Visual device.
Compositional device.
Electronic device.
Compositional device.
Electronic device.
Categories
Month: April 2003
Categories
Eightiesesque
Tron’s cyberspace.
Star Trek ; The Next Generation’s computer displays
Vector graphics ( Pollock on a Vectrex )
Low resolution pixmaps ( Mondrian on a VCS )
Silkscreen gradients
R2D2’s casing
Printed circuits
Star Trek ; The Next Generation’s computer displays
Vector graphics ( Pollock on a Vectrex )
Low resolution pixmaps ( Mondrian on a VCS )
Silkscreen gradients
R2D2’s casing
Printed circuits
Categories
Shadows and Light
Multiple shadows imply multiple light sources which implies artificial light. Or, less literally, epistemic relativism or the absence of God.
What colour would a white cube be at Arcturus? At Alpha Centauri?
What colour would a white cube be at Arcturus? At Alpha Centauri?
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Philosophies Are Aesthetics
What it says.
Categories
Bitfastness
Programming in Perl or Java is the conservational equivalent of painting with household gloss. For software, conservation means being able to run the program. Targeting specific systems or fashionable languages (Windows XP or Perl) will not immediately cause problems beyond limiting distribution, but when the targeted hardware starts breaking and the system or language used is no longer current or even maintained, work is left unexhibitable.
In the worst case, decades from now, software artworks will be completely incompatible with contemporary systems and they will have to be remade from source code. The language used should therefore have shown longevity and be easy to re-implement. To make it suitable for programming in the first place, the language should be expressive and should be Turing complete.
The oldest languages still in widespread use are FORTRAN, Lisp and COBOL. Lisp is the most general-purpose language of the three, but the current Lisp standard (Common Lisp) is too complex to be easily re-implemented. There is however a more lightweight version of Lisp available called Scheme. Scheme is easy to implement yet powerful enough to use for real-world programming. Scheme interpreters and compilers are available for most operating systems, and a Java-cross compiler (KAWA) is also available.
Archival quality (“bitfast”) code should use well-commented and well-structured Scheme, with LIDL (a portable library suite) and a CLOS-like (object-oriented) library if required. Graphical and other interfaces should be written as needed, kept as simple as possible, and thoroughly documented. The code, its documentation, the libraries, the language standard and sample output in a raw format (also documented) should be provided on archival CD. These measures will make software art conservation a more realistic prospect than it is for much currently produced work.
In the worst case, decades from now, software artworks will be completely incompatible with contemporary systems and they will have to be remade from source code. The language used should therefore have shown longevity and be easy to re-implement. To make it suitable for programming in the first place, the language should be expressive and should be Turing complete.
The oldest languages still in widespread use are FORTRAN, Lisp and COBOL. Lisp is the most general-purpose language of the three, but the current Lisp standard (Common Lisp) is too complex to be easily re-implemented. There is however a more lightweight version of Lisp available called Scheme. Scheme is easy to implement yet powerful enough to use for real-world programming. Scheme interpreters and compilers are available for most operating systems, and a Java-cross compiler (KAWA) is also available.
Archival quality (“bitfast”) code should use well-commented and well-structured Scheme, with LIDL (a portable library suite) and a CLOS-like (object-oriented) library if required. Graphical and other interfaces should be written as needed, kept as simple as possible, and thoroughly documented. The code, its documentation, the libraries, the language standard and sample output in a raw format (also documented) should be provided on archival CD. These measures will make software art conservation a more realistic prospect than it is for much currently produced work.
Categories
Axiomatic Aesthetics
What it says.
The role Rosalind Picard ascribes to emotion in limiting search in “Affective Computing” is played by ‘temperature’ in Douglas Hofstadter’s programs from “Fluid Concepts And Creative Analogies”.
Categories
Who?
“There are now two conditions of the possibility of art: the address to the High Modernist spectator, and the satisfaction of the consumer of transparent images – however dressed up in the literal or the virtual.” – Art & Language, ‘Mother, Father Monday’.
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Trip Hop Art (Poetics [A Decade On])
Blur (focus), uneven lighting, dust on the plane, dust in the volume, fading & yellowing of pigments due to ‘age’, creasing & scratching of the support, tearing & crumpling of the support, crak(l)ing/blooming/yellowing of varnish, fading of edges, photographic grain, canvas/paper texture, halftone, digital pixels & quantisation, compression artefacts, water stains, coffee cup rings, lens flare, video blurriness, video generation degredation, black&white reproduction, b&w halftone, bad colour halftoning, 50’s red, 70’s yellow, 80’s green & blue
The drum track has static and scratches. This is the lowest level of the music suffering the most basic ironisation. Static/scratches on vinyl are also inherently rhythmic.
Instruments are obvious samples retaining their recording (spatial and temporal) quality, or made too bright/bassy to ensure distance (ironisation).
The vocals are brought close, their raw qualities emphasised, the edges sent of the top of the meter.
Gavin Turk’s rusty mirrored cubes.
Fiona Rae (no noise, though?).
The noise becomes part of the signal.
Categories
Opticality…
Space, depth, perspective.
Colour, form.
Colour, form.