4. Software Art: Michael Takeo Magruder

Data Flower (Prototype I) - an internal view of a digital blossom

Michael Takeo Magruder is an artist and researcher based in the Kings College Visualization Lab. His work and research is devoted to exploring digital media, networks, and cultures. Data Flower (Prototype I) is an internet-based work, that take images from Flickr that have been tagged with 'flower' and then applied via algorithm to the modeling software that then creates this cycle of artificial flower growth and decay. 

The work Data_Plex(economy) uses real-time data about financial markets to construct three-dimensional renderings of data via geometric shapes. It creates a realtime landscape and visualization of the flux of capital, the stock exchange,  active during trading time and then silent when the market closes.

4. Software Art: boredomresearch (TM)

 Lost calls of cloud mountain whirligigs, screenshot daytime, Custom Software, Computer, TFT Screen, 2009

boredomresearch is a project/collaboration of artists Vicky Isley and Paul Smith from Southampton UK. Their artworks are software/computer-based and explore ideas about biological forms in nature, and how they change and evolve over time. All their work is computer-generated, and lives both online as well as through the DAM gallery in Berlin/Cologne. Their works range from computer-generated print work (c-prints) to evolving software run on custom-made screens, as well as works that only live online and can be interacted with, such as a wishing tree, or the aspiration storm. In the above image, "whirligigs" transform and generate biologically as time passes over a craggy landscape, changing lights and shapes, as well as colors. 

Homework#5: (1.) Digital Artist, Ruud Van Empel

World #36, cibachrome print, 2010.

 Reflection, archival pigment print, 105 x 150 cm, 2010

Theater #2, cibachrome print, 2010

Ruud Van Empel (b. 1958) is a Dutch artist, based in the Netherlands. He has been working with Photoshop since the early 90's; his photographs are composited from many different images he has personally taken both in and out of the studio. In this interview, he talks about the notion of "re-creating a better reality" through his methodical process. By using parts and pieces of photographs in such a way, Van Empel renders a real environment that is slightly off-kilter somehow, eerily imperfect. In terms of photography, he is taking concepts of light and space and making them his own, making his photographs somewhat painterly in how he creates compositions and subjects. He is also interested in innocence, and photographs from his own childhood.

(1.) Digital Painting

This "painting" was created using Paintbrush, a program for Macs similar to MS Paint on Windows. It's nostalgic in a way because it is such a basic program but I remember using it when I was in grade school as a way of drawing and experimenting. While the aesthetic is very different from what I would like out of a painting, the process was still layering, playing with textures of brushes (kind of) and densities of color. The only frustrating part was that MS Paint lacks any possibility for transparency and playing with opacity so layers only become covered, and cannot be viewed.

(1.) Digital Drawing

I used the program Pixelmator (a poor man's Photoshop?) to create the drawing. In the process, I thought about the process of my own drawing and how I might be able to translate it digitally. It was difficult to get the energy of charcoal, or the ghost images created by an eraser, but I found similar techniques through the use of white and black; I did not erase any marks but instead "drew" over them using different tones. I did not use a tablet so mark making felt more unnatural but created different effects and marks than I think if I had one.