Maeda at Media

John Maeda

1957년 부모가 미국으로 이주해서 시애틀에 정착했다.
하버드, MIT 두 학교만 들어서 알던 아버지의 뜻에 따라 어려서 부터 MIT에 가는 것을 목표로 했다.

"기존의 예술작품을 자동으로 생성하는 프로세스는 1965년 컴퓨터 아티스트 A. Michael Noll과 함께 시작되었다. 그는 몬드리안의 Composition with lines (1917)를 프로그래밍으로 만들었는데, 이 때문에 대중들은 Computer Art를 싸구려 눈속임 정도로 인식했고(기존 예술작품을 흉내 내는), 새로운 공간에서 이루워지던 다양한 실험들은 제대로 인정받지 못하게 되었다. 디지털 페인팅 시스템이 등장하면서 컴퓨터 프로그래밍은 상관없는 것이 되어버렸다."



A. Michael Noll, Computer Composition with Lines, 1964


Piet Mondrian, Composition with Lines, 1917

More info
A. Michael Noll Website

결국 MIT에 가게 되었지만, 그 곳에서는 예술관련 공부를 할 만한 곳이 아니었다. 도서관에서 우연히 폴랜드(Paul Rand)의 책을 보고는 앞날을 결정하게 된다.
일본으로 돌아와 아트 스쿨을 다닌다.
수년 간 그래픽 디자이너로 활동하다가 MIT 교수로 일을 시작한다.
현재(2011)는 Rhode Island School of Design에 Director로 있다.

"Once encoded as a programmatic form, the computer becomes a literal design machine, capable of rendering endless variations on a basic theme. The foremost challenge in operating such a powerful tool is the same as with the simplest tool: there must always be a clear initial concept that can guide the process to a relevant outcome."

-p. 32-

"Because the traditions of art and design presuppose a material with a single fixed state, our critical instinct is to reduce anything with variability to a single instance. A sole solution is always chosen because a pice of paper, plastic, or stone cannot simultaneously assume multiple forms. A static material enforces a thought process with only one conclusion. Thus it is difficult to appreciate and, more importantly, evaluate an artistic statement of change. A natural reaction is to command the form to be frozen-for it to assume a single instance. But another instinct supports our willingness to let it go-when we realize it is alive.
At the present, to render a dynamic, computerized form static for critical or evaluatory reasons is decidedly less sacrilegious than taking a mobile by Calder and welding all of its joints to make it immobile. As our understanding of and appreciation for programmatic forms grow, we will regard a similar act of digital paralysis as equally offensive."

-p. 64-

"The digital medium is unbound in time and in space. A rectangle can be instructed to move every second for eternity. Furthermore, it can be commanded to move off the viewing canvas on to infinity. To draw effectively on such a material requires not only a new set of tools but a new kind of mind."

-p. 93-

"It seems odd when people describe a printed piece as being a 'digital print.' By nature of their construction, digitally originated images cannot be so trivially realized in print; an analogy would be to call a photograph or illustration of a building an 'architectural print.' Naturally the print has representational and sometimes artistic value, but we usually assign superior value to the building being depicted, unless there is something to hide, such as a poor facade or perspective. In print such inadequacies can conveniently be placed or cropped out of view. A digital print by comparison should be thought of as illusory-a mere sliver or minor facet of what really exists in the digital realm."

-p. 161-

"A core challenge of digital art is to establish the relevance of a physical place in relation to virtual space. Drawing on the inherent similarities between the two spaces is a tiring theme that reveals nothing more than what is presented. Within their respective contexts, each space presents the differences as honest facts versus forced fiction."

-p. 329-

"In Japan a miyadaiku is a carpenter trained in the ancient art of Japanese temple carpentry who attains special status from the emperor if the temple he builds stands for more than a thousand years. 'Such temples,' said on of the last miyadaiku, the late Tsunekazu Nishioka, 'stand not because of the magnificence of their design, but because the miyadaiku goes to the mountain, and selects trees from the south face of the mountain to be used for the south face of the temple, trees from the west face of the mountain for the west face of the temple, and so on for the other two sides.' Because building materials are carefully selected to respect the laws of nature, the temple coexists in harmony with nature. Both the extrinsic and intrinsic qualities of the temple radiate its overall strength and beauty. Meanwhile, in the field of digital art, an entire generation of creators shop at the equivalent of home improvement megastores, eagerly acquiring all kinds of prefabricated components and add-ons. Blissfully unaware of-or even worse, uninterested in-the basic nature of the technologies they are using as tools, the creative elite oversee the assembly of substandard digital objects and experiences."

-p. 401-