[ISEA98] Panel: Raz Barfield – Integrating Digital Technology and Autographic Printmaking

Panel Statement

Panel: Digital Print

The tremendous potential for exploration and manipulation afforded by the computer is, to a large extent, offset by a corresponding diminution in formal concerns amongst practitioners, and (speaking as a lecturer) this is particularly acute amongst younger students. Exacerbated by the poor (material) quality of digital output, the instant print has a profoundly harmful effect on the essential object nature of the physical artwork.
Fine artists have always subverted or appropriated new technologies to their creative ends; as a painter-printer — making art objects — Barfield’s concern is integrating digital technologies with traditional processes, such that formal concerns are not denied the printmaker using computers. A working method the author has developed provides a durable image creation process, utilising the computers capacity for exploration and manipulation, but remains susceptible of intervention by the hand of the artist throughout the process.
Other main objectives are: use of overprinted layers of inks, allowing physical planes of colour to create complex visual spaces; wresting colour creation and manipulation from the device, back to the development of cheap accessible methods for artists and students working with limited resources.

  • Raz Barfield (UK), Camberwell College of Arts