This is essentially a branding process. Arguably it's just as bad in the tech industry: did Elon Musk really make that rocket himself? Was Steve Jobs wholly responsible for the iPhone?
Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?
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Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?
#32Sounds a lot like academia really and the open secret in many fields that the graduate "coauthors" were really the ones who did the work and the "main author" was the do nothing but compensated and credited more professor who hypocritically starts off every course stating plagiarism will not be tolerated.
The lack of transparency is what makes both of them bad. It would be one thing if an established member vouched for someone new as a supervisor to be clear they followed existing standards of experimentation and research or explicitly admitted they went from a 1/20th scale model to a granite and steel statue with modifications because the original was structurally unsound with different materials.
Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?
#33As an artist, this article makes me so upset. The people doing the actual work should be getting credit. Of course the people coming up with the ideas should be getting credit too. When one person comes up with the idea and another with product, it's a collaborative work and credit should be shared. Artists who try to pass off a work they merely collaborated on as exclusively their own are despicable.
Not necessarily. It's the same as with many creative fields. An architect comes up with the overall concept and, if they're famous, gets their name on the building. But they still have a roomful of structural engineers figuring out how to stop it falling down. Or a musician. Creating an album takes a team of session musicians, producers, engineers etc. But it's the artist's name that goes on the front.
It's possible to do an album on your own, but it takes knowledge of every step in the process. Otherwise you end up with levels all over the place, and people stop listening at the first song that's too much louder than the others.
Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?
#34This is essentially a branding process. Arguably it's just as bad in the tech industry: did Elon Musk really make that rocket himself? Was Steve Jobs wholly responsible for the iPhone?
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Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Skill and art are not necessarily linked. It's possible to be a craftsman without being an artist, and vice versa. Think of a fabricator as an OEM. iPhones are manufactured by Foxconn, and I'm sure their technicians contribute greatly to the manufacturing and design, but it's still the Apple logo that gets stuck on the back.
I wouldn‘t call an iPhone a piece of art though.
it is though. steve jobs treated it and designed it as functional art. unlike most other manufacturers. he did borrow/utilize many ideas from german artists and industrial designers (bauhaus/german modernism/braun design etc.).
so like it or not i would say that iphone is a piece of art that others loved and copied. (which is good and completely natural).
Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?
#36Several years ago, the NY Times had an article by a fellow hired to work for Jeff Koons, who apparently designs but does not produce "his" work, something well known to those who care. The gig ended in failure, when the piece he was working on toppled. Koons apparently held no grudge.
Anyway, you could look it up: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/magazine/i-was-jeff-koons...
Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?
#37One of the longstanding examples of this that immediately sprung to mind is Dale Chihuly ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Chihuly ), the renown glass sculptor. Except Chihuly has not physically produced ANY of the glass sculptures attributed to him since 1979: "...he continued to blow glass until he dislocated his right shoulder in a 1979 bodysurfing accident. No longer able to hold the glass blowing pipe, he hir…
The music industry seems to have a pretty good solution for this.
The performer gets a cut. The lyrics writer gets a cut. The melody writer gets a cut.
I'm sure something similar could work.
I'm also recovering from just finding out that the process I thought happened behind artwork was largely false, and has more in common with renaissance painting businesses than the title artists work.
Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?
#38Sounds a lot like academia really and the open secret in many fields that the graduate "coauthors" were really the ones who did the work and the "main author" was the do nothing but compensated and credited more professor who hypocritically starts off every course stating plagiarism will not be tolerated. The lack of transparency is what makes both of them bad. It would be one thing if an established member vouched f…
> Sounds a lot like academia really and the open secret in many fields that the graduate "coauthors" were really the ones who did the work and the "main author" was the do nothing but compensated and credited more professor
People say this a lot but I don't see it at all. The graduate students go first on the paper author list, and the professor goes last.
The graduate students wouldn't want to be listed last, because at their stage of their career they want to be seen as doing the work, and the professors wouldn't want to be listed first, because at their stage of their career they want to be seen as supervising not doing the actual work.
The system seems really clear to me, and you can give your 'credit' (what that is that you really mean, since it's a bit abstract) to whichever of those people you want.
Or you could see the research as the collaborative process that it is and credit everyone!
Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
In software development I tend to believe that the idea is not particularly valuable. The real value is being able to implement an idea effectively. That is what makes a great product work. It is striking how differently the art technicians in this article think. They see the idea as having all the intrinsic value. More cynically I wonder if it is really the marketing value of a big name rather than the quality of id…
“Very little is actually about execution, because the execution's primary purpose is to represent the idea. It's the actual idea that contains the values.” This quote from the article is a strange reflection of what the world of software development teaches.
My take on it is that it is the artist that brings the idea and make it come to light, they do this by letting other people do the work but they are still the visionaries and in charge of the execution of art.
Good examples of ideas and execution is plentyfull in both software and art, just because you get both of them right doesn't mean you will succeed.
Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?
#40I remember learning some unexpected facts at a Rodin exhibit several years ago. For sculptures that will be cast in metal or similar materials there is a set number of castings, I think it was 5, that can be made from a single mold and all be considered original. These castings can be made at any time, even after the artists death. This means you can have a sculptor die and still have original works being produced for several years.