Bloomin Virtual!

Richard Falle, Phalaenopsis Momento Mori, 2011, Pigmented Inkjet Print

Richard Falle’s work Phalaenopsis Momento Mori pushes preconceived ideas of vector-based imagery and the recording of still life works within virtual space. Here the allusions to photo-realism and hyperrealism are prominent although momentarily acknowledged once one learns that the image has been described by observing the real object. Subsequently the 2D print resonates between traditional drawing methods for still life recording and the resulting depiction of form and space through virtual tools.

The work was initiated through discussions between the artist and myself - so to give you a bit of background here are some words from the artist about the making and conception of Phalaenopsis Momento Mori.

Making:

The image Phalaenopsis Momento Mori was created in Adobe Illustrator using a plethora of blends, meshes, transparency masks and brushes layered one on another and contained within clipping masks to create depth, texture and lighting effects. The image was drawn from observation rather than having traced over photograph or using the Livetrace function. Not an efficient method of generating this kind of image, I estimate it took at least 30hrs to produce, the challenge of working within the limitations of Adobe Illustrator makes the result all the more satisfying.

Conception:

How often have you posed the question, “What if…?”

For me, it’s been a vice, a pleasure and a muse since I was very young. An unrepentant daydreamer, the images I create are a product of attempting to visualise the props of those unlikely “What if?” scenarios, combined with an ongoing exercise in pushing the limits of what can be achieved using purely vector graphics. The limitations of vector art, creates images that seem to hover between photorealism and illustration and gives the subjects an uncanniness that accentuates their eccentricity.

Phalaenopsis Momento Mori by Richard Falle is a printed edition by CFPR Editions at the Centre for Fine Print Research.

Bleeding Pixels

Paul Ferragut, Time Printing Machine, 2011

Ferragut's Time Printing Machine creates a pixelated aesthetic that is realized through durational deposits of ink on paper. By using a time based algorythm to drive a mechanical plotter Ferragut has devised a mark making system that optimizes the relationship between material absorption and image rendering. Ferragut explains "The time print device uses blotting paper with Letraset felt-pen. The felt-pen ink bleed in the paper for a duration relative to the grey value of a pixel. Every "time stain" gradually recreates any image in a pointilist style." The work was produced for Ferragut's MA show at London Central St Matins and further info concerning the artists activities can be found here

Rebel Relief

Sam Burford, Star Wars Relief, 2011

Sam Burford's Star Wars Relief is a timelapse photograph taken from the film Star Wars IV. Burford uses a bespoke capture device to record the film footage that is then rendered as a series of extended (and abstract) film stills (see example here). In this instance the image has been transformed into a surface relief made from silicon - a material previously used in film production to create sets and props. The relief work subsequently has allusions to pre-digital cinematic model making methods and aesthetic reference to the surface structure of the Empires Imperial Starships and Space Station.

Loom Moon, I saw you standing alone.

Jeff Sanders, Moon, 2007, Jacquard tapestry, 72 inch x 8 inch depth, Edition of 12

Published by Magnolia Editions

Jeff Sanders Moon 2007 is a tapestry work constructed from a digital image. Using a series of interwoven threads the tapestry has been rendered by a specialized, electronic Jacquard loom. To get a better view of the Moon see the work at Magnolia Editions.

Another wry smile

Mike Ruiz, Replaced Mona Lisa, 2011, Oil on Canvas

As described by Mike Ruiz;

The Mona Lisa with the lady selected then put through Content-Aware Fill (a Photoshop CS5 tool that automatically generates content based on the existing surrounding content of the image and fills in selected area). The resulting image is a potential landscape as interpreted by the software. The image was sent to a painting manufacturer in China where an oil painting was produced.

The Human Printer: A Namesake Production

Paul Laidler, The Human Printer.tiff, Produced by The Human Printer, 2010

“We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.” (M. McLuhan, 1964)

The Human Printer.tiff is part of a series entitled Print is Dead and was produced by a group called The Human Printer. The group consists of eleven individuals who specialise in reproducing by hand, the digitised rendering of a half-tone image that is normally associated with mechanical print processes. The Human Printer group has adopted the remote Print-on-demand facility for transferring digital files, although the potential to rapidly produce large editions is somewhat limited due to the extensive labour involved and the small-scale production of the studio. The Human Printer.tiff (see source file here) took just over two weeks from order to receipt.

In keeping with the mechanised half-tone print process, the digital image is printed as colour separations using the four printing channels of CMYK. To produce the final drawn image, each colour separation is traced individually on to a single sheet of semi-transparent paper so that collectively, the channels register with one another. The layering order of each colour follows the half-tone print procedure using four different coloured pens that correspond to each of the separate colour channels.The Human Printer’s transcription process includes the visual descriptions associated with reproduction through the mechanised image. The Human Printer’s rendering of a coarse photographic half-tone and its associations with automation are reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s 1963 comment “I want to be a machine”.

Further overtones of convergence between humans and technology reference a (hypothetical) Post-human future where a biological generation of humanity ends and technological one begins. The influence of science and technology upon the human condition has been a constant source of inspiration for the field of science fiction. In more recent times the fictional associations with phenomena such as implants, smart materials and cloning have accelerated the science fiction world toward are own.

The idea that a fiction can become functional through an associated process has been incorporated in to the selection of a specific technology for the work entitled Stretch out with your feelings.

The Human Printer.tiff is part of larger series of work entitled Print is Dead that continues the theme of humans as printers and the broadening definition of the print medium in the digital age. Collectively these works have contributed toward the development of paper for the Impact 7 2011 printmaking conference in Australia - further details can be found here.

Moire Paintings

Hugh Scott-Douglas, Moire Paintings

Ryuji Nakamura, Midget & Giant

A celebratory substrate?

Pepon Osorio, You're Never Ready, 2009

Seen here at The Graphic Unconscious Exhibition 2010 (Part of Pilagraphika Print festival) Pepon Osorio has enlarged an x-ray image to produce an inkjet print on confetti.

Folding Space

Riyo Nemeth, Fold II, 2010

Rendered in physical space, Riyo Nemeth composes and records the Photoshop gradient affect by printing and folding a sheet of paper.

Human Interface

Hi from Multitouch Barcelona on Vimeo.

Dynamic Print

Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer from Visual Editions on Vimeo.

Jonathan Safran Foer, deftly deploys sculptural means to craft a truly compelling story. In our world of screens, he welds narrative, materiality, and our reading experience into a book that remembers that it actually has a body.

-Olafur Eliasson

Richard Hutten, Playing with Tradition

Hutten plays upon the historical relationship between looms and computers, comprising the appearance of stretched pixels within the woven thread design.

Also see other analogue designs that invoke a digital process: Beam me up Scotty, I'd Buy that for a Dollar and Edges of a Hardcore

Help me Rhonda

Rhonda is an open source 3D drawing tool developed by Amit Pitaru

Beam me Scotty

Gareth Neal, Anne Chair

Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculpture to discover it. Michelangelo

Gareth Neal combines traditional techniques and forms with modern technology. Carved/ milled with a CNC machine the Queen Anne-style console 'sits' within its digitally rendered case. It is as if Neal's chair has been teleported from the Star ship Enterprise. Neal's Anne Chair image resembles the re-materialization status of an object in teleport where both matter and information momentarily coexist.

Mark Pernice & Christian Hanson, Photo Booth Mask, 2010

Originally a distorted portrait captured using Apple's Photo Booth application Pernice and Hanson construct the recorded image distortion as a three-dimensional mask.

R.A.M

Shawn Smith, Double Dahl

Smith uses thumbnail images from the internet to construct three dimensional representations of the image and its rendered appearance in pixels.

Edges of a hardcore

Pixxxel, Jean-Yves Leoigne for AMUSEMENT

The collaging of pixel resolutions within a ppi (pixels per inch) determined virtual image space forces one to get physical with the virtual.

Also see Is it a game, or is it real

Piety of the Polychromer and the forebidden planet of the prostitute

The Sacred Made Real, The National Gallery London

Megan Fox as model Leile from the Jonah Hex Series

The realistic quality of the polychrome sculpture and their visual presence in the 17th Century raised concerns within certain religious establishments. These concerns were observed through the sculptures relationship to the real and the possibility that the faithful might worship the sculpture itself, not what it represented.

Stretch out with your feelings

P. Laidler, Stretch out with your feelings, 2009, Laser Engraving

The orb image depicted in the photograph above has been burnt with a laser into the surface of a black heavy weight cotton based paper. The laser engraved orb image in the paper is a ‘Jedi training remote’ from the film Star Wars. In this instance the training remote image is only visible because of the resulting topography that is burnt (by the laser) into the depth of the paper. Therefore the orb image is described by angle, light and the papers darker fibers that sit beneath the (slightly lighter black) paper surface.

Form follows Fiction:

Upon our first encounter with the ‘Jedi training remote’ (in the film) we find Skywalker struggling to focus his Jedi abilities during the laser training exercise. There after it is decided that Skywalker should be blinded allowing the force to guide his actions instead of his eyesight or to 'let go of his conscious self'. Now blinded by 'the blast shield' Luke sees nothing except darkness (black paper) by using the force Luke is able to render the objects image in his mind (the image on the black paper). Although in his minds eye the object is devoid of physicality yet Skywalker has the ability to sense the training remotes presence in a space (the laser cut depth within the flat space of the paper). The realisation that the Jedi training remote is essentially both image and object creates a sense of mystery around the works visual presence - perhaps drawing further parallels with the order of the Jedi Knight!

Stretch out with your feelings is part of a continuing fascination with oscillations between image and object and fact and fiction. Subsequently I have an interest in film props and replicas where our associations with these objects are generally through their ‘on screen’ image presence. In this context film props are essentially objects that are preceded by their image, they are able to traverse fiction and reality when we consider that fact that they are 'real fictional' objects.

Stretch out with your feelings was conceived around the idea of creating a 'real fiction' where a physical object (an artwork) would be literally formed by some aspect of its fictional reference. In this instance the laser technology was used to initiate the traversing between fiction and reality. Here laser cutting technology refers to both the Jedi remotes fictional function (shooting lasers at Skywalker) and the actual technological process that renders the Jedi training remote visible in Stretch out with your feelings. The self-referential play around the idea of creating real fictions also has a resonance with the rapid advancement in science and computing industries. What was once thought to be only possible in science fiction is now becoming 'science faction'.

The work was included in The International Experimental Engraving Biennial 2011. See IEEB4 catalogue and video of the work installed at the IEEB4 Exhibition, Brancovan Palaces Cultural Center, Romainia.