Abstract

This paper will examine the ways that digital photography is changing the creative activity of the artist/designer. It proposes that with the evolution of photographs from pictures to information, the role of the artist has moved from that of a maker to that of an organizer. The artist working with digital procedures now sorts, combines and recombines. The analogue photograph was understood to present unequivocal Truth. With the advent of the digital photograph truth becomes a simulacrum. The paper will also examine the implications of “sorting” as an activity that redefines the relationship between the formal visual languages and the signification of information. It will be argued that the digital image, unfettered from western aesthetic traditions, is creating unprecedented processes for visual creation. It concludes with an examination of the practice of one of the co-authors, who uses evolutionary software, to breed photographs with the computer. He thereby establishes a visual vocabulary that no longer operates within the traditional design paradigm defining space, place and form.