Polke remix--swimmers from animated GIF
August 2008
A Hand Like a Computer
"When people come in the gallery and look at these drawings they aren't sure what they are looking at. After having them up for a few weeks, one thing I've noticed: people noticeably, palpably relax when I tell them they are made with a computer."
--something a dealer said to me about an artist who made very "handmade" looking work in Illustrator and printed it out on traditional art paper. It really makes me think about the anxiety/hatred/jealousy that "genius" drawing produces. (Else why would anyone need to relax?) "Genius" as in evidencing superhuman control or detail. There is a cult of that in the art world (still) and we need to get over it, perhaps. The most hellishly mechanical work is the art of the insane. Those are not hot young talents looking sexy at openings.
A parallel story: A young musician I know plays piano very well and peers who hear her recordings assume she is using software of some kind.
sketch_e9
The vector-y looking imagery in the center is from a computer-made abstract art site called Depthcore--it is a detail from a larger piece, unfortunately I'm note sure by which artist. The sphere is a detail from a Polke on the internet. The bodybuilder is my sketch of a "draw muscles" graphic someone (Guthrie?) found on Nasty Nets. The integration of bitmap and vector graphics has its origins in etc etc etc
Psychotronic GIFs at AFC
My guest essay "Psychotronic GIFs," for Paddy Johnson's IMG MGMT series of blog posts, is up this morning: please go siphon it up, that is, give it a look.
"Samplerette"
"Samplerette" [mp3 removed]
The samples from the Reaktor "Massive" groovebox are generic club stabs (heavily reverbed piano and organ chords, etc.) that are supposed to be further deformed by the software but I exported the map and have just been writing tunes for the samples. The compositional principle is obedience to a certain innate structure that is revealed through working (including "necessary" variations and puns).