Mark Napier
Artist's statement
About the artist

Mark Napier — Smoke — video art

Artist's statement

Increasingly we live and navigate in a world composed of energy: electrical, magnetic and light. Digital media infuse our lives as never before. In this media environment, power is no longer associated with physical objects, but with the persistence of ideas in the collective consciousness of the media.
— Mark Napier, as quoted in press release 070412_ny_napier.pdf from bitforms.com

About the artist

Mark Napier (b. 1961, US) is recognized as one of the first to explore the potential of the Internet as a space for public art. Breaking boundaries of ownership in early web-based works such as Shredder (1998), Riot (1999), and Feed (2001), Napier questioned fixed designs of web navigation, opened content choices to users, and dissolved information into abstract expression. His recent works investigate monumentality, permanence, skin, the body, obsolescence, mythology, and architecture. Commissioned to create Internet art for the permanent collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Napier was also part of the 2002 biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Exhibitions of his work include Centre Pompidou, Paris; P.S.1, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Ars Electronica, Linz; The Kitchen; Künstlerhaus, Vienna; ZKM (Center for Art and Media), Karlsruhe; Transmediale, Berlin; iMAL Center, Brussels; Eyebeam; Markel Foundation in Rockefeller Center; Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College; Princeton Art Museum; la Villette, Paris, W Hotel, Seoul; Lafayette College; and Cleveland State University. He has received grants from Creative Capital, the Greenwall Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
cv (pdf)

Daniel Shiffman
About the artist
Daniel Shiffman — Voronoi — interactive installation

A Voronoi diagram, named for the Russian Mathematician Georgy Voronoy, is a tessellation generated in two dimensional space, where each tile contains all the points closest to a given point in that space. This piece continuously computes a Voronoi diagram colored according the the pixels seen by a video camera. The tiles are smaller in areas requiring more detail and larger in areas requiring less. The longer you stay still the more your reflected image will come into focus.

About the artist

Daniel Shiffman works as a researcher and teacher at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. His digital creations have been exhibited at the Jepson Center for the Arts, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Savannah College of Art & Design, the Art Directors Club of New York, Galapagos Art Space, the Hillwood Art Museum, and Tisch School of the Arts. Originally from Baltimore, Daniel received a BA in Mathematics and Philosophy from Yale University and a Master's Degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program. He is the author of Learning Processing (Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Graphics), a programming book for the complete beginner. For more information, visit www.shiffman.net and www.learningprocessing.com .

Shawn Towne
About the artist
Artist's statement

Shawn Towne — Bloom — digital video & animation

About the artist

Shawn Towne is a designer and digital media artist. His work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, including AXIOM Gallery (Boston), Fuller Museum of Art (Brockton), LiveBox (Chicago), California State Polytechnic University: Kellogg Art Gallery (Pomona), Victory Media Network (Dallas), C2C Gallery (Prague), VideoChannel (Cologne), among others. Towne studied at the College of Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and possesses a BFA in Graphic Design / Letterform (Summa Cum Laude) and a BFA in Electronic Imaging / Photography (Cum Laude). Towne received his MFA in Visual Arts with a focus on video art and interactive media from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University. Currently he works as a practicing designer and video artist. He also holds an academic appointment of Lecturer of Digital Media within the College of Visual and Performing Arts, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. His educational pursuits maintain an emphasis on emerging technologies, interactivity, design, video and motion graphics.

Artist's statement

As a practitioner of design, I use a technological approach to establish systematic patterns of sound and movement in my art. Though purely digital, the overall effect of my videos implies organic shapes shifting within a contained space. Contextually abstracted from their origins of the monitor and frame, each pattern I create suggests a microscopic view of a larger picture. These compositions are about the exploration of space and represent conversations between my environment and me. Incorporating audio of my surroundings adds a humanizing quality to the work. This element allows for the transformation and connection between the abstract and the familiar. I record movements that represent analytical observations of time and space. What begins as analog dialogs are then transferred to digital documentations that comprise this body of work. The compositions create impressions, rather than direct familiarity. My artwork suggests moods and invokes memory, informed by the rapid pulse of digital media.
cv (pdf)
website: www.shawntowne.com

Tan Ying
About the artist
About the work
www.uoregon.edu/~tanying/

Tan Ying — un albor (Dawn), 1999 — digital film; exerpt from Wicked Paths, Cruel Deserts

About the work: Wicked Paths, Cruel Deserts

Animation by Ying Tan, Music by Jeffrey Stolet

'Wicked Paths, Cruel Deserts' is a collection of six short experimental animations to accompany Jeffrey Stolet's electronic music compositions with text adopted from Rimas of Gustavo Adolfo Becquer (1836-1870). The excerpts in this exhibition include three short films: “My Life” depicts a harsh life journey in abstraction; “Like a Swarm of Angry Bees…” presents whispers of a hunting past; “Dawn” compares the magnificent outer landscape at dawn with the dark night of the inner soul. This body of work using abstract moving forms choreographed to the music scores, explores 3D aesthetic expressions other than realistic representation while seeking a poetic relationship between sound and visual. Technical information: Original film format is mini DV NTSC. Software and hardware used in the creation of this work including 3D Studio Max on PIII 400mhz PC; Final Cut Pro on MAC G3/G4; and Sony DCR900 DV camcorder.

About the artist

Associate Professor Ying Tan joined the UO Art Department in1996. Her extensive creative practice both as an artist and a designer has resulted in a wide range of work including film, video, animation, digital imaging, landscape painting, and communication design of all shapes and forms. Tan's work has been exhibited and screened nationally and internationally including Mediarama 2002 (Spain), Sydney Film Festival (Australia), transmediale Berlin (Germany), Technoimage Festival (Brazil), Bauhaus- University Weimar (Germany), Cinematheque Ontario (Canada), Dream Centenary Computer Graphics Grand Prix (Japan), Triennale diMilano (Italy), Circulo de Bellas Artes (Spain), Museum of Modern Art (NY), The National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), Harvard Film Archive (Cambridge, MA), The Pacific Film Archive (Berkeley), Cyberarts Festival (Boston). SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater (San Antonio), Visual Arts Museum (NY), Anthology Film Archives (NY).

Ying Tan’s work has been featured in the book titled SEEING SOUND: Experimentation in Contemporary Music Graphics published by Rizzoli International. She has presented lectures and workshops at Pratt Institute, Anthology Film Archive, , Memphis College of Art, Oregon State University, Chapman University, California State University Long Beach, Califonia Institute of Arts, Tsinghua University, Shandong Technology University, and Shandong University of Art and Design in China. Professor Tan's recent work explores the relationship between vision and sound in time-based art and design. Her research topics include animation and visual communication related to new media development and the cultural/social context of the Asian Pacific region. In both her teaching and practice she advocates design without boundaries and interdisciplinary collaborations.

Joshue Ott and Son Lux
About the artists
Joshue Ott — #7: At War with Walls and Mazes — cover for Son Lux audio album of that title

About the artists

New York-based multidisciplinary artist Joshue Ott creates cinematic visual improvisations, often performed live and projected in large scale. Working from hand-drawn forms which he then manipulates with superDraw, a software instrument of his own design, Ott composes evolving images that reside somewhere between minimalism, psychedelia, and Cagean chance. He performs frequently with musicians, sympathetically translating sound to vision to yield immersive multisensory experiences that are at once immediate and synergistic. Ott's work has recently been featured in exhibitions at Mutek 2008, San Fransisco International Film Festival (2008), Yuri's Night Bay Area 2008, Paris's Le Cube, the Playgrounds Audiovisual Art Festival in the Netherlands (2007), and the 2006 Ars Electronica Animation Festival. He has performed at Live Cinema Nights: Silver Lake Film Festival, in Los Angeles; as part of the Boston Cyber Arts Festival; and at venues throughout New York City, including Carnegie Hall and the Knitting Factory.
Website: http://superdraw.intervalstudios.com

About Son Lux/Ryan Lott: "Meet a man driven wildly by music. A man classically trained, but rewired with his own two hands. A frequent collaborator, occasional curator and consummate “man behind the curtain” now emerging at the front of something yet unnamed. Somewhere between the concert hall and the club you’ll find his haunting liquid soundscapes, born of hip-hop composition, o’er-strung with chant, hinting at some divine unreachable. Meet Son Lux."
Read the rest of Son Lux' biography at anticon.com
Listen to Son Lux' remixes, and album outtake Do

 

Dextro
Artist's statement
Website: www.dextro.org
Dextro — g21b3_n4_c2_x — algorithmic series k456

Dextro — g22c_f4b-550 — algorithmic series k456

Artist's statement

are you an artist and do you use cannabis for inspiration, recreation or meditation? then say so openly! if it is revealed how much of our artistic expression is aided by the use of cannabis, the public opinion about this drug might eventually change, which in turn would help to end its prohibition at last...

bist du ein kuenstler und benutzt cannabis als mittel zur inspiration, entspannung oder meditation? dann sag es oeffentlich! wenn zutagetritt wieviel kuenstlerischer ausdruck mithilfe von cannabis entsteht, kann sich die oeffentliche meinung ueber diese droge aendern, was wiederum helfen wuerde die prohibition endlich zu beenden...

Christopher Paretti
About the artist
Website: www.paretti.net

Christopher Paretti — String Theory

About the artist

Christopher Paretti is a designer of games, toys, and performance-based experiences, frequently using audio and mobile phone technology. The goal of much of his work is to engage the user in a social, public performance, imbued with a sense of play. He aims to provoke a child-like perspective by presenting familiar technology in novel and unintimidating ways. A recent graduate of the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, he is currently the design and prototyping lead for the Early Stage Products at Yahoo! mobile.
website: www.paretti.net

Ma Yongfeng
About the artist
Artist's statement
Website: myfstudio.blogspot.com/
Ma Yongfeng — Transparency is Wrong (#01) — 3D animation — 2008
1:30 min loop, 1:2.35 film format, projected

About the artist

Ma Yongfeng was born in Shanxi, China in 1971 and is a new media artist currently based in Beijing. He has exhibited widely across Europe, the United States and China – most recently in Chinese Video Now at P.S.1, New York, Becoming Landscape at Platform China, Beijing, and The Cretaceous Period at ArtSway, UK. He was selected for the Production Residency Scheme by ArtSway and the Chinese Art Centre in UK from an exceptional shortlist of artists nominated by Chinese curators and professionals in 2007.

Ma came to international attention in 2002 with Swirl, a video depicting six Koi carp being subjected to a 15 minute wash cycle in an upright washing machine. The piece was exhibited at MOCA at Los Angeles and PS1 in New York. Ma has continued to explore additional alternative realities between order and disorder in many of his videos, animations and installations.
website: myfstudio.blogspot.com/

Artist's statement

Ma Yongfeng’s new animation pieces take very mundane subject matter and transform them into seemingly heavenly objects. Transparency is Wrong is an animation projection of flying circular objects, uniform in color and shape; only on closer examination does one realize these are overblown Chinese chess pieces floating endlessly in space, weightless and outside the temporal and spatial parameters of human life.

Xu Bing
About the artist | Artist's statement

About the artist

Born in Chongqing, China in 1955 and raised in Beijing, Xu Bing enrolled in the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1977, where he studied printmaking, received an MFA in 1987 and currently serves as Vice President. In 1990, Xu Bing moved to the United States making his home in Brooklyn, New York. Xu Bing’s work has been shown throughout the world in solo and group exhibitions, including: the Venice Biennial; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art), London, and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. In 1999, Xu Bing was awarded the MacArthur Award for Genius by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in recognition of his “…originality, creativity, self-direction, and capacity to contribute importantly to society, particularly in printmaking and calligraphy.” In addition, in 2003 Xu Bing was awarded the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize for his work in Asian Art and Culture, and in 2004, the first Wales International Visual Art Prize, Artes Mundi. 2006 saw the publication of Persistence/Transformation: Text as Image in the Art of Xu Bing a multidisciplinary study of Xu Bing’s landmark work Book from the Sky by the Princeton University Press.

Artist's statement
regarding Book from the Ground

Book from the Ground is a novel written in a “language of icons” that I have been collecting and organizing over the last few years. Regardless of cultural background, one should be able understand the text as long as one is thoroughly entangled in modern life. We have also created a “font library” computer program to accompany the book. The user can type English sentences (we are still limited in this way, but the next step will include Chinese and other major languages) and the computer will instantaneously translate them into this language of icons. It can function as a “dictionary,” and in the future it will have practical applications.

This project first began with my collecting safety manuals from a number of airlines. In the past decade, I have spent countless hours in airports and aboard airplanes. The design of airport signs and airline safety manuals is based upon image recognition. Diagrams there are employed as the primary means of communication in an attempt to explain relatively complex matters with a minimum of words. It was this that truly fascinated me. Since about 1999, I have collected over one hundred safety cards, but until recently I had no clear goal in so doing. Then, in 2003, I noticed three small images on a pack of gum (they translate into please use your wrapper to dispose of the gum in a trashcan), and came to realize that in so far as icons alone can explain something simple, they can also be used to narrate a longer story. From that point on, through various channels, I began to collect and organize logos, icons, and insignia from across the globe, and I also began to research the symbols of expression employed by the specialized fields of mathematics, chemistry, physics, drafting, musical composition, choreography, and corporate branding, among others. In recent years, the expanding speed of the Internet and the widespread emergence of a language of computer icons have greatly increased the scale and complexity of this project. But the more this becomes the case, the more I am able to sense the significance of this work, about which I have had the following thoughts:

In 1627, the French thinker Jean Douet, in an essay titled “Proposal to the King for a Universal Script, with Admirable Results, Very Useful to Everyone on Earth,” first suggested that Chinese was a potential model for an international language.¹ The word “model” is important here because Douet does not limit this “universal script” to the form of Chinese characters per se. He instead focuses on the universal potential of the system of recognition upon which the Chinese language is based. Today, nearly four hundred years later, human communication has indeed evolved in the direction predicted by Douet. We have come to sense that traditional spoken forms are no longer the most appropriate method for communication. And, in response, great human effort has been concentrated on developing ways to replace traditional written languages with icons and images. For this reason, among others, humankind has entered the age of reading images.

Most languages take shape among a small group of people (a tribe or a village) sharing a similar set of vocalized expressions. As the scope of the group’s activities expands, its language also develops into a regional mode of expression. The people’s geographic expansion across multiple localities and political boundaries is also the millennia-long process of its language’s growth. Today, spurred by a trend of internationalization, the world is contracting, creating the sense of a “global village.” However, this huge “village” is distinct from the early villages out of which language first took shape: as citizens of the global village, we use a rich and varied range of dialects and often employ mutually incomprehensible systems of symbols to express information in written form. We must, however, live and work together (in the sense that we share information on a global scale). As a result, the inconvenience of language and miscommunication has become a significant burden in many of our lives. Our existing languages are based on geography, ethnicity, and culture (including all-powerful English), and all fall short. Written languages now face an entirely unprecedented challenge. Today, the age-old human desire for a “single script” has become a tangible need. This predicament requires a new form of communication better adapted to the circumstances of globalization. Only today can the implications of the Tower of Babel truly be revived.

The formation of nearly every language relies on two systems: phonetic and visual.  Due to the wide range of phonetic systems currently in use throughout the world and the global trend of using evermore standardized goods, in addition to technological innovations such as the growing ease and speed of duplicating and sending visual data, it is thus natural (and necessary) to use images and pictographic icons as a means of communication. In truth, today’s “big village” has reignited the historical process of early linguistic development, beginning again with pictographs.

Let’s analyze existing phenomena:

The broadening range and increasing density of movement among peoples has impelled the rapid formation and use of a system of international icons. These symbols are most commonly found in areas of concentrated human density and diversity, and so it follows that the airport was among the first locales to make wide use of them. It could be said that along with airline safety cards, airport signs were the first “common-reader” texts. The airport epitomizes the global village, and, unconsciously, these texts have come to form an effective visual system of direction that transcends the written word.

The continued standardization of transnational products and consumer lifestyles, the growth of a “repetitive environment” and a “copy culture,” and the daily accelerating homogenization of a global mode of living have rendered the visual form of things far more recognizable, and the growth of international media has further strengthened their symbolic quality. To a certain degree, this phenomenon has begun to eliminate illiteracy on a global scale and has resulted in the utilization of images as a basis for recognition and communication in contemporary life, making it much easier than in the past to reach a common understanding.

It can be said with certainty that anything aimed at a global audience must make use of a quick, effective mode of recognition and dissemination. Economic globalization demands direct commercial communication. Consequently, companies and products must employ corporate and product logos that transcend language and locality and possess clearly recognizable characteristics. Today, these logos appear everywhere, in high volume. Early attempts to market products to a global audience utilized translation, but now multinational businesses are developing in the direction of wordlessness. Past Coca-Cola ad campaigns included text translated into the language of the customer. But three years ago, the Coca-Cola Company made a decision to present their brand name to the international market in the form of an image, and not as a word.² From this, “Coca-Cola” became an image that requires no translation.

Numeric commands can now be represented as icons, thus turning a specialized vocabulary into an intuitive visual one; this, for our purposes, is the most significant development in personal computing. It has significantly lowered the base level of knowledge required to take advantage of a technology that “one must study in order to grasp.” Now anyone can distinguish computer functions and operate programs.  While the computerization of the workplace has, on the one hand, resulted in a degree of physical laziness and degeneration, it has also created a group of people and a physical and technological environment easily adapted to this pictographic age. This is reflected in a new generation of people who find themselves at loggerheads with traditional reading and captivated by intuitive graphics.

The ubiquity of the Internet and the convenience of ever faster trans-global communication and information sharing have further exposed the limitations of inter-language conversation. As a result, the language of icons, the Internet, and online gaming, consisting primarily of pictographs and images, has already emerged in great volume. This vocabulary is developing at lighting-quick speed, of its own accord, and is not bound by the geographical concepts of the past.

We at first overlooked the fact that practitioners of such fields as mathematics, design, drafting, music, and dance already use their own “international languages” to communicate with one another. But the international language of “everyday life” has yet to be found. In 1990 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) announced the final version of the first group of fifty-five “Public Information Symbols.” From 2001 to 2005, the ISO separately published guidelines for the design of symbols (for instance, what visual elements an unambiguous symbol must possess), how to use these symbols (to the point of specifying the use of arrows), etc.³ This can be seen as the embryonic form of a universal language for everyday life.

Humans have never abandoned the ideal of overcoming the obstacles of the written word, yet only under the favorable conditions of the “global village” has a turning point existed for such a system to emerge. The phenomena described above illustrate that a model based fundamentally on images, with the potential to surpass our current systems of writing, and drawing strength from a common desire, has clearly begun to appear. I have come to realize this trend and its possibilities.

As we collected and organized these images that are already in use and possess both a foundation of common recognition and the quality of language, we had one principle: not to engage in any subjective invention or fabrication, because most sound writing systems first arise from common usage and then take shape through a process of organization. We regard our set of previously organized symbols as a type of language because it has not been invented, fabricated, or defined by any particular person. Generally speaking, subjective, man-made symbols are personalized, lack a natural logic, and are not based upon a widely shared understanding. They cannot support easy recognition or repeated and uniform use. (This is also the reason that the cartoons cannot be considered a descriptive language.)

Every “word” in this system has its own source or origin. The “grammar” (including adjectives, person, tone, prepositions, etc.) is similarly a collection of widely used and commonly recognized “representations,” which we have analyzed and compiled according to their visual and psychological indicia. All of these elements are pre-existing. I have only collected and organized them.

In certain respects, this language transcends our structures of knowledge and the limitations of geographic and cultural specificity; it reflects the logic of real life and objects themselves rather than any preexisting text-based knowledge. Comprehension is not contingent upon the reader’s level of education or knowledge of literature, but instead stems from his/her experiences and way of life. Moreover, this language need not be taught or learned through traditional educational models. Regardless of your cultural background or mother tongue, you will be able to read this book as long as you have experience of contemporary life. The educated and illiterate should be able to enjoy equally the pleasure of what it means to read.

In addition, after our currently un-finished computer program is perfected, writers of every language will be placed on equal footing. To a certain extent, this software will function as a point of transfer between dissimilar languages. This early result should not be minimized because it has limitless potential to expand into even larger arenas. The relationship between our new language and other, preexisting languages resembles the relationship between Mandarin and the many Chinese dialects: disparate pronunciations refer to identical characters. English cannot become a “global language,” as its relationship with other languages is one of mutual exclusivity. As the use of English expands, other languages are lost. Michael Evamy states, “for now, the world’s peoples must either be addressed in their own language, or by non-verbal means.”⁴ In that respect, a pictographic language not reliant upon phonics has a special advantage.

The success of a language is in large part dependent on the power of its political and economic force.⁵ Emperor Qin Shi eliminated the Six Kingdoms and unified the Chinese language; Mao popularized “standard” Mandarin characters through political means. Both revisions were undertaken with the aim of effectively communicating orders and unifying a country. This new system, the development of which I am now introducing to you, also draws its strength from political and economic factors but does not take the nation-state as its basic unit. It is rooted in the market rules of the global economy and world politics. Capital has become the new global language of power, but it must still undergo large-scale unification before it can more effectively control commerce.

It would be reasonable to expect that I use this new “language” to write an introduction. Unfortunately this is, as of yet, impossible. However, all languages begin at the most elementary level of communication and only later develop into a medium suitable for complex expression. In this process, major components of the original language are lost, and only small portions survive to form the languages we recognize today. Undoubtedly, this new language has only reached the oracle bone phase (the most rudimentary pictographic state). Yet, one cannot judge the potential of a language based on its current level of expressiveness. Instead one should consider its possibilities as a language of the future, and whether its linguistic DNA allows for its continued growth.

I believe that the significance of a work does not lie in its resemblance to art, but in its ability to present a new way of looking at things. I have created many works that relate to language. This subject first took shape twenty years ago with a piece called Book from the Sky. It was called Book from the Sky because it contained a text legible to no one on this earth (including myself). Today I have used this new “language of signs” to write a book that a speaker of any language can understand; I call it Book from the Ground. But, in truth, these two texts share something in common: regardless of your mother tongue or level of education, they strive to treat you equally. Book from the Sky was an expression of my doubts regarding extant written languages. Book from the Ground is the expression of my quest for the ideal of a single script. Perhaps the idea behind this project is too ambitious, but its significance rests in making the attempt.

New York, 2006

¹ Umberto Eco, The Search for the Perfect Language (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995),158–59.
return

² Michael Evamy, World Without Words (London: Laurence King, 2003, 12.
return

³ International Organization for Standardization, Public Information Symbols ISO 7001: 1990; Graphical symbols incorporating arrows—Synopsis ISO/TR 10488: 1991; Basic principles for graphical symbols for use on equipment—Part 1: Creation of symbol originals IEC 80416-1: 2001; Basic principles for graphical symbols for use on equipment—Part 2: Form and use of arrows ISO 80416-2: 2001; Basic principles for graphical symbols for use on equipment—Part 3: Guidelines for the application of graphical symbols IEC 80416-3: 2002; Basic principles for graphical symbols for use on equipment—Part 4: Guidelines for the adaptation of graphical symbols for use on screens and displays ISO 80416-4: 2005.
return

⁴ Ibid., 11.
return

⁵ David Crystal, English as a Global Language (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 5.
return

Curator's Statement

Digital Safari assembles a diverse array of artistic visions to create art work using digital media. The works are by eight contemporary artists from around the world, showing their innovative ideas about representation through the free use of materials and technology. I hoped to generate an imaginary, noir urban environment within the frame of gallery space; a vibrating interpenetration of moving images and interactive installations which immerse visitors in a space and time in which they can explore the digital art work to reveal their inner self.

I am grateful to Robert Thurmer for his diligence and expertise, as well as Tim Knapp who faced the challenge of setting up the first group new media art exhibition at CSU’s art gallery.

— Qian Li, Curator