From Evaluation to Crits and Conversation

Soon after the launch of the iPhone the British artist and printmaker David Hockney began sending his friends pictures he had made using painting and drawing apps. One of these friends was the writer and art critic Martin Gayford and in 2009 he received an iPhone drawing of a sunrise over the East Yorkshire town of Bridlington (Thames & Hudson 2007). The file on Hockney’s iPhone was identical to the one that he sent to Gayford which prompted him to ask—where was the original? Hockney sent many images to his friends and they in turn could share them until London was awash with “original Hockneys”. While Hockney’s limited edition etchings and lithographs attract high prices, this new method of production and dissemination challenged the notion of a limited edition “print run” because digital files can be reproduced with no diminution of quality at virtually no cost. These kinds of reflection led to a project called “Digital Originals” where we conducted several studies of practicing artists and developed an app called Repentir.