Cold : Bold

Jonathan Harris is an artist/designer and expert of computer science and code. He used his technological savvy as a gateway for creating art on the web. In this video, Harris gives a presentation that discusses in part the his recent work and the his thoughts on the current evolution of technology and how he believes it affects the human race. He explains his overwhelming concern that the advancements in computers is diminishing humans' connectedness with their emotions and essentially their humanity. Harris also goes on to discuss what he refers to as physical vs. digital and professional vs. personal schizophrenia and the difficulty that comes with divulging himself in computer code (something that for him can become so dehumanizing in that he thinks in code rather than emotion or instinct) while also becoming a working artist.

I really enjoyed this video and I definitely responded to the points made by Jonathan Harris. I think the underlying messages of his presentation relate strongly to graphic design and the different battles that I face between the digital and physical media. More and more we here about the posed threats of technology and our increasing dependency on it – how it begins to use and have control over us instead of us having control over it, a point that I believe to be true. In the graphic design field, so much of our work relies solely on computers. It's unfortunate I think that the art of craft by hand is dying and becoming obsolete. Coming from someone who has spent years as a fine artist, I think art created without the help of computers is so much more expressive and personal. It captures the essence of emotion and humanity that lacks from that created by technology. Like Harris, I believe that there is possibility for a marriage between physical and digital media to exist but has yet to be achieved. This is actually a goal of mine personally as an aspiring graphic designer. I hope for my experience and increasing expertise as a fine artist can be integrated successfully in the world of computers thus creating a medium between illustrator and graphic designer.