2010 symposium

Making our Mark in the Digital Age

Marjorie Devon

Hanging on the coat tails of both Walter Benjamin and Marshall McLuhan, we might posit that the ‘medium is the message’ in this age of digital reproduction. Inextricably intertwined with the printmaking world, the question of originality haunts the doors of our studios now more than ever. While Benjamin spoke of how photography, radio, newspapers, film, and reproductions affected culture, his perceptions foreshadowed the ubiquitous computer, which has now transformed the way we communicate—as well as the way art can be made. It has put a new creative tool in the hands of artists, but also at the disposal of the shysters who exploit the public’s incomprehension of the fine print world. They seem to have a lot in common with Humpty Dumpty:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean…neither more nor less.”

“The question is, “ said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

Marjorie's Keynote Speech can be seen in its entirety here  as a pdf file.

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Kelly Troester's talk

MORJORIE DEVON has served as Director of Tamarind Institute of the College of Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, since 1985. She is the editor of Tamarind: Forty Years and Migrations: New Directions in Native American Art. She is also the author of Tamarind Techniques for Fine Art Lithographers.

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