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Photographism, Musicism and new dialects for the artsBy: Lee Barry 
With every new technology comes a whole new set of definitions for art. Andin the infancy of new technologies, we are initially unsure of how to use the newmedia, and consequently we apply old technologies and things we already know.With the advent of photography, painters found themselves using existing notions of composition, color and texture. Similarly with the advent of film, it was the painterswho were first to experiment with the new medium. And like learning a newlanguage, we associate new expressions with established concepts."Painting" has become a metaphor for all kinds of things: "painting withsound", painting with pixels", "painting with words". It's as if painting has become ahuman universal for the notion of the deliberate act of representing (ormisrepresenting) ideas and concepts into consciousness, regardless of the domain.The term "paint" has become somewhat of a superfluous “term of art”, as it has nofixed, literal meaning as applied to the arts in general. As critic Howard Halle said,"Painting is a philosophical enterprise that doesn't always involve paint." "Paint" isnow a general term that represents the creative act.I recently heard a young graphic artist say that he was influenced by DJs thatcut up existing music into new montages. Usually it's the other way around: it's theDJs that are being influenced by the techniques of visual artists. This, of course isnothing new, as this cross-pollination between musicians and painters has beengoing on for centuries. Debussy applied the pointilist painting techniques toorchestration; Stravinsky applied cubist techniques to scoring as well. In the arts,one can get easily disoriented, and forget what domain one is working in; which cansometimes result in very interesting creative product. The use of metaphor is one of 
 “Photographism, Musicism and new dialects for the arts” Page 1 of 3Copyright 2002, Lee Barry. All rights reserved.barryarts.net / leebarry.net
 
the most effective tools of the artist, as it reshapes the boundaries of the artisticmethod.
[Image: Recto/Verso #12 – Robert Heinecken – 1989]
Photographic montage was a very popular form of artistic expression in the80s, with artists like Robert Heineken. Heineken always referred to himself as a"photographist" rather than a photographer. He made art out by appropriatingexisting images, as DJs now make recordings out of existing recordings. In the spiritof seat-of-the-pants nomenclature, I like to call them "musicists." They don't reallyfit into the old definition of musician, although they still serve the same function insociety. The fact that painters migrated to photography and film as a new mediumobviously has had an effect on our collective interpretation of painting. The metaphorgets applied immediately to lots of different things. And now that musicians aremigrating to new media, we will find perhaps in one hundred years that it has alsoaffected our collective interpretation of making music.
 “Photographism, Musicism and new dialects for the arts” Page 2 of 3Copyright 2002, Lee Barry. All rights reserved.barryarts.net / leebarry.net
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