I agree with Hall that analog electronic media seems to be something that is alive since we can actually, either physically or visually, interact with something other that exists within the machine itself. In accordance with Hall, I believe digital and analog electronic media are very different within their processes. Each of these electronic media has their own distinctive characteristics which may provide both advantages and disadvantages for the artists who use them in their creative processes. I believe it depends on how the artists use them in the creation of their works.

From Hall’s works, BluSoPea (2002), ChicAlie (2002), and Cowdiss (2001), I can feel a strong sense of “otherness”, “mystery” and “secretive knowledge”*. The images and their odd acronymic titles seem to aim particular meanings or messages at us. The artist has raised a very significant problem we have in today’s society. He points out that most software writers have “mistakenly interpreted” the demand of the users. They believe that users only want new programs which will help them to do the same old work in a shorter time. I agree with Hall that what artists really have to do is to use these new programs to create new forms of art work that are “generative”*, “NOT regenerative”*. For instance, some of the software programs that we have today such as Corel Draw and Adobe Photoshop, provide a fast and convenient way for the artist to draw, paint or work with related tasks. Many people will certainly use these new software programs only to do the conventional work. But as artists, we should not be “falling neatly into software molds”*. Instead, as Hall has suggested, we should use and create new software and hardware in new ways in order to generate new art work.

There are various advantages and characteristics in both analog and digital electronic media. I believe that there now exists a strong opportunity for artists to

explore and recognize these distinctive characteristics in each type of electronic media in order to use them to generate new forms of art. By looking at Hall’s images, BluSoPea (2002), ChicAlie (2002), and Cowdiss (2001), I have come to realize that artists today should try to use the wide variety of electronic tools that are available and yet only dreamed of in new and different ways in order to produce art works that are truly new and truly fresh.

Footnotes:
* quotes from the artist, Scott F. Hall

Biography of the Artist

Scott F. Hall is an electronic intermedia artist and Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, U.S.A. Hall’s work has been exhibited in fourteen U.S. states, Washington D.C, and internationally. His most recent exhibitions include: Immedia 2003, the 8th Annual Juried International Digital Electronic Art Exhibition, Ann Arbor Electronic Artist Coalition, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; and the Sixth Juried International All Media Exhibit, Eklektikos Gallery, Washington, D.C. (junior: Stephen Bennett Phillips, Associate Curator, The Phillips collection). Before joining U.C.F., Hall founded major study in Computer Art & Design at S.U.N.Y. Alfred, New York, and developed major study in Computer Animation at Cogswell College, Sunnyvale, California. Hall’s education includes art study at the University of Hawaii, the University of Florida (B.F.A), and at Washington University in St. Louis (M.F.A).

Written by: Lau, Wai Chi Eva