Reasons
Nov 15, 2008|Thorax O'Tool « send email
Technology is a wonderful thing; it can create previously unimaginable opportunities. Bit it also kills variations and older portions of Our culture. Remember when CG art was something new and pretty damn cool?
Well, it really isn't so much anymore. Yes, there are some wonderful works being made on the computer, but these days any Photoshop jockey can sit down and whip out something pretty to look at. You see, it's not that CG art isn't art or isn't nice or whatever. No, it's that it's so damn easy that anyone can do it... and eveyone does! You're bombarded by it, the stuff is everywhere. Mass Produced Art. That's what it is. Consistent, most of it looking the same. But ARSNIC is not about that.
Yes, we do use the computer for some help. Cropping photos, scanning to make backup copies and of course, the Miracle of the color Xerox machine. But that's it, that is our limit. Technology is being used to assist with the art, not to make it. ARSNIC is hand drawn, hand painted, hand sculpted. It is a human endevor intended for humans.
History Repeats Itself
The dangers of the machine usurping human creativity is not new. It was first seen in the dawn of the modern world, in the earliest days of the 20th century. The advances from the industrial revolution gave the great poster makers like Toulouse-Latrec and Alphonse Mucha the ability to spread their work, their ideas far and wide. But like all things, tech has a serious drawback: it removes the human element. Yes, easy reproduction is a godsend, but as noted it takes the people out of the creation process. It was this very issue that gave rise to the Arts and Crafts Movement. The movement emphasized and cherished the human touch and the skill of a master of the craft rather than something made by machine. In 1888, Charles Robert Ashbee began the Guild and School of Handicraft... the beginning of Arts and Crafts. His words still ring true, even after 12 decades:
"We are here to lead you back to the realities of life, to show you how to use your hands and your heads; which half of your machines have already made over half the population lose."
This is the reason ARSNIC exists, to use our heads and hands in a world that favors machines and mouse-clicks.