From real-time online cartooning to hand-drawn PC games, it can be tough to tell where human artists and art end and where technology begins. These hybridized forms also prove that digital innovation and old-school techniques don’t have to be enemies. In fact, the human and tech worlds can enrich each other, according to Rob Prior (pictured), artist and creator.

“I think mixing the two worlds is vital in advancing forward as humans,” Prior said, who has worked across a broad landscape of media.

Prior spoke with John Furrier (@furrier), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during an interview at the Samsung Developer Conference in San Francisco.

Artists make tech make art

In addition to his prints, he’s also created art for Marvel and D.C. comic books. His work can be as human as live drawing at concerts for acts such as Linkin Park and as techy as creating animatics for games such as “Ghost Rider” and “The Darkness.” Today’s artists should not neglect the human elements of art for the technological, or vice versa, Prior advised.

“You can’t forget about the real world, because the real world is going to be here no matter what,” he said.

A number of artists today work with digital filters, without learning the skills necessary to produce drawings or paintings by hand, according to Prior. “The technology has allowed people to think they can skip steps — but you can’t,” he said. Anything can be a tool, and an artist needs as many tools as he or she can collect, from pencil sketching to computer generated imaging and anything in between. 

On the other hand, there are some purists who bemoan any technological innovation as a threat to real craftsmen. When the Pro Tools sound editing technology came out, for instance, “Everybody was like, ‘That’s the death of the producer.’ No, that was the beginning of a different kind of producer,” Prior said.

Ultimately, tech and manual tools enable artists, and neither are automatically always better, Prior stated. Increasingly, some creatives, like those in the film industry, are expected to be packing a whole suite of skills — not just directing, but perhaps cinematography, etc. Prior himself is set to direct a movie in the near future.

“It allows me to take every bit of all the things I know and put it into a package,” he concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Samsung Developer Conference.

Photo: SiliconANGLE