Technology is playing a prominent role in our lives. It has already had a huge impact on many aspects of our society and the art world is no exception. Art has the ability to adapt to new technological trends resulting in new styles and new ways of expression.
A great example of this was the invention of photography in the 19th century. In the beginning everybody thought that photography would replace traditional paintings, however it actually forced artists to try new techniques.
Perhaps the greatest effect which this technology had on art was to liberate it from realism. Since realism now could be created by photography, artists migrated to a more abstract style, opening space for the new era of modern art.
Today is no different. We can clearly see the influence of digital revolution has on the artworld. So Let’s have a look at 3 ways how technology is transforming art:
Augmented Reality
After the rise of Pokémon Go, augmented reality is also becoming popular in the artworld. Artists and Museums are using this technology to enhance the customer’s experience.
AR is bringing museum exhibitions to life and the most straightforward way of doing this is by adding extra descriptions to artwork.
This new technology has conveniently arrived in a moment when museums are facing the challenge of attracting visitors, especially younger audiences who have grown up in a digital world.Using a smartphone or tablet, the user sees an altered version of the physical artwork in a form of a superimposed video, image, text or sounds.
Augmented reality is transforming the way how people are experiencing art. Now let’s have a look at the next tech trend impacting art.
Artificial Intelligence
Art has always been exclusively created by humans. Up until recently, there is no way we could have imagined a computer system creating art by itself.
But now this scenario has changed due to the innovation of Artificial Intelligence. The process starts by feeding algorithms with data of artwork made by humans throughout history, then the AI system generates something completely new based on these references, using machine learning.
This is the Portrait of Edmond the Belamy and It has been created by an artificial intelligence system. After the algorithm generated this blury man imagem, it was printed on canvas and framed. This painting was eventually offered in an auction sale and was sold for around 500.000 dollars, it is 50 times more than initially estimated. This illustrates how the art market is excited about this new technology
Now, I would like to present you Ai-Da who is a humanoid robot who can walk, talk and create her own art. Ai-Da has artificial intelligence and mechanical arms and what she can do and produce is unpredictable because Ai-Da has the ability to teach itself new and even more sophisticated means of creative expression. Ai-Da was the first ever robot to launch her own art exhibition
We are still in the beginning of a new era of humanoid robots and it will be fascinating to see its effect on the artworld. Finally the 3rd technological innovation influencing art is ...
Museum Virtual Tours
These tours are allowing visitors to explore exhibitions in the world’s most famous museums from the comfort of their sofas. Created using spherical 360°degree photography, viewers can virtually visit museum's iconic spaces, where they might never be able to go in real life.
Google Arts website is a good starting point to virtually explore museums and galleries anytime, anywhere. Hundreds of exhibitions are available on this website for free, such as Moma, the Van Gogh Museum, the Metropolitan and the National Gallery in London.
Conclusion
As we can see, the emergence of new technologies are reshaping the way we produce and experience art. This innovation and interactivity around art is resulting in a bright and exciting future for art lovers.