I was recently sent the delightful image below.
After an initial dopamine surge, curiosity crept in. All was not as it seemed, it seems. I love the idea that all is rarely as it seems. Keeps us on our toes.
The seemingly perfect but artificial tree-and-sun image is inspiring, but it’s been crafted that way. Does that take away any of its power? Perhaps.
The possibly original image (See here) is still distinctive, but it does not have the perfection of the tailored image; perhaps it’s more powerful for that. The reality of the natural original leaves space for wonder and ideas, whereas the artificial tailored image has reduced the opportunity for wonder into a finished ideal.
So, is ‘artifice’ good?
The word artificial initially meant ‘made by man, contrived by human skill and labour’ and has evolved to mean ‘anything made in imitation of, or as a substitute for, what is natural.’
I am an ‘artist’. I was an apprentice ‘graphic artist’ before I went to university. At university we had a ball deconstructing and reconstructing art in all its forms. It was a very creative time and great fun.
Educator and activist César A. Cruz suggests, “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”
Good ‘artifice’ should comfort, make you exhale, and/or disturb you, make you inhale. Creating ‘art’ can create joy, wonder, questions, and intrigue.
Perhaps everything ‘online’ is not ‘real’. It’s all imagery, video, words & pictures disseminated by mankind in a digital from. It’s interesting that currently a healthy default response to almost anything ‘online’ is “but is it real?”. And in many cases it’s realised to be artificial, or called fake. Is its value then reduced (though its work has been done)?
I suggested in my last post, I suggested that the scintillations, the glimmers of meaning from our everyday organic lives, are far more real than the chaos of noise from our digital meta-worlds. I think our breath might be more invigorating than our mechanics?
So we have the artificial and the natural… I love good art, I love ‘nature’… who wins in a fight? I guess we might find out in due course.
Perhaps it may be as big a battle as the pastoralists and the agriculturists. That is another story.
Meanwhile, I’m off to make a sandwich from artificial bread, artificial meat products, and cheese.
Now, artifice created by artificial intelligence – that’s another thing entirely. I guess it’s artificial artifice.
