The software ideated plate : towards designing a new relationship of integration between digital technology and the intaglio process

Abstract

This study investigates the application and use of the latest graphic design software technologies to help plan and ideate the intaglio printmaking process. This is significant as intaglio is a 600 year old process which has evolved little, if any, in the last few hundred years although it was born from technology. Furthermore, the intaglio process relies on mental visualisation of the final artwork, making the real outcome and the planned outcome dissimilar. Students of intaglio printmaking are often surprised or disappointed by the printed result due to the lack of efficient planning. There are several ways in which software influences the creative process, including enhancing visualisation and communication, premature fixation, circumscribed thinking and bounded ideation. In this research, computer software is used as a simulator to facilitate the planning process in order to minimise the disconnect between visualisation and outcome, and serve as learning instrument. The use of digital computer technologies has been a highly debated issue in printmaking as there exists a rift between printmakers; those who embrace and explore new technologies and those who reject new methods in favour of traditional means. New technologies in printmaking offer exciting opportunities, both innovative and creative, but these new technologies are often seen as alternative or auxiliary methods of printmaking compared to traditional ways. Since these debates have been buried but not necessarily resolved, this study reinvigorates some of these perspectives and seeks a common middle ground. This study does not argue for, or against computer technology, but rather for a third paradigm: technology can coexist with intaglio without compromising the beauty and authenticity of hand processes. Computer technologies, therefore, serve as a facilitator to amplify the traditional intaglio hand process. However, the issue of discussion in this thesis is not hybrid printmaking but rather a hybrid mode of thinking in the printmaking discipline. This iterative design experiment consists of a written dissertation and intaglio printed artworks which inform and complement each other. The theoretical foundation of the art practice is found in the Bauhaus slogan: “Art and technology: a new unity”. Art and technology form the basis of the theory and the theme of entropy – the process of degeneration – is illustrated in the design artefacts. This theme shows process and illustrates the idea of a positive agent: the interference of computer in intaglio to instil new energy and value not only to keep it alive, but position it as an important skill necessary for growth in the knowledge-based economy. Furthermore, this study contributes to the scholarly discussion of design’s conceptual skills (ways of thinking) in order to enhance production capabilities (ways of making).