Monday, January 10, 2011

DoodleDroid

I heard an interesting article on public radio the other day, about artist David Hockney doing art on his cell phone and sending it to friends, and now he is having an exhibitiion.

Well, I got an HTC EVO Android cell phone the other day, and the first thing I did was look for art programs.  There are only pretty ordinary fractal programs, but some interesting drawing programs.  The image at right was done with DoodleDroid.  $.99.  I've been trying to get a friend to do a rendition of The Scream for his website, Mad Utopia, so I sent it off to him via email.  Doesn't remotely come up to Hockney, but, hey, it's a first try.  Since then, I have been experimenting with some others.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

But is it art? - take 2

I discovered a neat new application for my Android phone.  It's called Camera Illusion and it does on the fly image processing on the current camera image.   There are a number of render and distortion options, as well as options to put cute little frames around your pix, but the only one I really like is "pencil", though "sepia" is also cool.  So is there art here and where is it.  Being a programmer, I think that code can be art -- to take an idea and implement it definitely has an artistic facet, though non-programmers might not be able to appreciate it.  But it also has, in this case, at least, a "tool" facet.  It is something other people can use to express themselves, like the camera itself.

It seems to me that all art is something of a collaborative effort, to the extent that you use tools and materials generated by others.  And you really have to.  If you wove your own canvas, gathered or mined and ground your own paints, made your own brushes, mixed up your own gesso, turpentine, acrylics and whatnot, when would you actually use any of it?  There would be little time or energy to use any of these things to produce what we call art -- the final product. 

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Mr. Tree in February.

One of my neighbors dresses up the tall stump in his yard according to the seasons.  I'd like to follow the sartorial exploits of Mr. Tree.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010


Cityscape

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Dissolution



200,000 deaths in Haiti...souls slipping into the ether...watching my mother willing herself away...morbid aren't I?

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

But is it art?



From Rob Barnett's Mandelbulb formula. I feel a personal tension between the science and the art of fractals. Images like this are pretty fascinating, but I have trouble seeing them as art. Now the writing of the formula comes closer to being art in book. It is a truly creative act. But all I did here was find an interesting view. Not to discount the value of interesting views, but there is not enough of me in this for me to even consider this an artwork of mine.

Monday, November 30, 2009

From November