Contact: katiecockerham@hotmail.com
Leeds College of Art & Design
Blenheim Walk
Leeds
West Yorkshire
LS2 9AQ
United Kingdom

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Questions put to Penelope Wakeham.  Answers 1st February 2006               

"Can we see the art for the CAD?" Is digital technology merely the latest in a long line of new ways of working which initially are mistrusted, even dismissed, persist, and through the endeavours of established and soon to be established artists and designers who embrace these technologies thus gaining them eventual recognition as legitimate artistic tools?

The list is not that long actually.  Look at the medium by which artists produce 2D work.  First cavemen mixed pigment with some kind of handy binding agent and drew on their cave walls.  Through time various resins/glues have been used to bind the pigment together.  Egg was favoured for a long time and then oil was introduced and in the 60's the new thing was acrylic paint.  That's really only water, egg, linseed oil and acrylic polymer.
Van Eyck is often attributed with inventing oil painting but actually it had been around for a while.  It was that he did something new with it.  And that is the key I think.  People carry on doing things in their old way when given a new tool to work with.   Take photography, it was used to produce pictures that looked as much like painting as possible.  It was only when early photographers did something new with the photograph that photography found its voice. A new tool gains acceptance when someone finds a new task for the new tool.

Q1. Can computing be considered a craft, or means of producing art?

The computer is a tool.  One might just as well ask whether I consider the use of a chisel to be craft or a means of producing art. 
It is the thought processes behind what one produces that determines whether it is art or craft.

Q2. Do you prefer the newer digital ways of working or more traditional?
-What do you think are the major restrictions of the new technology?

I think you are asking do I prefer the more traditional ways of working in print.
I am not a printermaker.
The major drawback of the technology for me is that what you get on the screen is not what you get out.  I developed my way of working because although the computer screen gave me what I had been looking for, the output killed the light and space stone dead.

Q3. Do you agree/ disagree that the computer can limit self expression and the artists personal style?

I disagree.  In fact, I should imagine that in say sculpture the computer is capable of freeing the artist's imagination.   Any tool has its limitations.  The artist chooses to work within them or searches for something else with which to express him or herself.

Q4. Should it be used as an imitation tool to create images that look like watercolours, oil painting, pencil drawings, or photographs.

If you have read 'Painting with Numbers', you will already know my feelings about using the computer to imitate tools already available.
I'm sure this is on my website somewhere but if not...
'I am convinced that digital technology, used as a creative tool, has to take a step away from copying those tools artists already use. The computer must find its own language that speaks of its own qualities, rather than imitate the past.   Using digital technology to produce images that look like photographs, drawings or paintings is just reinventing the wheel.'

Q5. Do you believe what you see on the computer screen is somehow detached from reality?

The image one sees on a computer screen is no more, or less real than music heard on a cd, a play watched on television or a film watched at the cinema. 

Q6. Can printers keep up with the demand for the physical image or is printer technology lagging behind the developments in computer software?

It is inevitable that printing technology will lag behind just by virtue of the fact that it responds to the demands made upon it by developements in computer software.

Q7. Do you agree with the statement 'the computer is only as good as its software and then only as good as the user?
-Who is in control, the computer or the artist? 

I certainly agree with the first part of that statement.  The second part however is more complex.  I think we all know that a computer is only as good as the information put into it but does the value of a computer lie in its output at any one time or in its potential?   Does that mean then, that because I don't choose to use the bells and whistles that programmers insist on adding to Photoshop, I am in some way remise?
The second part of your question: The artist is very much in control.  Do you consider yourself to be controlled by the car you drive?

Q8. Do you find the illusions of texture/scratches/brushstrokes, which can be created on the computer, dissapointing or are they an acceptable alternative to the real thing?

This question doesn't really apply to me - I guess it is aimed at printmakers.
When my work comes out of the computer into the real world, the pigment is laid down, or not, where the cursor has indicated.  I keep the 'marks' as simple as possible.  I don't like 'illusions' and steer clear of 'textures' choosing not to use filters and effects. 

Q9. Can you usually tell when an artist has used a computer to create an image or piece of art?
-Should they attempt to disguise it?
-Celebrate it?

It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell whether a print has been produced by computer or by conventional means.  It is also quite difficult, particularly behind glass, to see if a watercolour is genuine.  Does this matter?  I think that one should be able to celebrate the fact that a computer has been used in the production of a piece of work and for it to be a ligitimate tool to use.  It is only troubling if a computer's facility at mimicry is used to deceive.

Q10. Are labels such as 'Digital Artist' and 'Computer Art' restricting the widespread acceptance of the computer as a tool for the general artist?
-Do you see it as a tool?

I am becoming increasingly concerned about the labels of 'digital artist' and 'computer art'.  They carry negative connotations of the slick ability to reproduce at the touch of a button.  But labels are an inevitable part of describing artists and their work.  I find it very difficult to answer the 'what kind of work do you do' question.  Nowadays, I see myself less as a 'digital artist' and more as an artist who just happens to use a computer as a tool, in much the same way as I once used a paintbrush, to lay down pigment.

Q11. Do you agree that one of the problems with digital art is that the creation of art using a computer is seen as 'easier' and somehow cheating?

I do most heartily agree with your statement that work created using a computer is seen as easier.   Almost that the work is done for you by the computer.
We come back to finding something new to do with it.  But it is still the artist's hand and thought that really counts.

Q12. Can anybody be a computer artist?

In the Beuys sense do you mean?
The computer is just a tool.  It is the artist's hand and mind that makes the work art.  It is what you have to say with what you produce that makes it art.

Q13. Can you name any computer artists?
-Famous/unknown?

Obviously, Richard Hamilton
Robert Rauchenberg recent work
Laurence Gartel
Sue Gollifer
Lillian Schwartz
Herbert Franke
James Faure-Walker
Guillem Ramos-Poqui
Kerry John Andrews
Joan Truckenbrod
Jean-Pierre Hébert
Roman Verostko

Q14. Do you have any ideas about how the technology might develop in the future?
-What would you like it to do?

I already use both a stylus and a mouse, both at the same time, but it confuses the computer so I would like to be able to have two cursors on the screen marking together rather than taking turns.

The computer is the interface between my brain and my body.  It enables me to side-step the time delay between having a thought and producing the mark.  Sometimes I feel I have to translate the thought into another language.  One day I would like to think the computer into mark making.

KC & PW