Technology and Art

Anyone who knows me knows that when I want to figure out how something works, I like to have a look inside. When I was around 10 years old, I was completely and utterly perplexed by television and radio technology. I could not for the life of me figure out how a person’s voice could come out of a box plugged into the wall and it almost drove me crazy thinking about it. But I just knew that if I could just get a look inside of a television or a radio that I could figure it out. After all, I was a smart 10 year-old boy. 

One day, when my parents left me alone in the house, I decided I was going to solve this mystery once and for all. I took an old radio into the garage and got into my dad’s tool box. With the help of a Phillips screwdriver, I took it apart. What I found inside was a circuit board and some parts—transistors, resistors, capacitors, a speaker...but none of it helped solve the mystery of how a person’s voice could come out. I didn’t give up. 

I took some pliers and wiggled a resistor free of the circuit board because I just knew that if I could only get a look inside of it, surely I could figure it out. Then I picked up what to this day remains one of my favorite electronics analytical tools — a hammer — and that hammer and I ganged up on this resistor. Together, we smashed it open. Unfortunately, all that was left was a pile of black carbon powder on the garage floor, and it did nothing to help solve the mystery.

But that incident helped intensify my desire to understand how electronics worked, and when I got to high school and learned that they offered an electronics class, I eagerly signed up. That was the beginning of my lifelong pursuit of the knowledge of technology. 

I still think that looking inside of something is the best way to figure it out, and to me, art is as perplexing as technology. Does art and technology work the same way? Can you look inside of art and figure out how all that emotion can come out of an object of art? Whether for art or technology, it seems that I’m always looking for a hammer that can show me the inside of a mystery. 

Henri Matisse said, “Light is the future of art.” Like that 10 year-old kid who wondered about electronic technology, I often wonder about the art of lighting. What does lighting and scenery bring to the live event production table? What does add to the concert experience? Does it really help to heighten the emotion of the show or is the live event production industry simply fooling ourselves into believing that it does add meaning and it has a higher purpose? Since our livelihoods and our artistic sensibilities depend on it, can we really evaluate it realistically? 

Go online and search YouTube.com for James Taylor on the BBC in 1970 and you’ll find a well lit but very simple show from a lighting standpoint. It is thoughtfully and tastefully lit with light and shadow, color, form, and texture. There are no flashy moving lights, no fog, no beamage, no strobes, no chases, projections, fades, or bumps. Yet the show is highly entertaining and very aesthetically pleasing. Is it higher art than today’s over-the-top shows? If so, what does that say about the art of lighting?

Yesterday, I spent a couple of hours in New York’s Museum of Modern Art. I’ve never been a fan of Diego Rivera, but when I saw the exhibition, I gained a new perspective. Just by looking at his work, I felt very strong emotions. At the same time, I was a bit perplexed by this sudden revelation and I wondered what it was about his work that was so striking.

Until then, I thought Rivera’s renderings were simplistic and uninspiring. I have always been a big fan of the impressionists like Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, and Dega. I think they had these mad skills that allowed them to interpret the world through the lens of someone who looked at ordinary life and saw extraordinary things. I also appreciate the work of the realists like Rembrandt, da Vinci, and Michelangelo. They were amazingly talented at rendering incredibly realistic paintings and sculpture that mimicked real life to the point that they captured the spirit of a subject. Rivera seemed to me to be neither of these.

But the Rivera exhibit at MOMA captured my imagination right from the beginning. At the entrance to the exhibit there was a large fresco entitled “Agrarian Leader Zapata.” It showed the Mexican Revolutionary war hero Emiliano Zapata holding a white horse in his right hand and a machete in his left. Rivera said the horse represented that of the Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortes. Under Zapata’s left foot is the sword of the fallen Cortes, who is shown on the ground at his feet. Behind Zapata is a small crowd of peasant soldiers carrying the tools of the local farmers including hoes, shovels, and machetes. 

Cortes died more than three hundred years before Rivera was born, but this work, originally painted in 1931, represented the hope of the Mexican people at the end of the Mexican Revolution. It was the end of the era of the colonial Conquistador and the beginning of a new political and social era.

The painting looks a bit two dimensional to me when I see pictures of it, but in real life it has heart and soul. That’s what originally drew me to it, but what riveted me to it was the technique. I learned that it was painted using traditional Italian fresco techniques but that Rivera used new and innovative ways to apply them. He was a technology leader in his time. 

That inspired me to take a closer look at his work. Another mural that really captured my imagination was entitled “Man at the Crossroads.” It was commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller and Rivera was given the theme, “Man at the crossroads looking with uncertainty but with hope and high vision to the choosing of a course leading to a new and better future.” 

I liked it from the moment I read the theme. I liked it even better when I examined it more closely and discovered how technology was an important part of the theme. In Rivera’s own words, the painting shows “human intelligence in possession of the Forces of Nature, expressed by the lightning striking off the hand of Jupiter and being transformed into useful electricity that helps to cure man's ills, unites men through radio and television, and furnishes them with light and motive power.”

The words struck a chord and the depictions in the mural harmonized with them. Slowly, I began to realize the deep thought and passion that went into the artwork. Maybe that’s what art is, the expression of deep feeling. Maybe that’s why the work rings true; it expresses true feeling, strong emotion, and deeply held convictions.

On my way out of MOMA, I stopped into their book shop and picked up “Diego Rivera: My Art, My Life,” an autobiography with Gladys March. Only 18 pages into the book, I came across this passage: “It was (José Guadalupe Posada) who taught me the supreme lesson of all art—that nothing can be expressed except through the force of feeling, that the soul of every masterpiece is powerful emotion...Looking back upon my work today, I think the best I have done grew out of things deeply felt, the worst from a pride in mere talent.”

You could replace the word “talent” in the last sentence with “technology” or “technique” and it would fit like a glove. The streets are littered with master technicians but when you mix technique and emotion you get a rare individual like Miles Davis or Rembrandt. A thousand years from now, Davis will still be highly regarded while many masterful technicians will be a footnote in history.

I can’t say with any certainly what art is, but I know that using lighting for no good reason other than to create an effect is not art; using it to help you convey emotion and reinforce a performer’s passion might be. Technology can be used to enhance technique, like Rivera creating a mural, or it can be used as a crutch. The difference is purpose, meaning, emotion, feeling, and substance. 

Every cue of every show colors the presentation, and as such it should have meaning and purpose. Each look, every movement, every scene should be there for a reason. The absence of light is shadow, and that too can have meaning and purpose. Adding light where it is not necessary not only crowds the scene, it also detracts from the contrast between light and dark.

Low-tech lighting, as in the James Taylor performance on the BBC, can be very powerful. So can high-tech lighting under the right circumstances. Do a YouTube search for just about any Trans-Siberian Orchestra show (warning: most of the YouTube videos are of poor quality) and you’ll see an example of great lighting using lots of technology. Brian Hartley and the rest of the TSO crew are masters of reinforcing the emotion of the music. 

Conversely, go watch any Jonny Lang show where Greg Classen is running the lighting console and it won’t matter whether he’s using high-tech or low-tech, you’ll see a masterful performance. 

In his autobiography, Rivera talks about the source of his power as an artist. “Deep inside me, I had discovered an enormous artistic reservoir. It was of the kind that had enable the American genius Walt Whitman to create, on a grander scale than anyone had before, the poetry of the common people, working, suffering, fighting, seeking joy, living, and dying.” When Lang plays, his suffering is written all over his face, and Classen knows how to connect with it and amplify it using nothing but light, shadow, color, and movement. I don’t know if that’s art, but it’s definitely powerful and it’s moving.

Technology, like art, can be powerful and moving. If it resonates with art it can add another layer of expression, but if it’s applied indiscriminately it can get in the way of artistic expression. I think technology in production does matter if it contributes to the story on the stage.