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A friend recently said he never liked Tron (which I talked about here and here) because he thought it looked stupid. Yes, I guess that's true, in the same way Fritz Lang's Metropolis and William Cameron Menzies' Things to Come look stupid: all are exercises in worldbuilding somewhat embarrassingly rooted in the eras in which they were made. Tron may be dated by its technology, but it's interestingly dated: many of the effects involve ways of rendering and makeshift solutions that won't likely be seen again (e.g., "simulated wireframe" using backlit kodalith), because digital filmmaking has utterly changed in the last 21 years. But not necessarily improved--are the plasticine universes of Finding Nemo etc. any more significant, really?
A few years ago I wrote an essay contrasting Pixar's drive for visual perfection with some of the grotty, low-tech things artists are doing. I think this still holds up:
As the corporate entertainment world introduces greater levels of "virtuality" into films (Toy Story, Jurassic Park) and computer games (Myst, Tomb Raider II), many artists are headed in the opposite direction, toward a kind of a sublime indeterminacy. Blurred transmissions, imperfect copies, and other waste products of electronic and digital media are the model for this new aesthetic, which is both symbiotic to and aloof from the global information network.The recent marriage of Hollywood and Silicon Valley has revived the age-old quest for what Norman Bryson calls the "essential copy"--the depiction of seamless reality that preoccupied artists from ancient Greece to the late 19th Century. Instead of complex history paintings full of perfectly rendered figures, the goal of current software writers is to create moving tableaux in which the figures interact, cast realistic shadows, and accommodate changing light sources--all at the click of a mouse.
These discoveries take place within labor- and capital-intensive workplaces like Pixar and Industrial Light & Magic, where employees scramble to top previous levels of verisimilitude. Technical achievement, not humanistic speculation or doubt, is the prime concern in these high-tech factories. Artists, on the other hand, are as interested in the "why" of technology as the "how." Where special effects crews are building images using computer-generated skeletons and fractal outer skins, artists are breaking pictures down into critically nuanced, constituent parts. Increasingly they are gaining access to home equipment that enables unorthodox uses of technology.
So what does this have to do with Tron? Not much, actually. The film's director, Steven Lisberger, is just as rooted in digital utopianism as the Pixar folks; in recent interviews he has spoken of how artists can give inspiring form to new technologies, lamented the failed promise of the internet (he believes it's mainly a haven for gossip and p0rn), and dissed the despairing tone of the (original) Matrix. Yet a lot of artists like Tron, perhaps for the wrong reasons: the provisional, cobbled-together look of its technology; its wonderful mix of formal beauty and supreme cheesiness. Also, readers of William Gibson's Neuromancer inevitably thought about Blade Runner when visualizing The Sprawl, but what movie provided a ready template for the blocks of abstract data comprising Cyberspace? Oh, and speaking of anachronisms, the Pixar short that accompanies Nemo, titled Knickknacks, is pure uncut '80s, from the glossy sheen of the design to the '50s-retro wallpaper to the perky Bobby McFerrin soundtrack that makes you want to run screaming for the exits. Now there's something that's not interestingly dated.
Mark suggests a connection to the Springfield Knowledgeum in my recent (ongoing) painting--"where science is explained with brightly colored balls." I missed that Simpsons episode but it sounds just about right. I also made this "Jack Kirby Mandala" as an aid to help me visualize whirled peas, I mean the painting. I found the image at Comiclopedia (thanks to artnotes): it's from a 1982 Kirby comic and the text brings tears to my post-adolescent eyes: "FOR EVERY INDIVIDUAL LOSS, LEGIONS POUR FORTH!!! THE HIVE BELOW HAS BEEN RESTLESS--MULTIPLYING!"
Jim was over last night and asked for a demonstration of my mouse-drawing acumen on MSPaintbrush. The image below, based on the DVD cover for Kiki's Delivery Service, was drawn freehand while he and Bill watched, so now I have witnesses to this valuable skill-set:
I've started a new painting that's in my typical hybrid (virtual/non-virtual) style of working on the computer: making a drawing in MSPaintbrush, flipping and reflipping the image, printing it out, drawing some more, overprinting (running the previously-drawn pages through the printer again), taping the pages together, adding and subtracting elements with scissors and tape, etc. A step-by-step demo, documenting the process with a digital camera, is going on here.
Carl Scholz at Momenta Art through June 2. I haven't seen the show but this is a great picture. Or maybe just a great car. From the press release: "Titled Cherry, the vehicle has been rendered inaccessible through a flawless body job that replaces and covers all windows, exterior decoration, or any reference to the interior. Scholz is interested in symbols of power, class, masculinity, recognition, and safety." Yes, it's pushing all those buttons for former teen muscle car model-kit builders such as myself.
The artist here is Ina Ettlinger, from Munich. Her pieces start as actual clothing which is dismantled into the weird tendrils you see. She often picks out a section or color of the fabric pattern to 'work out.' Sometimes the extracted bits crawl up the wall, other times travel out onto the floor. No wires involved, just stuffed fabric. The work is by turns whimsical and feminine, creepy and hysterical. (Paraphrased from an email from Courtenay Smith, director of Lothringer13/Halle in Munich.)
Some of the records mentioned in my post about Stefan Schwander (aka Antonelli Electr. and other aliases) were on order and just arrived. The Repeat Orchestra disc, released in 2001, is dynamite; it out-Antonellis recent Antonelli for tuneful danceability, or danceable tunefulness (it's also a bit reminiscent of the Darshan Jesrani/Morgan Geist gem-and-a-half Metro Area). The Pop Up discs are OK; probably not floor-fillers but might work well as transitions. The Swimmingpool CD is slower and dubbier but quite good. The definitive Schwander isn't any one specific disc but would have to be taken from a combination of CDs and EPs under various names (I'm working on a list). And speaking of filler, that's what this post is; it's mainly here to put a text buffer between different types of artwork, for page design reasons, blah blah.
Wild Berry Crisp and Filter(less) House