Honours Workshop Diary 10 – Defining a Critical Framework

The combination of craftsmanship and intellect is indispensable for the creation of meaningful art. The software and hardware remain tools. Originality and innovation can be used to explore and experiment with digital art. 

Over the past few days I have tried to come up with some ideas to define aesthetic criteria in able to produce a critical framework for my honours project. It will form around the ongoing theme of "Seing, Observing, Thinking" (Sander 2009). One will combine craftsmanship, observation and intellect to produce meaningful content.

Critical Framework Development

Skill vs. Expression (personal opinion)

Creating moods and atmospheres by taking advantage of craftsmanship and scientific theory

     1.      Colour

     2.      Lighting

     3.      Composition

     4.      Static vs. Dynamic

     5.      Simple vs. Epic (Design)

(Functional Colour vs. Aesthetic Colour)

(Functional Detail vs. Aesthetic Detail)

There is a core difference between expressing ones personal emotions and effectively expressing emotions to an audience through art. Therefore some aspects will be discussed after breaking down the creation of thought provoking art into

      1.      Main focus on personal expression of content

      2.      Main focus on clarity and informing of the viewer

Logic vs. Aesthetic (concept design (intellect), colour, lighting, ornamental design (differentiate between craft and intellect?)

1.

2.

Realism vs. Abstraction

1.       

a.   Depending on the agenda of the artist personal expression is likely to be more abstracted as the focus is on self-expression of deep emotions / expression of the soul and does not rely on the perception of the viewer

2.       

a.   Realism/ objectification can help clarify the image to the viewer

b.   Complete realism is useful for product design, where the placing and high detail is important.

c.   Complete realism/rendering can diminish the artistic quality in some cases though, as visible brushstrokes help create flow and give the imagination more freedom that can be more powerful than complete rendering. The same applies to the subject matter and composition as implications can be a great storytelling method to let the imagination of the viewer work in the artists’ favour.  

Subjectivity vs. Objectivity

1.

2.

Formula to depict the core emotions in art (“Discrete emotion theory”) and specific moods/atmospheres (environment)

Happiness, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt and fear (Izard & Malatesta 1987)

·    This theory states that these specific core emotions are biologically determined emotional responses whose expression and recognition is fundamentally the same for all individuals regardless of ethnic or cultural differences

·    Different combinations of the core emotions add more depth to the character and help define their personality further

Colour, lighting, values, staging/composition

Solely for character analysis:

1.      Facial features

2.      Gesture