Some interesting comments and opinions here.
I should clarify that when I introduced Doug as being from "The Dark Side" back at the OTI symposium in 2004, it was mostly in jest, because he was doing some really clever stuff back then, way over the heads of most people looking at it, transforming and scaling what to most people would look like "traditional" ornamental turning patterns, but created on his CNC mill (a HAAS VF2 at the time IIRC?). I thought what he was doing was ground breaking. But I also knew people would deride and dismiss it because, "...it was made on a machine." At that same time some other highly respected "artists" were also dabbling in computer controlled machines to produce art. I have a few pieces in my personal collection from those "early days".
A lot of times I describe ornamental turning as "geometric carving", and I have encountered many turners who dismiss it because the pieces aren't "hand turned", or the rose engine patterns "come from cams". Regardless, practitioners have been producing very artistic pieces through the centuries using various complex devices, and almost always in conjunction with "hand turning" to complete an object.
Coincidentally it was almost exactly a year ago, I was answering a question and trying to describe the stepper motor controller that a few of us have been collaborating on, that I said,...
"It is about automating the tedium, not eliminating the user as the artist."
My personal design process almost always involves drawing an object out, whether pencil and paper, or CAD. Then using that drawing to create the object. In my demos and talks I often use a couple old CAD drawings to illustrate how you can "layout" adjacent cuts, to get a desired shape. Attached is an excerpt from a demo handout I use to illustrate a "faceting technique" to create convex curves.
So the question, which quickly turns into a debate, is what happens if a computer moves the tool or a user / artist moves the tool? Evoking the age old queries, "Is it still art?" or, "What is art?"
Take note that two "artists" have been featured on covers of American Woodturner, both highlighting pieces "turned" using CNC. Is their work still art? I'd say so, since bidders at the AAW auction have voted with their wallets and bought pieces by both of them (Dewey Garret and Bill Ooms).
I will say history tends to repeat itself, whether it was the Luddites burning down cotton and wollen mills, or turners debating if painting, carving or burning is still "turning" or "art"?
In my opinion, tools are tools, and artists are artists. Artists use tools to create their works of art. Their "arsenals" may include welders, lathes, drill presses, routers, air brushes, rotary carvers, hammers, pneumatic grinders, sliding compound miter saws, jigs, bandsaws, and even, god forbid, computer controlled tools.
That said, the distinction I try to use when people confuse CNC with other techniques, is that most CNC machines require the user (artist?) to design their object ahead of time on a "design computer", traditionally using CAD (computer aided design) software, and then make that object using a machine controlled by another computer, which in the case of contemporary CNC machines means executing "g-code" on the controller for the machine (regardless of whether it is a lathe, router, mill, plasma torch or other CNC machine).
What many people don't realize is that design software has been going through a revolution in the last few years, and many newer design applications are much more "sculptural" or artistic in their approach to designing objects that will still be cut by a machine with a CNC controller. To my mind there is a very blurry line today between artistic creations and machine made objects, and I expect that to get blurrier as time marches on.
Creating beautiful objects is an artistic and expressive process. The tools that anyone choses to use to execute their perfect piece should have nothing to do with whether the end result is "art". As the old saying goes, art is in the eye of the beholder, and if the beholder thinks it is beautiful, they probably don't care what "tools" were used to create it.
For what it is worth, that is my humble opinion,
--Jon
