Technical innovation is a hugely important part of society and will always move forward no matter what your industry. We are curious creatures striving to learn and push boundaries. Some would say technologies are making our race lazy, some would go as far to say ‘technology is the mortal enemy of art’ (A. Rodchenko, V. Stapanova, and A. Gan). As written in ‘Who we are’ manifesto of the constructivist group, the artists argue that technology has taken something away from art. I believe there are reasons for and against this.

‘This is I, the machine, manoeuvring in the chaotic movements, recording one movement after another in the most complex combinations, freed from the boundaries of time and space, I coordinate and and all points of the universe wherever I want them to be. My way leads towards the creation of a fresh perception of the world, thus I explain in a new way a world unknown to you.’

This was taken from a manifesto written by Dziga Vertov, a Russian film director who made a film called ‘The man with a movie camera’ (1929) His film was groundbreaking and all about the editing of moving images from obscure viewpoints. Focused on ordinary objects and scenes, yet from angles inspired by the constructivist movement that no one had seen documented before. The invention of the camera and other technologies has changed not only what we see but how we see it. Going back to the constructivists statement ‘ technology is the moral enemy of art’, technology has definitely changed the way we see art. As original paintings have become reproducible, they have changed in how we view them. We no longer see them hung on a wall, in their own surroundings. We can see them on our screens in an instant, in our own surroundings. ‘the meaning of a painting no longer resides in its unique painted surface, which it is only possible to see at one place at one time, its meaning has become transmittable. It has become information of a sort.'( J. Berger)

I believe that in this sense, art has lost and gained. Art can now be seen by millions of people at the same time, connecting with people and allowing them to creatively innovate. Technology has also enabled us to become efficient in our day to day life. Technology cannot create better design, but it can speed it up tremendously.