people explore technologies together with the combination Accordingly, we define here digital art as ‘‘the art that of new media content and materials, in order to conceive explores the digital medium (tools, technologies and novel aesthetical experiments, to implement innovative content), as a process or tool for creation, as an end- expressive information representations, able to generate product (informative content and support) or as an artistic original sensations and establish new forms of beauty. This topic’’. issue gives a snapshot of some projects going on in the field It is worth mentioning here that digital art has been of digital art. These works are examples that show the evolving as much by the development of science and diversity and issues involved in technology and digital arts. technology, as by artistic-historical influences. As a matter H. Zhou and S.P. Mudur in their paper entitled ‘‘3D of fact, certain art circles continue to deny a place for Scan-based Animation Techniques for Chinese Opera computers in the world of art. In spite of this, nowadays Facial Expression Documentation’’ present an experimen- digital technologies are becoming more and more ubiqui- tal 3D graphics system for documenting Chinese opera tous and highly expressive, allowing creative people to facial make-up and expressions, a work that has been create new aesthetical representational forms of informa- developed over the last 3 years. Chinese opera is one of the tion; today we can hardly anticipate its full future oldest dramatic art forms with many different styles that expansion. underwent a serious decline, and the exaggerated facial The development of digital art is essentially founded in make-up and expressions are the most important elements four central lead vectors: controlled randomness access; of this kind of art. instruction-based algorithmic creation; presentational vir- C. Caires in his paper ‘‘Towards the interactive filmic tuality; and interaction. Controlled randomness opens up narrative. Transparency: an experimental approach’’
0097-8493/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cag.2007.08.007 ARTICLE IN PRESS 786 Editorial / Computers & Graphics 31 (2007) 785–787
reflects on the mutations of the filmic narrative, along with characteristics represented as video annotations, either by its adaptation to interactivity based on new models of defining criteria or by interactively performing selections in implementation. A cinematographic experimental project the evolving population of video clips, in forms that can named after Transparency is presented. Its main goal is to reflect editing styles. The authors argue that with evolving study the interactive filmic narrative. A prototype under video, the clips can be explored and discovered through the form of an installation is described. It allows the emergent narratives and aesthetics in ways that may reveal spectators to choose the narrative sequences of the story. or inspire creativity in digital art. The author concludes the article with a discussion of the This issue was possible by the support of several results achieved and future potentialities of interactive reviewers who have offered their precious help in the filmic narratives. correction and improvement process of its content. To R. P. Garcı́a and J. M. M. Aróstegui present ‘‘A them we give our sincere appreciation. Cooperative Robotic Platform for Adaptive and Immersive Adérito Fernandes Marcos received a Artistic Installations’’ which is a novel approach for 5-year degree in Computer Science immersive artistic installations called POEtic Cubes. Engineering from the Nova University Compared to traditional solutions this approach ensures of Lisbon and a Ph.D. suma cum laude short and long-term adaptation capabilities, which allows in Computer Graphics and Informa- artists to configure each installation based on a process of tion Systems from the Technical Uni- artificial implementation of auto-organisation. During the versity of Darmstadt, Germany. interaction with the installation the user can experience an For 6 years he co-operated with the adaptation process that, starting from an undifferentiated Fraunhofer Institute IGD in Darm- initial state, activates a set of cells to auto-organise in order stadt as a Guest Researcher. to construct a multi-cellular organism whose physical Between November 1997 and October 2005 he has been structure (phenotype) is driven by the user interaction. the Executive Director of the Computer Graphics Centre The interface of the installation is both transparent and (CCG), an Interface Institute of the University of Minho. natural, since it is just driven by the movements of the In this position he has leaded the transfer and establish- user’s body, without the need of wearing specific artefacts. ment process of this institute at the Azurem campus of the P. Machado et al. dwell ‘‘On the Development of University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal. Evolutionary Artificial Artists’’. This work envisages the On behalf of CCG he received the European IST Prize development of an architecture that is capable of evaluat- 2000: Grand Prize Winner for the TeleInViVo project and ing aesthetic characteristics of artifacts and of creating also the LAVAL Virtual 2002—‘‘Science et éducation‘‘and artifacts that obey certain aesthetic properties. The authors GRAND PRIX DU JURY 2002‘‘, by the Laval ’’ describe the development methodology and motivation, as Academy, Mayenne Franc- a, for the European project well as the results achieved by the various components of ARCHEOGUIDE. the architecture, while opening up the discussion about the Dr. Marcos has been the (co)founder of the following potential contributions of this type of systems in the series of scientific events, namely, the CoopMedia series context of digital art. (worhshop of Cooperative and Distributed Multimedia I. Iurgel and A. F. Marcos in their paper entitled Systems), with a first edition organized in Coimbra 2000, ‘‘Employing Personality-Rich Virtual Actors–New Tools and the second edition organized 2003 in ISEP, Porto; the Required’’ present the basic concepts, current and future SIACG series (Iberico-American Symposium on Computer usages of personality-rich virtual actors while examining Graphics), with a first edition organized in Guimarães, aspects of the authoring process appropriate for virtual 2002, second and third edition organized in S. Paulo personalities, and distinguishes between their usage as (Brasil), 2004; and Santiago de Compostela (Galicia), 2006, virtual actors for movies, actor-avatars, assistant actors, respectively; and the Artech series (International Confer- and improvisational actors. ence in Digital and Interactive Art) with a first edition Authors argue that dealing interactively with a digital organized in Lisbon, 2004, the second and third editions personality can reveal a portrait of a real or imaginary organized in Vila Nova de Cerveira, 2005, and Pontevedra, person, and this portrait is a work of art created by an 2006, respectively. artist according to his/her creative intuitions. New chal- He is an Assistant Professor for Applied Computer lenges are posed to the production process and tools that Graphics Technologies at the University of Minho, allow the artistic creation of a digital personality. These are Department of Information Systems, Guimarães, Portugal. analyzed and discussed. In this position he has been responsible for the design of a Finally, T. Chambel et al. explore new creative ways of variety of curricula in the fields of Multimedia, Informa- editing and producing videos, using evolutionary algo- tion Systems and Computer Graphics, Technology and rithms. In their article ‘‘Dynamic and Interactive Typo- Digital Art for undergraduate and post-graduate courses. graphy in Digital Art’’ the authors expose a novel form of He is the author and co-author of more than four dozens generating videos based on evolutionary algorithms: New of articles in refereed magazines, Conference Proceedings video sequences are combined and selected, based on their and Book chapters. ARTICLE IN PRESS Editorial / Computers & Graphics 31 (2007) 785–787 787
He is the co-founder and co-leader of the Graphics and member of the Executive Board of the Eurographics Multimodal Systems Group at CCG, a research interest Portuguese Chapter. Since 2000 he is an elected member group aggregating researchers from the areas of Computer of the Advisory Board and Board of Trustees of the Graphics, Perception, Color Technologies, Digital Arts, INI-GraphicsNet Foundation. Edutainment, Information Visualization, Virtual and Since 2000 he became a regular consultant of Agency for Mixed Reality and their applications. Innovation, the European Association INTAS, European He has collaborated with developing countries since Commission and ZGDV (German Institute for Computer 2000 by participating in a joint master course in informa- Graphics, Darmstadt, Germany). He is a member of ACM, tion systems between the University of Minho and IEEE and SIGRAPH. ISCTEM (Institute Superior de Ciências e Tecnologias de Moc- ambique), Mozambique. This course had two editions. He is also coordinator of the Asia-Link project ‘‘Staff and Adérito Fernandes Marcos Institutional Development for the National University of Department of Information Systems, East Timor’’ started in June 2005. University of Minho, School of Engineering, He integrated the Executive Board of the Eurographics Campus of Azurem, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal from January 2002 to August 2005. Since July 2002 he is a E-mail address: marcos@dsi.uminho.pt
