Abstract Surrealism

Ryota Matsumoto – Variable Phase Opacities

Dated September 25, 2017 Leave a Comment

Those Who Affirm the Spontaneity of Every Event

The Reverberant Ambience of Interpretative Codes for an Ancient Artifact

The Indistinct Notion of an Object Trajectory

Surviving in the Multidimensional Space of Cognitive Dissonance

Rapid Gaze Polynomials Embedded in Infinite Variables

Artist Statement

Matsumoto’s artwork reflects the morphological transformations of our ever-evolving ecological milieus that are attributed to a multitude of spatio-temporal phenomena influenced by socioeconomic and built environments. They are created as visual commentaries on speculative changes in notions of societies, cultures and ecosystems in the transient nature of shifting topography and geology.
The artwork explores the hybrid technique combining both traditional media (ink, acrylic, graphite, and photo collage) and digital media, manifesting the collective recognition of a multiplicity of epistemological viewpoints in all cognitive dimensions of spatiality.
The varying scale, juxtaposition of biomorphic forms, intertwined textures, oblique projections and visual metamorphoses are employed as the multi-layered drawing methodologies to question and investigate the ubiquitous nature of urban meta-morphology, the eco-political reality of the Anthropocene epoch, the advancement of biomaterial technologies and their visual representation in the context of non-Euclidean configuration. Furthermore, the application of these techniques allow the work to transcend the boundaries between analog and digital media as well as between two- and multi-dimensional domains.
His compositional techniques imbue the work with what we see as the very essence of our socio-cultural environments beyond the conventional protocols of architectural and artistic formalities, and that they conjure up the synthetic possibilities within which the spatial and temporal variations of existing spatial semiotics emerge as the potential products of alchemical procedures.

Biography

Ryota Matsumoto is a principal and founder of an award-winning interdisciplinary design office, Ryota Matsumoto Studio. He is an artist, designer and urban planner. Born in Tokyo, he was raised in Hong Kong and Japan. He received a Master of Architecture degree from University of Pennsylvania in 2007 after his studies at Architectural Association in London and Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art in early 90’s. Matsumoto has previously collaborated with a cofounder of the Metabolist Movement, Kisho Kurokawa, and with Arata Isozaki, Cesar Pelli, MIT Media Lab and Nihon Sekkei Inc. before establishing his office.
He presented his work for the 5th symposium of the Imaginaries of the Future at Cornell University in 2017 and currently serves as an adjunct lecturer of Transart institute, University of Plymouth.
His current interest gravitates around the embodiment of cultural possibilities in art, ecology, and urban topography.

http://www.ryotamatsumoto.com
https://www.facebook.com/ryota.matsumoto.718

Transition

Dated August 29, 2017 Leave a Comment

By Joost Jordens and Mike Von Rotz

Transition is a virtual reality experience based on the music of Kettel & Secede. A metaphor for death, Transition takes you on a journey from one world into the next. This film was featured in the Kaleidoscope VR Film Festival.

Mike von Rotz and Joost Jordens are two fresh graduates from the Utrecht University of the Arts 3D Animation course. ‘Transition’ is their first production in the medium of Virtual Reality. They live in the Netherlands, where they are working on new VR experiences. You can find Joost on Vimeo or Twitter and Mike on Twitter.

John Edmark – Blooms

Dated July 17, 2017 Leave a Comment

Much of John Edmark’s work celebrates the patterns underlying space and growth. Through kinetic sculptures and transformable objects, he strives to give viewers access to the surprising structures hidden within apparently amorphous space.

While art is often a vehicle for fantasy, his work is an invitation to plunge deeper into our own world and discover just how astonishing it can be. In experiencing a surprising behavior, one’s sense of wonder and delight is increased by the recognition that it is occurring within the context of actual physical constraints. The works can be thought of as instruments that amplify our awareness of the sometimes tenuous relationship between facts and perception.

John employs precise mathematics in the design and fabrication of his work. He does this neither out of a desire to exhibit precision per se, nor to exalt the latest technology, but because the questions he is trying to formulate and answer about spatial relationships can only be addressed with geometrically exacting constructions. Mathematical precision is an essential ally in his goal of achieving clarity.

Nature is generous and inexhaustible, rewarding curiosity with startling insights and an abundance of ever more beautiful mysteries. Through his work, John endeavors to share the joy of discovery with others in a continuing pursuit of the timeless patterns of change.

Learn more about John Edmark and his work on his Website, Instagram, or Facebook.

via Wonderspaces

Miles Johnston

Dated July 15, 2017 Leave a Comment

Miles Johnson works primarily in pencil drawing. His surreal art explores psychological transformation in portraits and figurative images of female subjects.

Captivating. Mindbending. Recursive. Face melting. Gorgeous.
Johnston’s art is our psyche staring back from the void. Beyond the threshold of strange changes; he illustrates not a calculus infinite worlds, but the infinite selves it is possible to become.

Transformations Series

Deform. Divide. Attract. Recur.

Each picture below is a story of transformation the subject is undergoing.

moleskine project v entry by Miles Johnston

Girl with Raspberry and Beetle Swarm by Miles Johnston

Pencil Drawing Timelapse by Miles Johnston

Miles Johnston is a lover of pencils & Instructor at SARA.

https://www.instagram.com/miles_art/
https://twitter.com/MilesJohnston
http://miles-johnston.tumblr.com/
The Dirty Sponge Podcast

http://www.milesjohnstonart.com/

Electric Sheep – Interview with Scott Draves

Dated June 12, 2017 Leave a Comment

Electric Sheep Introduction

Electric Sheep is a distributed computing project for animating and evolving fractal flames, which are in turn distributed to the networked computers, which display them as a screensaver.
– Wikipedia

First created in 1999 by Scott Draves, the Electric Sheep is a form of artificial life, which is to say it is software that recreates the biological phenomena of evolution and reproduction through mathematics. The system is made up of man and machine, a cyborg mind with 450,000 participant computers and people all over the Internet.

This is a distributed system, with all participating computers working together to form a supercomputer that renders animations, called “sheep”, that everyone sees. The human participants guide the survival of the fittest by voting for their favorite animations in the flock. You can join this project by downloading the Electric Sheep Screensaver.

Clade 1 at Michael Berger Gallery, Pittsburgh 2010

The Clade 1 Blu Ray showing at Bryan Bilgore’s (sensoriumav.com) place with dynamic lighting by ambx.com (photo by Shannon Harvey).

Dreams in High Fidelity II by Scott Draves. 4 channel HD projection at Lexus Hybrid Art, Moscow 2010.04

On the 2nd largest LED wall in Europe, curated by the Streaming Museum. 2010.08.

Scott Draves speaking at TEDx in Hungary, 2010.06.

Dreams in High Fidelity by Scott Draves. 25 projectors and 5 channels of HD in Hungary 2010.06.

Dreams in High Fidelity by Scott Draves projected at LICHTSTROEME, on the banks of the Rhine in Germany. Photo Jennifer Braun 2012.05.

Karjaka Studios; 2013; Rubin Museum; Green Lama; Linus Roache; Paul Haas

Generation 244 immersive projection at 21c Museum Hotel grand opening, 2013.04.20.

Generation 244 by Scott Draves. Students immersed in projection at Emoção Art.ficial Bienial, in São Paulo 2012.05.

Generation 244 permanently installed in a corporate reception in Manhattan.

Electric Sheep iPad App exhibited in Beijing, curated by ZKM.

Generation 244 Triptych at Vida Retrospective in Madrid, 2012.05.

Generation 244 at LACMA, as curated by Cindy Keefer of the Center for Visual Music. Showing on 3 screens at Renzo Piano–designed Stark Bar in the courtyard. The show ran July 2011 – February 2012.

Generation 244.1 at Microsoft Research Studio 99, 2014.01, Seattle.

In the atrium at MoMA, 2010.12.

Each participating computer follows mathematical instructions, Draves’ Flame algorithm, to render its own piece of the larger work, as seen in the table at left. The images are sent back to a central server which compresses them into animations which are sent back out to the viewers. The electricsheep.org website shows the family tree for each sheep, including its parents and offspring, and viewers can track family resemblance. The artist’s Clade series shows a selection of family members in high resolution.

Like Draves’ other software art, the Electric Sheep code is open source, which has allowed it to benefit from code contributions from many enthusiastic programmers. Now Draves serves as head Shepherd on a project with many participants.

The most popular sheep from the current flock can be viewed on the live server, or you can browse the archive.

– via scottdraves.com

Scott Draves Interview with Surrealism Today

Surrealism Today: You have designed this technology, company & ecosystem. Electric Sheep has taken on a life of its own. In a sense, from a systems perspective, you have developed your own game rules rather than just being another player in someone else’s game. What in your thinking has made that possible?

Scott Draves: That’s right, I definitely think of the Sheep as generative world design. My approach is based on languages and metaprogramming, as a way to cross from finite to infinite. It was made possible by exposure to books like Gödel, Escher, Bach and SICP and my friends and colleagues at Brown and CMU SCS who taught me so much about computers and programming.

ST: In previous interviews, you mention Pollock, Gysin, and Burroughs as artists who inspire you. (Related: Cut-up Technique) Art has changed more in the past hundred years than it ever has, and likely will even more in the next hundred years, where would you like to see it go? Rather than create the content of art, will next-gen artists create algorithms that allows for infinite works of art? If that’s the future, you’ve actually been doing it for some time…

SD: I am loving the Cambrian explosion of software art going on. What are my wishes for art? The more the merrier. Algorithms and coding and infinite art are definitely growing and that’s great. But are they growing popularity in the art world? Maybe? I can’t imagine 100 years in the future. I will admit I’ve been doing this forever, I am old, and got an early start, releasing the first open source art in 1992.

Surrealism Today: Many of the Electric Sheep are reminiscent of mandalas in various religious traditions in both East and West as well as psychedelic and visionary art. These movements seem to have goals in common. Do you have an affinity with any spiritual traditions or movements?

Scott Draves: The Sheep have a meditative aspect for me and a spiritual aspect. Yes, there are goals in common, and affinities. Yoga. Zen. Negentropy. Positivism. Science.

ST: You’ve created this ecosystem of beautiful living mandalas that change over time and breed and evolve and die. Each sheep had DNA (code), its form, not to mention the memetic (conceptual) & cultural level. In what senses are the sheep alive?

SD: Thank you. They are alive because they have emergent complexity, at both the breeding, DNA, evolution level and also in the Flame algorithm, where the image emerges from the DNA. The memetic level kicks in with the open source and allowing others to create their own flames and sheep.

Surrealism Today: What non-intuitive things do you do, think or avoid that may have helped contribute to what you have created?

Scott Draves: When I started doing Open Source it was considered unamerican and anti-capitalist, and literally compared to “cancer”. It turns out sharing code has merit. Actually, that was always intuitive to me but most people just didn’t get it. These days it seems open source has taken over in some domains and is thriving.

On the other hand sharing everything may not be advisable. That was not obvious to me. It took me a long time to learn.

ST: William Gibson mentioned in one of his sci-fi books that instead of writing music, musicians wrote algorithms and the code would generate infinite, unique songs that never repeated themselves. Recently the iPhone app “H__r” got me excited… it loops sounds from the environment into a surreal listening experience. What being created today (that I can perhaps link to) has gotten you excited recently?

SD: Joshue Ott has a bunch of amazing av apps: https://intervalstudios.com/. A bit further afield: Alpha Go, https://deepmind.com/research/alphago/. This is an enormous breakthrough that promises so much to come.

Surrealism Today: I’m super excited about this recent high-resolution release of the sheep, and the subscription. What’s next?

Scott Draves: Thank you.

Dots! The real-time audio interactive version, which premiered last year at Creative Tech Week and is going to be in it again this year: http://creativetechweek.nyc/. The mixed reality party was on the 17th of April, 2017.

ST: Where can we find you on the internet?

https://gold.electricsheep.org/
http://scottdraves.com/
https://twitter.com/scott_draves
https://twitter.com/ElectricSHE3P
https://www.facebook.com/groups/82690628019