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May 01, 2005
The Scream
The BBC are reporting that the iconic painting "The Scream" by Edvard Munch may well have been destroyed. This is of course terrible news, it's a fantastic piece of work. I got to thinking though that maybe we don't really need the physical picture any more. I have never been to see it, and never really planned to. The internet has made it available for everyone to view at any time, so is the paint and canvas something we should mourn?
There are some works of art that cannot be represented in pixels on a screen. The exhibits in the Tate Modern Turbine Gallery are always huge, always multi-dimensional and multi-sensual, and have to be experienced. They are fleeting, and once they have gone, that's it, you cannot experience them again. Pieces of sculpture, again three dimensional art, it still not something a computer can convey properly. Maybe when we have holographic projecters (like R2D2's on Star Wars, but better quality), we can walk around a representation of Rodin's Thinker and get a good impression of it. I don't really think it will really be good enough though, sculpture should be touched in my opinion.
I can see The Scream any time, I can print it out, I can buy a print and put it on my wall for very little money. The original may be gone, but the image will never be forgotten, and while a poster is not 100% as good, I think it's close enough for most of us.
Posted by se71 at May 1, 2005 12:48 PM
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