( Wired ) -- It 's mind-boggling to look at paintings from the 14th and 15th centuries and think that artists like Leonardo da Vinci created such vibrant portraits using nothing more than a free hand and the naked eye -- when just 100 years before , two-point perspective was unknown . If you 're David Hockney , who 's been a seminal figure in modern painting since the 1960s , you literally ca n't believe it . Hockney holds nothing against his predecessors , but he does have a theory that some used early optical devices to improve and expand their skills . The idea first occurred to him nearly 14 years ago and became the subject of his book Secret Knowledge : Rediscovering the lost techniques of the Old Masters . Hockney 's latest show , A Bigger Exhibition , hosted by San Francisco 's de Young Museum , looks back on the period since his revelation , highlighting how he 's embraced technology ranging from video cameras to iPads , and integrated them into his art . ( The exhibition 's title is a play on Hockney 's best-known painting , A Big Splash . ) In 1999 , a long-standing and well known fascination with new media led Hockney to his controversial suspicions . Visiting the retrospective of a 19th century French artist , he noticed uncanny technical similarities to drawings that Andy Warhol had traced from slide-projected photographs . Knowing that the tools Warhol had used clearly were n't available in the 1800 's , Hockney began researching . It was n't long before he came across camera lucida , a small prism mounted at the end of a metal arm that enables an artist to refract an image onto their paper . The device received a patent in 1807 . Bingo . The discovery was enough to prompt Hockney to expand his investigation , which quickly grew in scope and size . By the end of his study he 'd created The Great Wall , a staggering arrangement of pictures organized chronologically from left to right , and geographically from top to bottom , charting of the evolution of western art across time and space . He used the Wall to trace this history of optical aids , identifying 1420 as the trend 's likely genesis . Shown publicly for the first time at the de Young , the 8-by-72-foot behemoth is the ultimate testament to Hockney 's obsession with technology 's influence on fine art . It 's obvious that tools like camera lucida made creating realistic artwork easier . But Hockney 's broader concern , which he 's explored extensively throughout his career , is how technology has allowed artists to experiment with new perspectives , and thus create new ways of considering the world around them . Where Jan van Eyck might have used convex mirrors to create a larger field of view on his canvas , Hockney turns to a modern equivalent : video cameras . Tucked among the rows of hanging paintings and sketches , four large sets of nine LED screens roll footage of the same country road , each in one of the four seasons . To make the piece , titled Woldgate Woods , Hockney mounted nine cameras on an SUV and while a studio assistant drove , he directed another who controlled each shot individually . The result is a video collage that 's synchronized in timing , but visually unaligned -- a choice he hoped would challenge the viewer 's understanding of perspective , encouraging them to explore each screen and become an active participant in the work . Unsurprisingly , you can find more evidence of technological inspiration all over A Bigger Exhibition . Walking through the seemingly endless space devoted to the exhibit -- the largest in the museum 's history -- it 's seemingly in more places than not . From towering 12-foot-tall prints of iPad drawings to rolling flat screens depicting each of his digital brushstrokes , Hockney 's eye has remained steady while his tools have changed -- making you wonder what will be next in his arsenal . Subscribe to WIRED magazine for less than $ 1 an issue and get a FREE GIFT ! Click here ! Copyright 2011 Wired.com .
David Bowie has long incorporated new media into his work . His fascination with technology led him to investigate how old people used it . Bowie 's latest show , A Bigger Exhibition , looks at how he uses technological innovation .