BASIC CONCEPTS IN CREATIVE COMPUTING

II

Imagination and Technique :Process Based Art and Minimalism

Recap

Experimental abstract film and animation Looks like stuff we can do in processing Explores ideas of the relationship between visual

movement and music Dada – Absurdist political art – activism

Op-art Materialism Richter, Eggeling, Man Ray Early ‘systems based’ art i.e. Tristan Tzara – “The Cut

up” Bauhaus – Gropius, Kandinsky, Klee, Moholy-

Nagy, Early Computer Graphics - Whitney

Bauhaus

Bauhaus

Bauhaus

Gropius Chairs

Kandinsky

Synthesis – “Point and Line to Plane”, Kandinsky (1926)

Fundamental elements of design – The Point Line (force between connecting points) Plane (The Background)

For Kandinsky, Lines of different orientations had different subjective meanings – or ‘tonalities’

Constructivism

Moholy-Nagy “Lichtspiel” Constructivism ?

Emphasis on Technology in Creative Acts Importance of the Machine –

mechanisation Engineering principles as the basis of Art

Is this the basis of Art? What about Duchamp? What about Kandinsky?

Oskar Fischinger

Experimental Animator “Absolute Cinema” (non objective)

What do we mean by non-objective ? What is the point?

“Grandfather of the Digital Arts” “Fantasia” (1940)

Whitney

John and James Whitney “5 Abstract Film Exercises” 1940-45 Early Minimal, process-based art Pantographs of Moving colour with sound

What is a pantograph?

Winner, First International Experimental Film Competition in Belgium, 1949

Minimalism

Strip back all elements to basic form and technique

Deploy ideas in the most simple way possible Make ideas and concepts visible in work

through simplicity Movements in Music, Painting, Sculpture and

Animation.

Is Fischinger Minimalist? Is Whitney Minimalist? Bauhaus ?

Sol Lewitt

Artist whose work is characterised by minimalism

Unit Shape – A basic shape for the extension of a set of ideas or works.

Lewitt’s Unit Shape == Cube. Serial Project – “Incomplete Open Cubes”

Variations on open cubes can be used to generate lots of interesting shapes : Think about how simple this is.

What is a ‘Permutation’ ?

Incomplete Open Cube

Incomplete Open Cubes

Cubes

What is special about drawing a Cube? How many dimensions does a cube have?

How many dimensions do we draw in?

What problems does this present? Does this change the way we have to think

about drawing?

The Necker Cube

The Necker Cube

Escher’s Impossible Cube

More about Escher later

Sol Lewitt

Remind you of anything?

Duchamp