Keep Adding

I found this group though Wikipedia. In truth, though I am surrounded with digital art, I know of very few artists. Keep Adding formed in 2001 and is comprised of Brian Bixby and Noah MacDonald. When the two artist first met each other ( as artists) they created graffiti murals on abandoned buildings in New Mexico. Once the two finally formed Keep Adding they decided to be digital and mural based. They had been friends for a long time and both were interested in the idea of the digital world, mainly pixel art. 

 

(Wrekage, 2001. Old Mesilla, New Mexico, USA, 2001)

Nowadays they create installations mixed with media. One creation entitled Wreckage (2006) was created by building a building, with the help of Adobe, in the middle of an exhibit site. The two then burnt it, painted over top of the burn, installed LCD screens and then flooded the floor to make a reflection pool. According to an interview with Katy Crocker a writer for Art, Santa Fe Back in 2010 we learn that Noah leans more toward the actual murals while Brian takes charge of the media side but they both come together to work on the piece. 

 

("Wrekage", 2006. Installation view, Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM)

I feel as though what these two do is very important. Their art expresses to the people outside of the artist sphere that graffiti can be beautiful and that it should be seen as an art and not just something that should be painted over. I also feel that even though the space they create on are made to look condemned (or are actually condemned) the pieces seem to serve as a reminder that everything can be seen in  a new light if given a chance.    

Sources

Art Santa Fe 2008 

Crocker 2010 

A few years ago...

                                           Before                                                   After

The Decaying of Time

Scans

Candy wrappers. 

Grass

5Gum

Keys

Knitted things 

leaves

$

Money w/ knitted background

plastic 

Leaf w/ rice

24 hour tech log

Technology rules my life...I'm okay with it. I am a film major.

8-bit gif

Wow, welp. I did a thing! I wish I had made the people bigger.

Computer Virus Art!

Hello everyone I would like to introduce you to an awesome artist whom goes by the name of Joseph Nechvatal.

 

{http://www.stevens.edu/ses/images/fileadmin/images/JNphoto.jpg}

The artist shown above is super cool. In the late 1980’s Nechvatal decided to create computer generated paintings with the help of computer viruses that he created. Later on this creative idea would come to be known as ‘post-human aesthetic’. In an interview with Bradely Rubenstein from CultureCatch.com back in 2012 we come to learn that art is seen as deeply symbolist in Nechvatal’s eyes. The virus he created to help him create his art was actually a metaphor for the AIDS virus. First he would create a painting on canvas and upload it into the computer. Then he would select a basic Hypercard virus that would encrypt itself into the painting and infect it.  

 

{Joseph Nechvatal, vOluptas 2.0 @ 7.5 min}

Jumping through time to 1999, Nechvatal was developing the concept of viractualism which basically strived ‘to create an interface between the biological and the technological’. He felt strongly that the computed and un-computed images of our time should be emerged and that we should not conform to the norm.

The idea of technology infecting other parts of society (in this case shown through a canvas) is very interesting. It makes the viewers sit back and think about how much time they spend on and in a technology based sphere. This reminds me of a discussion that we had in class, the one about how most of us in class have grown up surrounded by technology (the internet, cell phones, media). Hate to admit but it’s hard for me to imagine a life without my phone. I’d feel isolated. Nechvatal’s virus comes with a caution once it has firmly taken hold of the painting and eaten every pixel. It’s a warning that if the human race is not careful, technology could over take us and make us less human.  

I do not think that the aesthetic quality of Joseph Nechtvatal should be changed in any way, I love this work and how it ties infectious technology into art. It seems to show the world in a different yet interesting light.