Dan Proops and Boing Boing Nation: Yet another Boing Boing artist producing art pablum for readers who can clearly handle more. Says Mr. Proops,
I believe the influence of Cubist philosophy on the graphic user interface (ie operating systems like Windows’ XP/Vista) has never been properly looked at. In my work I seek to set strong arguments for the connections between the many “viewpoints” set up in cubist paintings and the way PC and Mac operating systems set up multiple “windows” to allow the computer user to see and use and assimilate information.
Who knows how Proops examines these connections — the only image I’ve seen on his website and reproduced on others that has anything to do with this concept is “Painting downloading now”, which pictures exactly what you think it does [see above]. It’s hard to imagine a more lightweight investigation than what we’ve seen. Proops latest series censors the private parts and whatever else the artist decides to obscure, largely by pixelating the crotches of classical paintings. “His style of painting has been seen as anarchistic” says CR Blog, “but Proops sees the pixellated censor, usually associated with obscenity, as a humorous reaction to the shock values promoted by young British artists of the 90s: by censoring something that does not need to be censored points to the unnecessary”. And yet, the artist has not censored a single middle finger; an oversight to be sure.
Image copyright Tellus
Now available on Ubuweb: Tellus #20, “Media Myth”, 1988. Curated by Joseph Nechvatal. Undoubtedly my favorite noise-art label of the 1980′s, produced by Tellus, an arm of Harvestworks Digital Media Center. Track recommends include #1, 2, 7, 9, 13, and 16
Image via: TED
TED, The True Face of Da Vinci. Admittedly, the fact that this lecture comes through TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) worries me despite the rather compelling evidence Siegfried Woldhek gives in the hopes of identifying Da Vinci’s face. Of course the crucial information not presented here is how this advances our understanding of the man’s work. I’m not saying Woldhek’s findings aren’t important, I’d just like to know a little bit more about why I should care.
Screengrab AFC
Rhizome The Good News: Ed Halter, who is easily amongst my favorite critics working today, now writes for Rhizome. This means I’ll be reading him every day! Also in Good News: Rhizome has opened comments up on their blog, a great advance, since it is, in my opinion, the best way to foster discussion and create an invested online community. The Bad News: The comments have a few nasty bugs in them, including the one where it can take hours before the comment count for a particular post becomes visible on the front page. They also don’t show up on the main page when the jump function is enabled on a post. All in all these are very annoying quirks, that make it difficult for the comment threads to grow.
