I've always been fascinated by how technology can effect art and design. Obviously digital technology has had a major impact with software packages from Adobe redefining the practices of photographers, designers and artists. Sourced material is even more accessible through the Internet especially through the services Google provides. One of Google’s services that I have used in a variety of my creative project is 'search by image'. This incredibly useful tool allows us to upload an image and Google will return with results from ever webpage that contains that image. However what it also does is shows results for images that it understand as being ‘visually similar’. This powerful tool has an upended amount of possibilities and artist such as Dina Kellerman have used it to great effect.
What I have done in this mini series is upload an image that l have taken of Sol LeWitt’s ‘Wall Drawing #1038’ in the Stedelijk museum in Amsterdam and then downloaded 10 visually similar images in return. In photoshop I have taken these 10 images and combined them using a tool called blend layers. Instead of overlaying and masking the images blending the layers allows prominent sections of the images to dominate while others melt together. This creates an abstract piece of work that has been born from the visual information of a differing artist. Of course this begins to ask a variety of questions and raise ideas of appropriation and the connivance of technology in our contemporary age.
Below is a visual representation of how this image has been achieved. I plan to explore using this method to begin creating some of my own abstract imagery.
