Sunday, February 17, 2013

Artist Blogg #3

Georg Nees

Georg Nees is one of the three pioneers for computer art. They are otherwise known as the "3N."He was born in 1926 in Nurnberg, Germany and attended the University of Stuttgart. He studied mathematics, physics, and philosophy, and was the first too focus his doctoral dissertation on computer art. Nees started writing his own programs in a format known as ALGOL and "ALGOL used random number generations to automatically generate pictures by controlling a Graphomat Z64". The Graphomat Z64 is a primitive flat-bed pen plotter that was created by Konrad Zuse. Nees added commands to ALGOL in order to make it possible to control and generate the random numbers. In addition, he created the world's first graphics libraries (G1,G2,G3). 




"Gravel Stones"
             Georg Nees piece called "Gravel Stones" was created by using his programs and a method called "Locken," where the plots from the plotter's pen follow a pattern of randomly generated circular arcs, but are constrained within a rectangular frame. This piece begins at the top with evenly-spaced squares, but as you move to the bottom of the picture the squares become unorganized and disturbed. It seems as though it is a ripple effect because disrupting one square will make the rest out of whack.  This can be associated with a lot of things today. For example, disruption in our food chain. If we as humans wipe out one specie in the food chain it causes tremendous disarray for the rest of the chain just like the squares. Another huge art piece Nees created was "Sculpture" and this was the world's first computer generated sculpture. It was created by a "computer controlled automatic milling machine" that generated squares on a square wooden board.       
"Sculpture"
       Innovations always capture my attention and that is why I choose Georg Nees. He deviated from the norm and made something that people didn't believe could exist. Even though his work seems relatively simple nowadays, he was a main reason we even have computer art today. He completely changed the face of what can be created through computer programming. 

Monday, February 11, 2013

Artist Blog #2


         Julian Koschwitz is an Interactive Art Director with a focus in interactive installations, web applications, and digital editorial design.  He is originally from Germany. He graduated from Zurich University of the Arts and is currently teaching Interactive Design at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. Julian also is currently working as an Interactive Art Director at the The Institute of Friends.

One of his speeches he gave on Interactive Art started out with “Design is everything.” As I thought more about this quote I agreed. Nowadays everything is constructed around design like architecture, theadre lighting, or  even a webpage and design is what draws people into whatever it is they are dealing with. Taking this into account, everything Julian creates is an expression of what people will like. Whether it is for the general public or a certain group of people. For example, he created the web designs for Ferrari and he did it in a way that captures the feeling of what it would be like to actually sit in a Ferrari. This is a huge innovation on different levels for the sellers and for the buyers. The buyers can understand the product more while the sellers can tweak what they feel would draw in more buyers. He also does work with interactive art pieces. These types of pieces are what originally drew me into finding out more about him. He took an old fashion type writer and hooked it up to a continuous flow of data that is coded for the deaths of journalist from 1992 to now. The typewriter writes the stories of what happened to these journalists like what they were trying to find out or the location of their death. Pictures also accompany the different stories e.g. a flag of the country they were killed in. 

Julian's way of taking something old and recreating it in a different design is so well respected. He shed light on how important the design of something is and how someone has to create this design. He reminded me that people actually have to create these different sort of things like webpages or buildings and to respect how it is art. I also like how he steps out of what people tag as "normal" art and create amazing pieces that are unforgettable.