[comp.society] Aesthetics in Computers

rhorn@infinet.UUCP (Rob Horn) (02/19/88)

People will explore the aesthetic potentials of ordinary objects to the 
extent that technology and costs allow.  If you look at the history of 
industrial design there is no object so simple that it escapes aesthetic 
contributions.  The only bounds are set by the costs.  This has been 
true for millenia.  It is only now apparent in computers because it is 
only in the last few years that affordable technology was sufficiently 
capable.

When the affordable printers were used formed letters and fixed print 
spacing, there was little room for visual aesthetic contributions.  
(I remember the 1403.  Bleah)  Minor formatting improvements could be 
made, but the real expressive contributions had to be in the words and 
not the form.  With laser printers there is enough flexibility that 
form itself can be explored as a medium.  Since it can be explored, it 
is explored.

This change may be more dramatic in the computer field because for a long 
time it has been dominated by the left-brained and non-visually oriented 
people.  I recall a recent lunch with an artist and some mathematicians.  
She could not understand how people could be so excited by the beauty of 
a new technique for solving linear programming problems.  They could not 
understand how she could be so concerned with the precise placement of a few
little squiggles.  

The evolution from today's initial explorations into established aesthetics, 
styles, and fashions should be interesting to watch. It may be more 
disorganized and erratic in the computer field than elsewhere because of 
this gap between the old style computer users and the professional artists.
Too many of today's efforts are being made by people who are completely 
ignorant of artistic methods.  They have seen forms that they liked and 
they are trying to emulate them.  My general reaction to these efforts is
that they are poor cartoons.  They are like photo snapshots as contrasted 
to Ansel Adams prints.  I expect that as real artists explore this medium 
we will see the same kind of differentiation emerge as has occurred in 
the photographic field.

This exploration may wait for display and printing technologies to 
improve further.  I have worked with artists attempting to get prints 
of basic black and white artwork.  Even the best offset printing cannot 
reproduce the fine details that are very important to their art.  They 
really need edge positions equivalent to 5000 dpi, and lines as thin as 
1000 dpi.  Laser printers are nowhere near this good.  Even with offset 
printing the artist must make significant modifications to style so that
the printed work has the desired visual effect.

I predict that the real blossoming of computer typography and presentation 
art will not arrive until the turn of the century. The real work will 
emerge on devices that support colors and fine line detail.  Today only 
the direct-to-film computer art reaches this quality.  (I know they 
don't have 5000 dpi.  They use de-aliasing and grey-scale techniques 
to achieve their effects.)

Rob Horn