This month’s artist turns Pop art on its head and gives us a digital take on painting that forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth about modern life. British artist Marina de Stacpoole plays out a scene from popular television series Desperate Housewives against a richly-coloured backdrop of the kind more typically seen in computer games animation. Read the full article here: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/42102
I was saddened to hear of the death of Richard Hamilton a couple of days ago. Although I never managed to meet him, his ideas were an important part of my research into the origins of computer arts & ideas in Britain. He is remembered as the father of Pop Art, but less often discussed are his early activites which had an important bearing on the development of digital art in Britain. He had a broad vision of the artist unconfined to one discipline who could think across outmoded divisions in the arts. He ran a groundbreaking course in Basic Design with Victor Pasmore within the fine art department of King’s College, University of Durham at Newcastle-upon-Tyne (early 1950s). This was the most radical and progressive art education available in Britain at the time and was of central importance in creating a context for later developments in computer arts in this Country.
Hamilton was also involved with the avant-garde exhibition This is Tomorrow at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1956. The catalogue of this show contains what I believe is the first published allusion to the computer in relation to artistic practice in Britain.
Hear a good obit on BBC Radio 4, including an interview with Michael Craig Martin who says Richard was fascinated with everything to do with modern technology.
A ghostly, lone figure appears out of the mist as if something half-remembered from a dream in September’s artwork by Orly Aviv. It’s an image with strong representational, even narrative elements; although the typography of the original location is subsumed the work manages to create a real sense of place. It is a reinterpretation of the Sublime facilitated by the artist’s use of digital technologies. Read the full text here: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/41489
Currently on view at Waterman’s in London is this recreation of an imaginary forest by French art duo Scenocosme (Grégory Lasserre & Anaïs met den Ancxt) which aims to turn spectators into apprentice musicians. Read the full article here: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/41054
This month’s image is a selection of stills from an interactive digital artwork by French artist Anne-Sarah Le Meur, who is interested in questions such as: How does light behave in a virtual space, constructed only by numbers? How do these numbers allow one to play, to disturb, to possibly twist physical laws of light, when one is not looking to simulate realistic phenomena? Read the full text here: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/40701
A Little-Known Story About a Movement, a Magazine, and the Computer’s Arrival in Art: New Tendencies and Bit International, 1961-1973, edited by Margit Rosen has recently been published by MIT Press. I’ve long admired Margit’s work at Germany’s ZKM and this book, clearly the result of years of hard work, brings together Margit’s significant research and curatorial skills. It is a great, weighty tome that delivers a big bang for your buck, illuminating an exhibition movement that took place predominately in Europe – although its reach extended to Britiain and elsewhere (particularily seen in the work of Gustav Metzger, Alan Sutcliffe and others discussed within). Highlights include a clear and useful introductory essay by Margit, re-printed original texts by Metzger, Herbert W Franke, Joanthan Benthall to name just three and numerous photographs and illustrations. The whole publication is wonderfully clear and beautifully laid-out as you might expect from a top-class museum like the ZKM. Well worth a read if you’re interested in questions of why we are where we are today.
Combating Static Art is this month’s topic for Image of the Month and the chosen artist is Paul Brown with his kinetic painting 4^24.
I am always on the lookout for striking new digital and technologically-mediated images, so please send me your latest works, artists’ statements, events, etc. for consideration.