Artist Statement
Since 1969, my work with computers in the arts has entailed making productive use of the interaction between a frozen knowledge base embodied in software and my own living consciousness. All of my visual work and music composition, and some parts of my work in poetry, document the interrelationship between myself and the computer as the artist's alter ego. All of my experiences in shaping artistic materials in poetry and music I now transfer to my work in the visual domain.
For me, technical concerns are intrinsically esthetic concerns as well. I welcome new technology as a gate opener for new art. In this spirit, in 2009 I began making animations, only to discover that animation stills are a potent source of both digital photography and digital painting. In light of the importance of music in my life, all of my visual work is “frozen music” showing the inner dynamics of shape, color, texture, and line.
The state of the art of digital photography is such that the boundaries between photography, painting, collage and animation have become utterly permeable, if not meaningless. I invite the viewer to use all of his/her senses, the natural ones as well as those formed by esthetic experiences, when viewing my work.
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Introduction to the Gallery
In this Gallery, you will find three kinds of visual work:
• video-based photography
• digital paintings
• “visual music” animations [using my own electronic music].
Between these three categories there exist many links, and in my artistic process there is a constant back and forth movement between these media. I will give some examples of these links below:
• My video-based photography is based on animation stills. Of the many frame shots an animation comprises, I choose one as the “source image” to be refined. At times I use the still as the architectural backbone of a composition; at times it becomes one among several layers of a work (with different degrees of visibility of each).
• My digital paintings are either “brush studies” in which I explore new digital tools, or they develop within the color schemes provided by animation stills, or even by pieces of digital photography.
• As to animations, I draw on those I have made (see portfolio 3) or I improvise short “study animations” just to provide new materials for either video-based photography or digital painting.
• I foresee that new full-blown animations will arise that are based on my work in video-based photography and digital painting.
In short, there is a constant interchange between the three portfolios, due to the fluidity possible in using digital tools: the traditional distinctions simply break down.
When one considers that contemporary animation software includes sculpting and painting tools as well, the circle is complete: one medium feeds into the other. It is a brave new world!