Week 2: Digital Arts with Michael A. Salter

         Michael A. Salter was the guest speaker for this week, and just as Tyrras had predicted, he was my favorite guest speaker so far. His personality was off-the-wall, and his art was some of the most creative stuff I have ever seen. For some weird reason, I love when professors use profanity, because it really brings them down to Earth and makes them human, and that’s one of the things that helped me enjoy his presentation the most. He was just a plain old funny dude. After he said how he was so obsessed with pop culture, I could really tell in his art. His passion for Star Wars and robots and all science fiction was great, because I think a lot of us in that lecture hall could relate to it. The paintings of scenery and the realistic drawings of people that we have all studied in art classes before can get really boring, but Michael’s work is new and imaginative. I liked when he compared the film Planet of the Apes to the comic version, and then he asked us how these movie remakes change over time? This is a good question to consider because of how many remakes are being released today, many of which we don’t even know are remakes. The Planet of the Apes example was good because he pointed out that the film had a lot of references and hints towards racial issues, and the comic didn’t give any sign of that at all. Movies change with the times, and so does art.

         On page 30 in the “Vocabulary of Comics”, there was a line that stood out to me. “When we abstract an image through cartooning, we’re not so much eliminating details as we are focusing on specific details. By stripping down an image to its essential ‘meaning,’ an artist can amplify that meaning in a way that realistic art can’t.” I think these statements are the basis of the whole explanation of comics and the whole article, because it shows that images don’t need to look realistic for them to have any more impact on us than a cartoon. The cartoon form may be simpler, but it still gives us the information we need to understand what is being presented. I really liked the images on page 39 where it says, “our ability to extend our identities into inanimate objects can cause pieces of wood to become legs…,” referring to walking with crutches, “pieces of metal to become hands…,” to using utensils, “pieces of plastic to become ears…,” to talking on the phone, and “pieces of glass to become eyes…,” when using glasses to see. I’ve never looked at objects in everyday life like that, but it’s so true.

         One connection I can see between Michael Salter’s lecture and the online material is that there are similarities between his digital artwork and Chris Coleman’s. Both artists use a lot of flat colors that have defined lines, like in Coleman’s video series “My House is not My House.” I loved these pictures because they almost look like photographs turned into cartoons, but they got even better when I pressed play. The sound effects of the street and wind noises brought the pictures to life, giving you the feeling like you were already there. Some of the clips even had movement, which also took me back to Salter’s pieces that involved a screen with images that moved. My favorite of his is the one that showed the simple images of urine, feces, and so on. Gross, but funny.

The online article for this week also related to a lot of Salter’s lecture because so much of what he does is cartooning. Most of this comes from his small add work, and the hundreds of small prints that he makes. Cartoons, like the article states, are usually not realistic at all, and Salter uses this to his advantage. By not making things realistic, he can do whatever he wants with his images, like when he makes the neck coming out of a lot of his characters flow into their arm and hand. It’s not possible in real life, but in cartoon life, it catches people’s attention, whether it’s in his studio, or painted out on public property.

Salter’s work with Styrofoam was really amazing to me, especially with how big some of his projects were, so that combined with his passion for cars made me think of artwork using cardboard. In this case, it’s made into a car.