Project Progress: Presentation Ideas + Essay

Online/digital

• On screens
• As projections
• As posts/uploaded
• Multiples somehow

Physical

• Printed scanned and photographed copies

I am not sure how to present but would like to present or which pieces, I would like to use at least 3 images/gifs (I am leaning towards the gifs.) I am considering multiples of one image to comment on how the internet works by copying.

Artist Statement/Essay WIP

Outline

Fairly recently I had some sticker deigns that I had uploaded online a year or so ago stolen, printed and sold at an overseas school fair. I came to know of this through a commissioning client who mentioned having seen my designs from her classmate who was selling them as stickers. She had then followed the watermark I had on each of the seven designs to contact me.

I often post art online using various social media accounts so that I can share my work to others with similar interests. I also find actively being part of the online art community fulfilling and worthwhile. Though I do ask for my work to not be reposted or used in any way without permission, there have been several times I or someone else has seen my work somewhere it should not be. This also goes for many other creators who post their work online.

My work for this subject is a comment on how the internet makes art both accessible and exposed. How it makes work vulnerable to being altered, claimed or otherwise wrongly used. Sometimes without the creator noticing for at least some time. My work expresses the internet’s corruption to art—in originality or singleness, its true meaning compared to viewers’ differing interpretations, and the skewing of the artist’s rights.

 

Theory

The internet has unarguably made art sharing and viewing easy and convenient. One piece of art can now be viewed all around the world by separate individuals all at once while the original stays framed up in a gallery or in the corner of a studio never to see the light of day. This effortlessness is both fascinating and rather terrifying since the artist may not know what is happening to their art on the other side of the world or on a different screen. A digital reproduction of an artwork cannot be interpreted the same as the original and vice versa.[1]

With such a great number of people viewing an artwork at any one time there will be various fluctuating opinions and interpretations, some of which may not be the artist’s intentions.[2] This ease of access also allows viewers without a visual art background to publish their thoughts and influence other’s way of viewing and analysing the work.[3]

The artist’s inability to monitor all the copies of their work also makes it easier for others to infringe copyright and moral rights without their knowledge. Copyright refers to the artist’s exclusive rights of reproduction, publication or communication of work to be sold or licensed and moral rights is the right to be credited as the creator and prevents works from being altered without permission.[4] The internet makes artworks, the artist and their rights more vulnerable and probable of infringement.

Terrifyingly enough, ‘the internet works by copying.[5]’ That is, an electronic copy of an artwork is posted online to be accessible on the web, that copy is then saved or copied into every viewer’s computer’s random access memory (RAM) and may additionally be downloaded. [6] 

**may exclude depending on how I end up presenting the art.

[1] T T Lu, Interpreting Art Digitally: The Evaluation of Digital Interpretation of Art in Museums, UMI Dissertation Publishing, New York, 2012, http://search.proquest.com.access.library.unisa.edu.au/docview/1511033989/37C7293DD7CB42F9PQ/5?accountid=14649, p.11, accessed 16 May 2017.

[2] C P Klayman, Making Art Work: a Pragmaticistic Interpretation of Art, Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, 2002, http://search.proquest.com.access.library.unisa.edu.au/docview/1830771851/37C7293DD7CB42F9PQ/2?accountid=14649, accessed 16 May 2017.

[3] D Waxter, Looking at Art: Is the Internet Producing a better Product? 2015, http://search.informit.com.au.access.library.unisa.edu.au/fullText;dn=438773337603825;res=IELAPA, accessed 16 May 2017.

[4] NAVA, Code of Practice: Chapter 8, p.3, https://visualarts.net.au/code-of-practice/, accessed 13 May 2017.

[5] P Goldenstein, International Copyright Principles, Law and Practice, Oxford University Press, New York, 2001, http://site.ebrary.com.access.library.unisa.edu.au/lib/unisaau/reader.action?docID=10084735, accessed 6 May 2017.

[6] P Goldenstein, International Copyright Principles, Law and Practice.

Project Progress: Glitch via Processing Pixel Sorting

Rather than glitching images by altering the file, I tried to create the appearance of a glitch by processing/pixel sorting using a tutorial.

CAMOMILE

camomile.gif

camomile.png

The glitch of the jpg version was very plain and uninteresting even after changing black/brightness/white values. I also found that the thickness of lines in the png version got thicker (gradually in a span of a couple of seconds) and so the weight of line became flat and very black. I don’t think this process suited this image, possibly because it is greyscale? Also the canvas appeared to have been stretched width wise.

POPPY

poppy.gif

poppy.jpg

poppy.png

I consider the results for the 3 formats more successful for the poppy image. The gif and jpg image look similar but have different textures/patterns— in the areas the gif version is grainy, the jpg version is wavy(?) The pattern reminds me of topography.

LILY:

lily.gif

lily.png

Compared to the poppy images, the lily drawing had much more visual differences between the formats. Unfortunately, like the camomile image the jpg was not very interesting and hence not included. The lily.gif does not resemble the image in any way other than the colours but is simple and quite pleasing to look at. Out of all the results from this pixel sorting process, I like lily.png for its various textures and the fact that it has stayed intact enough to resemble the drawing.

Project Progress: Experimentation

Previously I had been making small changes bit by bit to the data. So curiously I replaced a letter with a different letter (eg. I changed all the As in the file to Bs) and resulted with the above 2 images. They are unrecognizable (I believe they were both the Lily drawing) but I do believe they have their own aesthetic qualities though rather difficult to look at for long periods of time.

Project Progress: Poppy

Project Progress: Lily

Project Progress: Camomile

Project Progress: Glitch images

Below are several glitch versions of each drawing which I created by adding, extracting, duplicating and altering their data through TextEdit.

Camomile:

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Lily:

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Poppies:

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Project Progress: Original Drawings

Below are some abstract drawings derived from flowers which I created on Paint Tool Sai. I decided to reference flowers for aesthetic and conceptual reasons as they are the most effective subject matter for my style and process, and also create a contrast between the natural and the digital– real life and our internet presence.

camomile

lily

poppies

 

I plan to make several more drawings. I plan to glitch these images as a comment on how the internet gives easier access to art and makes them vulnerable to being used, manipulated and corrupted. To further emphasise the effect of the internet on art by posting, I plan to present my final work(s) in a blog post or online post of some kind. I am also considering making gifs of each drawing with their corresponding glitch versions.

Ideas: Glitch Art

Recently I have had some fan art sticker deigns that I had uploaded online a year or so ago stolen, printed and sold at a school fair overseas. I came to know of this through a commissioning client who mentioned having seen the designs from her classmate selling stickers and had followed the watermark I had in each of the 7 designs to contact me.

I often post art online, especially fan art so that it can be shared and seen by others. Though I do state for my work to not be reposted or used in any way without permission, there have been several times I or someone else have seen my work somewhere it should not be. This also goes for many other creators online.

I am considering to make a comment on this in my project. I want to comment on how the internet makes art easily accessible and vulnerable. How it can be so easily altered and claimed and because of the size of the internet, it can sometimes be done so without the creator noticing for some time. In a way the internet can corrupt art. This idea lead me to linking my idea with glitch art which was mentioned in class today.

Glitch art is created from altering and corrupting  data. This links back to my idea in how art posted online can be easily altered and corrupted, and how what you once held dearly can remind you of the frustration and distort your feelings towards the piece.

Artist Research: teamLab

teamLab, Ever Blossoming Life II – A Whole Year per Hour, Gold, 2016, Digital Work, 4 channels, Endless.¹

teamLab, Cold Life, 2014, Digital Work, 7 min 15 sec. (loop), Calligraphy: Sisyu.²

I remember seeing the above work of teamLab in the Art Gallery of South Australia last year. I was visiting the gallery to write a critical review on an exhibition for Art History but, beside having to write several hundred words on these works alone, I still remember my mesmerised awe when I laid eyes on teamLab’s digital works. I was further impressed by the fact that the group is composed of so many different disciplines from mathematicians to visual artists, and that they were able to create an algorithm that created new compositions in real time (hence why Ever Blossoming Life II is endless and truly ‘ever blossoming.) Seeing their work was also played part in my decision to do the Internet & Digital Media course.

teamLab, Flowers Bloom on People, 2017, Digitized Nature, Endless.³ 

Without people this installation is a dark space. When people enter the room and stand still flowers blossom on the people and before long the flowers spread out below their feet. When those flowers come close to another person they spread in that direction and connect.

The flowers bud, grow, and blossom before their petals begin to wither, and eventually fade away. The cycle of growth and decay repeats itself in perpetuity. When people are still, more flowers are born and simultaneously bloom. When the viewer moves the flowers begin to wither, die and fade away.

Another endless piece by teamLab means that it is not pre-recorded or on loop, but that it is continuously changing in real time. The change is brought by the entrance of the viewers, their interaction between other people and their interaction with the installation. Never repeating itself, each visual state lives only in its fleeting moment.

teamLab, Universe of Water Particles, Transcending Boundaries, 2017, Interactive Digital Installation, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi.⁴

Water is represented by calculating the interactions between a continuous flow of hundreds of thousands of water particles. Then, lines are drawn in space in relation to the behavior of the water particles. The accumulation of these lines expresses the waterfall.

The flow of water influences other artworks.

The idea that the water is not only interactive with the viewers but other works as well, is both amazing and fascinating. It’s a way of encompassing and connecting all the works while being one itself. It also activates the whole space.

Though I will not be able to do anything like this any time soon, I do find teamLab’s work inspiring even with the visuals alone. I think I am attracted to the use of light and projection, emphasising the digital media while interlacing it with the real world.