Friday, October 15, 2010

missive missile


if one had to visualise the emails and traffic of the internet as missiles, it would look like planetary intercontinental warfare, like a cloud of electrons blurring the nucleus of the globe. Its quite staggering to imagine. I thought of it this morning after the dog HAD to go out and I was waiting for some time and then my brain would NOT go back to sleep.
As an artist, visual stuff is so important. The whole notion of gathering visual fodder and looking at everything becomes such a focus of one's attention. I often forget that others around me don't share this ravenous gathering of images. Furthermore, many don't follow the way one often takes an idea for a walk and finds the strangest routes to explore... it happens. Without the very strange travels and diversions from the normal, it would all remain so predictable and ordinary. In order to find the new world one has to go forth and travel, to go boldly...
In my work I have been looking at how we communicate and how, when we do, we recycle stories and tales and connect them to one another according to the company and the situation. This means that ideas resurface in new and interesting ways. In just this way I am using digital images in my actual paintings by using a transfer film from Digital Art Studio Seminars, and also using photographs of my paintings in my digital work.
I am finding this very exciting and it allows the re-use of imagery and making interesting images.
In the included piece above, I have re-used part of the Sir Cornelis painting and incorporated into a digital work I was making. It extends the narrative I have been pursuing.
I am currently making a companion piece which should go next to it. Work in progress.

1 comment:

  1. Johann:

    Your description of email as interplanetary warfare is an amazing metaphor. There is definitely something hostile about this process; the need to remain anonymous behind our keyboards, yet the opposing need to know and make ourselves known is internal warfare at the very least. Were I to actually 'see' a cloud of electrons or nanobytes, if you will, I think it would scare me sh*tless; in the same way an illiterate savage might respond to a Polaroid photo presented to him.

    I like your explanation of image gathering. It is probably common with most creatives. We tend to look ' out to lunch' to others, but are focusing our energies on image absorption, a formidable part of our missions. Also nice is your idea of recycling images through different media. I am doing more and more of that myself, given the huge backlog of my image inventory. It seems a shame to let all that fade into obscurity without giving it a chance at another life.

    Life and art at their best, are always works in progress. Sorry, couldn't resist that cliché. :)

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