An Interview with Barbara Kasten

Arizona Daily Wildcat "Axis Mundi", 1990 from "New Mexico Sites" by Barbara Kasten.

Wildcat: As an artist who has worked both in the digital and darkroom techniques of photography, how do you think the two approaches compare - do they compete, or complement each other?

Barbara Kasten: I don't think they compete, at least not for my purposes - one does not take over the other. There is no "all the way" in either medium, it's just a choice of the best process to use.

Being able to use digital tools in many ways accelerates the process, and there are some things you just can't do without it, such as my 40-foot murals, just as their are traditional techniques the computer can't duplicate. I've been using digital techniques for a while because I've become allergic to the darkroom chemicals.

WC: I recently attended a photography show in which the artist had put small stickers reading "100% Photoshop free!" on the wall next to her pieces; people still seem to be inherently suspicious of digitally enhanced or altered work. How long do you think it will be before this stigma is gone?

Kasten: I think it will always carry a stigma of some sort. Younger people, including my students, are much more accepting of digital tools, and they will be the ones making most of the work in the future . . . but there will always be someone out there who thinks [digital works] are not art, just as there are still people who question if photography is a legitimate art. If this was 20 years ago we would be discussing whether photography was art at all!

Being "art" is only one possibility of digital works; that's the stumbling block people keep hitting. They want to fit it in a neat box like painting or sculpture, but digital works break down the barriers. Mediums can now be overlapped and brought together in complex ways; it's not a world of elite techniques anymore.

WC: Are there many digital artists out there?

Kasten: Creative people don't have full control of the medium yet. It's still in the hands of techies, not the artistically trained. That's the purpose of a class in digital media, to introduce artists to these new tools.

WC: Is it important for students to learn digital tools, and for art departments to provide them?

Kasten: The UA photography program is known for both experimental and traditional techniques; I think that [using digital tools] is unavoidable, its essential for keeping up with the times.

WC: Many of your pieces involve collaboration with other artists, printmakers, and even lighting "grips" - is this collaboration essential to your work?

Kasten: It's part of the process, part of my investigation of the material. As an artist I'm socially oriented, just the opposite of the mythical artist in the loft, painting all alone.