This relates to a discussion going on on another (closed) list. Although it
refers specifically to multimedia, I think it really applies to VR art too.
I have included some excerpts below.
I wonder if multimedia and VR art should be approached in the same way we
approach painting, music, etc (from an authorial standpoint) or might they
inherently call for collaboration (like theatre)?
Ethan.
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>tpope@macc.wisc.edu writes:
Jeff Burger, in his recent book THE DESKTOP MULTIMEDIA BIBLE (which by the
way is quite good), notes that one of the 3 premises in the book's design
is that the multimedia producer or artist must be a "..Renaissance person
--artist, animator, composer, musician, videographer, .., writer,.. ,
director,.., designer, programmer, and more. Each of these is potentially a
lifetime career." Do you think such is possible, and how do educational
institutions help one develop such clusters of skills/talents?
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>drback@students.wisc.edu writes:
I think one of the benefits of multimedia is the potential for one person to
have complete control over the aesthetic, philosophical, and technical
outcome of a project. However, because it would be impossible for one person
to master all of these skills, this also means that certain elements may not
be of the highest quality. I think that it is interesting that this author
stresses the individual rather than saying, "Hey, there's no way you could
know all of this. Go network and find some other people to work with."
If I were to teach a multimedia class I think I would be tempted to set up a
situation where everything was a collaborative and the class was thought of
as a team of experts that had to solve a given problem. Ideally, (which is
probably far from reality) students would interact and trade
interests/knowledge in a combined effort that would be more productive than
an individual having to go out alone and research each element individually.
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>dlavalle@students.wisc.edu writes:
..I do believe it is possible to
become a successful producer of multimedia works. So many people are
dumbfounded by what it is that artists and composers and all the rest of the
roles that a multimedia producer plays in her or his job. I do believe,
however, that learning the basic technical tenants of each discipline is
possible within an undergraduates career. Aesthetically, each discipline
has various parallels which can be applied within all the art forms. It may
be true that a multimedia producer will not produce as masterful piece of
videography as a dedicated videographer, but it will be his or her own work
(should you be a producer working alone - not a common situation in the real
world, but hey, just for discussion's sake eh?). That very fact lends some
credibility to the view that multimedia works should be seen as a new art
form to be seen in a different light. When you have one person (or very few
people) working within our wide array of fields, it is possible that they
will see a use for an existing technology that someone who has been steeped
in that technology and its technically or daily applied uses would not have.