Just to mention this: this is my personal opinion:

Well - I think that CG artwork cannot be separated from all other artistic concepts which produce a lasting, visual result.

Or the word "artist" could not longer be used.

According to Bagginsbills theory - transferring this to "classic" artistical techniques - Michelangelo would not have been an artist ( he used a marble block which he didn't create himself ) and also the great Rodin who defined scultpures totally new would not have been - he neither digged for clay himself, nor did he cast the bronze that made, when taken out of its mold,  artwork that can take a human heart apart.

If Bagginsbill follows the direction he has entered here, than a CG work could only be art if

• the artist made his own models, his own textures and his own plot
• the artist wrote the application for the creation of models and textures
• the artist wrote his own 3D application and renderer
• the artist build his own computer
• and the artist made his own electrical power

And even if the efforts of (groups of) artists go the way above pretty far, then they still can fail in a, well, glorious way - such a failure just went through the theatres of the world.

"Art" always has to do with a process of modification - modifying the surface of a piece of marble, the shape of bronze, the surface of a canvas or paper or a caves wall, the way a TFT colours it's pixels or a piece of light-sensitive material is toned.
I totally understand the concerns about people who use pre-created material - but before I even think about the question "how did s/he do it?" I ask myself: "did s/he see what s/he tries to tell me?"

If CG art is discussed with the same terms we use for all other artwork, then she same measures must be used. And every piece of art(work) tells an idea - beginning from the cavemans painting to contemporary techniques.
And, I, very personally, can respect someone who tells a story - or "talks" about emotions, dreams, or his personal reality using pre-shaped paterials at least as well as I can respect somebody who made a glorious 3d model with a wonderful texture and a *** render for an advertisement of another car that will stand - stinking - on a trafficlight next year.

An artist is not somebody who started to work so-and-so-long ago or had this-or-that exams and/or successes in the past. The "material" can be just everything that, in any way, communicates. An artist is somebody who bets his life on the fact that what he is doing, in it's results reaches other people, for good.

And, of course: "All art is predecessed by craftsmanship" (J. W. v. Goethe)

typo

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