Digital Media Artist
Comparisons
Since the creation of digital media as an art form the medium has split
into different avenues of interests and developed many new forms of expressions
from the same mother industry. I am looking at two forms of digital media and
the artists that I found to represent their separate aspects of the medium. Looking
through the list of artists I decided to look at digital media in the market
place, and the interactive form of media expression. The two artists I have chosen
are Katie Torn and Mike Hall.
From her bio, Katie Torn graduated from
the Art institute of Chicago and lives in New York City. She is professor and an
artist involved in the digital media medium. She has performed in live video
exhibitions VIA Music and New Media Festival in Pittsburgh. She has a
two-person show coming up this fall at Roots and Culture Contemporary Art
Center in Chicago.
Her work is inspired from the roots
of futurism and cubism. She uses up to date computer software similar to that
used in Hollywood in film production to create her pieces of art. Her latest
project called Dream House is a 3D animation of a “woman” biomorphic
architectural structure. The animation structure slowly builds up with consumer
products over a seven-hour period. The piece of art is a representation to the
wants, desires, and waste caused by the modern market place. Katie walks in the area of hyperrealism
with her prints and tries to use technology to focus the everyday routine of
life in the industrial age.
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From his Bio, Mike Hall is a video
artist who operates out of his studio in Brooklyn, New York. His main body of
work has been created from a unique form of light processes. “The process involves
the creation of optical feedback reactions in which the form, color,
reflectivity and texture of the projection surface causes the generation of
imagery upon the surface itself”. The technical background of Hall's work based
within a 20-year career in software engineering. One of his passions in life
has been the lifelong study of music and how it has led to the development of his
acoustically reactive software.
Currently he is finishing the development
of a cloud-based web tool called media Frame, which features the ability to
create “Complex, database-driven online media applications, written in a
proprietary XML-based language”.
His work has required him to develop
the specialized mechanical harnesses and staging elements which helps makeup
this complex optical reaction. In addition to abstractions generated on uniform
surfaces, Hall works with movement artists to interact with the optical fields,
producing a luminous quality to the skin which suggests that the light is
somehow emanating from the body in all directions.
The best way to compare these two artists is to say that Katie Torn uses her foundation in futurism and cubism along with the use of three dimensional programs to create an almost abstract form of hyperrealism, focusing on the industrial problems in consumerism.
Mike Hall Uses his knowledge of electronics and software, along with his fascination with light and sound to create images in an unique way. Using structures such as canvasses, walls he creates moving images that make patterns in a geometric form. His later work is involving the use of human subjects as his canvass, this provides an interaction with his audience by involving the sensation of emotion.
Citations
