How does technology mediate the artist experience?

My experience when I was doing the situational tour project was one with mixed feelings. There were both limitations and advantages to using digital media as the medium for creating art.

Some of the limitations that I encountered were that of capturing the moment. It was frustrating at first to try and capture a moment because sometimes the camera would not go off until a second too late. However, after a while it became easier to predict when something was going to happen, or have some idea of what it was that I wanted to capture. However, if a photograph wasn’t exactly what I wanted there was nothing that I could do about it, while drawing and painting allows for the freedom of creation, photography is about whether you capture the moment or not, you can’t recreate it or edit the movement in the picture. That was one of the limitations that I found to be frustrating.

When I was taking pictures I didn’t really see what was going to be the outcome, however to my surprise I captured interesting moments and it was the capturing of those moments that gave me the material to create a cohesive narrative. From there on it was just about choosing the pictures that I felt expressed a clear idea, or that would convey a message to the audience. It was very much like choosing what components go into a drawing, or painting. I, as the artist, chose what the audience saw when I was doing the narrative.

Overall, the situational tour project was a very interesting way of creating art. Just as in painting and drawing I was recording an event, or a certain emotion that I felt the audience should be able to observe. It was the capturing of a moment that could not be reenacted. While it does have its limitations there are also amazing things that can be done, especially since the final project is something real that other people can relate to just by being able to see other “real” people in the work of art.