Touch Me, Feel Me

Now if that doesn't get your attention, nothing will...

Was thinking last night as I did some personal design work about the importance (or lack of) experience in the making of imagery. By experience I don't mean training, education, wisdom gained from a history, etc. Instead I mean the act of "experiencing," actually feeling or doing something that then is portrayed or reflected in the resulting work. For example, currently I'm teaching Digital Imaging class using Photoshop. To get the students going, we'll use a variety of sources - scanned images, digital photographs, online images, etc., to build our resulting images. Now for the sake of expediency, many (if not most) of the students rely heavily on images found online; copyright issues aside (I believe that since it stays only as a classroom project, it falls under the Fair Use Guidelines, but I'm no lawyer), I wonder if this is a good thing. Here's why - I'm starting to wonder if the act of collecting and constructing your source images (either analog or digital formats) is in itself an important part of creating authentic and personal work.

In the old analog world of making, this is a rather mute point. Except for rare exceptions, artists had to have an intimate relationship with the work they created and the elements that went into it. I mean, nothing is more intimate that having to go out and draw/paint/sculpt/photograph/film/record your subjects right in front of you, only then to go into the studio to draw/paint/edit/compose/etc. the elements into a synthetic whole. But now one can steal or purchase images online, compose them remotely through a mouse or keyboard, and email them off for printing or publication. So what did you actually experience in the process? The keyboard?

This is beginning to worry me in the long term. I romantically believe that good art comes from life experiences, from what we see, do, feel, and learn. But if I can get all my components from anywhere in the world, combine them with Photoshop without ever really "touching" them, and send them off to be in shows, magazines, or whatever without ever "holding" them, what have I really experienced? Where's the elements that reflect who I am, rather than a generic designer or artist? Or is simply the act of composing, of combining disparate elements, enough? Do I really need to be there to talk about it?