Fine Art - FAQ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is the welcome message and FAQ for the following USNET News Groups Reply-To: artcomp@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu Summary: We distribute fine art electronically throughout USENET-land! Newsgroups: alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.d alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.graphics alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.digitized rec.arts.fine Subject: fine art digitized groups general info welcome and FAQ These groups all deal with the use of computer graphics and computer digitization in art. These are all moderated groups. The two alt groups (.graphics & .digitized) are for the posting of digitized files. These materials are also being made available via FTP for those sites not receiving the alt groups. alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.graphics Is for the posting of those pictures done using computer graphics programs. alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.digitized Is for people who have made paintings, drawings, prints, etc. and wish to distribute reproductions of same. Thus those who have used "conventional media" to produce their art work and wish to digitize same and share this with us, will have their material posted in this group. Picture Format Pictures will be accepted in any reasonable format including IFF, TIF, GIFF and JPEG. (If we are unable to view the picture with our hardware/software environment, we may ask the contributor to mail us slides or other similar hardcopy so that we can perform our moderation.) alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.d Will be a discussion group for both of the above picture groups. For each entry in alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.graphics and alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.digitized the poster will send a short biography and any other information associated with the drawings. Art without this information will not be posted to the newsgroups. And this art will be deleted from the web page if the artist doesn't provide such information within a few days. The biography should include: name education affiliation physical mail address electronic mail address exhibition record (optional) age (optional) Also, please include Description of the MEDIA used for each art work. Many people reading the art list request that there be a description of the art so they can decide whether to download it. Some subscribers use relatively slow modems for downloading. This is intended to be the same sort of information that would be included in art book.A long-term goal would be to assemble an art book and/or a CD-ROM based on the work submitted. (Of course, we would request the consent of each poster prior to including their work.) This would include the possible non-profit distribution to art departments worldwide. alt.pictures.fine-art.d People wishing to discuss the use of computer graphics in fine arts may submit their postings to alt.pictures.fine-art.d ftp archives can be found at uxa.ecn.bgu.edu by anonymous login. The pictures can be found if /pub/fine-art. This directory will contain a list all that we have to date. (Remember to set binary--most everything is binary or compressed except the list.) The Modorators Eugene V. Solot, M.F.A. Associate Professor of Art Emeritus Western Illinois University 312 N William Macomb, IL 62326 Laurence L. Leff, Ph.D. Assistant Prof. of Computer Science Western Illinois University Macomb, IL 61455 Submissions Please send all submissions to: artcomp@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu and send all administrative electronic mail to: artcomp-request@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu We also ask all people reading this posting to tell artists and the local art department about our services. Most artists are NOT on the net and you are probably the only way that the artists you know will hear about us. We would also appreciate it if you would offer to help them with such tasks as obtaining an account with access to USENET, reading and posting news, uploading files and performing the digitization. Thus, please spread the information so that everyone can take advantage of this service. Thanks! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following are answers to some of the questions raised during the original call for discussion. We feel these may be concerns of new subscribers and potential posters. We thus include these issues. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) Copyright protection Please don't post any material that you haven't done yourself. This is to avoid copyright problems. In other words, this is not the group to send your copies of the Mona Lisa or Van Gogh's works. We are concerned that someone on the net might steal and plagiarize pictures distributed on this group. In other words, some unscrupulous individual might monitor these groups, download a picture, and then remove any signature with a paint program. Then, they could submit the picture to a juried show or as homework in an art class. That would be a risk that would be born by any contributor. We trust that artists monitoring this group would be of fine character and never do something so dastardly. However, we strongly recommend that no individual contributor distribute more than five drawings using these group. This is also a reason that we will be requiring the biographical information. If someone wants to exchange more works, they can do this by private electronic mail. 2) What is art? Someone asked, "What is art?" We will not censor anything for posting. However, we will limit the works to a manageable amount--in order not to swamp the net or those wishing to monitor these groups. Of course, if we are making up a disk or publishing book, we will use our discretion in choosing what will make the best possible publication. 3) How do I view the art work? There is a wonderful FAQ posting that deals with picture formats. It is posted regularly to alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.d It is also available from a couple of mail servers. For anonymous FTP access, you can look on either pit-manager.mit.edu [18.72.1.58] in the directory /pub/usenet/news.answers, on archive.cs.ruu.nl [131.211.80.5] in directory NEWS.ANSWERS, on cnam.cnam.fr [192.33.159.6] in directory /pub/FAQ, or on ftp.uu.net [137.39.1.2 or 192.48.96.2] in directory /pub/usenet. In all cases, you'll want to get one or both of the FAQ parts named as files "pictures-faq/part1" and "pictures-faq/part2". Both parts are also available on bongo.cc.utexas.edu [128.83.186.13], in the gifstuff directory as FAQ.abp.1 for part 1 and FAQ.abp.2 for part 2. For e-mail access, send a message to mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu with the mail body "send usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq/part1" to get the first part, and "send usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq/part2" for the second, or e-mail to mail-server@cs.ruu.nl with "send NEWS.ANSWERS/pictures-faq/part1" and/or "send NEWS.ANSWERS/pictures-faq/part2" in the body of the message.