Passage III

HUMANITIES: This passage is adapted from "When M.I.T. Artist Shouts, His 'Painting' Listens," an interview with Professor John Maeda conducted by Claudia Dreifus that appeared in the July 27, 1999, edition of The New York Times(@1999 by The New York Times).

Within the art world, Prof. John Maeda, 32, is an anomaly—a prize-winning graphic designer and kinetic artist with a fistful of engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

From his base in M.I.T.'s Media Laboratory, Professor Maeda uses the computer as a tool and medium to create art that can be produced only digitally and that has the specific look of the new technology. One of his best-known pieces is a drawing called "Time. Paint," in which colors fly through space. Another piece, "The Reactive Square," is about squares that change shape when a viewer shouts at them.

Q. Your last book, Design by Numbers, is an art book that is also a manual for a new computer language that you invented to help artists understand the guts of computer design. Why create a whole new computer language?

A. One reason was that programming languages are made for people to write programs—big applications. For someone just starting out making art on their computers, they don't want this big truck of a system. They just want a simple bicycle that they understand. So I designed the visual equivalent of a simple bicycle. Design by Numbers, D.B.N., was an attempt to demystify the technology behind computer art, to show how simple it is, and that people can do it.

Q. When you are creating your own computer art pieces, do you ever use prepackaged drawing programs?

A. Oh, yes, all the time. There are all kinds of fine touches that prepackaged software makes easy. I could invent my own finishing system, but this is faster. Of course, the basic ideas, I create.

The problem is that most people can't just "finish" things with this software: They have to use it to start them, also. For much of recent history, people have created with brush, ink, paper—the materials of art. Now that they have begun creating with software and computers, the styles that emerge are homogeneous because the software is universal. Without being able to know how to program, you can't break out of the technology—just like if you don't know how to use brush and ink, you're limited.

For most people, this really isn't a problem; they aren't necessarily looking for anything new. But for people who are seeking the next step, the prepackaged becomes an impossible barrier to break free from.

I make everything I do. Many people are surprised that I don't have a programmer making things for me. And others are surprised that I don't have an artist controlling me, telling me how to program. Because today, people don't realize that it is possible to think and create on the computer. Artists are used to thinking that programming is very hard—impossible.

And technologists are used to thinking that they can never become artists. Me, I just make things. It's just a natural flow of action and thought. If people see, "Oh, he does that," then maybe they'll think, "I can do it too."

Q. But lots of nonartists use computers for creating images. . .

A. They are using it as a tool, but not as a material. And to use it as a tool, you need to understand the medium, which means understanding the technology. Young people are changing this, because they have grown up with computers.

Q. If a conventional artist produces an object on a computer, does that automatically make it art?

A. It's art, but it's just a painting and no different than conventional art.

It's not intrinsically different or superior just because it was created digitally and it's not digital art. Because digital art starts with an understanding and appreciation of the medium—which, unfortunately, is today programming.

Q.What did studying in Japan teach you?

A. The most important thing was to not be embarrassed about who I was. I had always been embarrassed about coming from a manual-labor family. In Japan, I was studying conventional art, and I used my hands all the time. That made me feel in touch with my human side, which I had lost when I came to M.I.T.

Q. Does the new technology mean the end of art as we know it?

A. Yes, it does, It represents a new dimension to the way art will be understood or perceived.

It's a departure from appreciating a singular moment. What that means is. . .the reason why we can appreciate art is because most art has a single resting point: canvas.

It's painted. It's dried. It aspires to be perfect. The medium of the computer is continually shifting. It can shift at will, in a microsecond. Or an hour. There's no limit on how it can be taught to change.