Digital Art and Architecture

One can just look outside on any downtown city street and see examples of digital media, whether in the form of video screens or billboards. What would the visual world be without digital media? How have art and architecture been affected by the computer and other digital outputs? Two books talked about this specifically, Yehuda E. Kalay’s Architecture’s New Media: Principles, Theories, and Methods of Computer-Aided Design and Richard Lewis and James Luciana’s Digital Media: An Introduction. In these books there are two chapters that show how technology has evolved and influenced art and architecture. This digital evolution happened simultaneously with the growth of art and architecture, affecting them in many similar ways. The argument could be made that art and architecture helped influence the development of digital technology as much as digital technology helped change the art world.

Chapter Five, “Pioneers of Digital Art,” in Lewis and Luciana’s book describes key points in the history of inventions in technology. It points outs not just the pioneering technology but how the new machines were very quickly used as tools by artists. These new technologies were sometimes invented for specific reasons—mostly for the government and military—but were eventually used by artists to design sculpture, lighting, video, painting, and prints. As the machines became tools to make digital media, the technology evolved toward theses artistic purposes. As early as the 1950’s U.S. military computers were attached to radar systems and their displays, allowing the user to interact with the screen by using a light pen to track enemy blips on the radar. (Lewis & Luciana, 2005) In 1962 Ivan Sutherland created Sketchpad and in 1963 Douglas Englebart invented the mouse. These innovations both paved the way for personal interaction with the computer; Sutherland’s allowed for direct contact and manipulation of graphics on the screen while Englebart’s allowed the same except for with an attached hand-held push-button device. Throughout the sixties and seventies artists developed large interactive art combining digital, audio, video and physical installation, such as Robert Rauschenberg’s and Billy Kulver’s Homage to New York in 1960 and Myron Krueger’s Videoplace in 1970. The smaller and faster the digital equipment got, the more efficient they became for the artist to use in a more personal way. The first true personal computer in 1984 was the Apple Macintosh; it allowed direct interaction not just the keyboard and mouse but also with the media altering software MacPaint. (Lewis & Luciana, 2005) The artist’s need and willingness to use new electronic tools helps drive and develop new equipment and software directly geared for the multi-media artist or designer.

In the same way the development of new technologies affected art in the last half of the 20th century, so did it affect architecture. This is talked about in detail in Chapter 4, “Computing in Architectural Design,” of Kalay’s book. As long as history has been written down, master builders and architects have used geometry and computations to design, whether it is the Egyptian pyramids or the development of perspective drawing. It only makes sense that as soon as they were invented computers started being used to help complete difficult computations used in designing architecture. Just like the use of early technology in art, the same issues of size and speed were reasons that only fed the skeptics, but as the technology got smaller and faster the demand for these new tools increased. Just like it did with the art world, the 1963 invention of Sutherland’s Sketchpad led the way to humans directly using the computer to design architecture. In 1964 General Motors engineers Don Hart and Ed Jacks emulated Sutherland’s work; developing the DAC-1 system with IBM, they became operational in most automotive and aerospace facilities. (Kalay, 2004) It was not until the seventies that the direct use of the computer was used for architectural design in a professional firm. Before then, it was primarily kept in academic circles. In the early seventies the firm Perry Dean and Stuart in Boston used a combination of a PDP 15 computer, a 4800 printer, a cathode ray tube monitor, and Design Systems software. (Kalay, 2004) Later, throughout the seventies, the development of the design software went two directions: one primarily 2-D for the construction industry and one 3-D for the mechanical and automotive engineer. (Kalay, 2004) The introduction of the personal Apple Macintosh computer in the 1980’s led to direct, fast, and less expensive interaction with the technology just as it did with the artist. Although the Apple did not have architectural drafting software, it was the start of the individual being able to draw shapes and lines with the use of the mouse and MacPaint software. Just like the digital software and machinery got smaller and faster to aid the artist, so did it aid the architect. By the 1990’s, through the combination of Bill Gates’ Windows, IBM’S PC, and software industry leaders Autodesk, Microstation, and Form-Z, the architect and engineer were using the technology not to just draft but to design directly.

It is clear that the onslaught of the digital age directly influenced art and architecture. Today we see the computer / software inventions and developments everywhere in art and architecture not only in the design phase but in the in product as well. I believe it is clear these technologies changed the way art and architecture could be viewed, but technology also changed the way they are designed and made. The real question is this: Did architecture and art help change and develop the digital technologies of the 20th century, or did this digital age help change and develop art and architecture?

Sources:
Kalay, Y. E. (2004). Architecture's New Media: Principles, Theories, and Methods of Computer-Aided Design. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. pp 63-81

Lewis, R., & Luciana, J. (2005). Digital Media: An Introduction. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall. pp 90-112