Captura

My work, “Captura”, is the result of the mix between code, audio, 3D sculpture, and Cesar Aira’s text “On contemporary art”. I seek to convey with this part of what the author states and thereby generate some reflection.

“The photograph gives only a partial idea of ​​the installation, and even something less than partial, since it puts it on the same plane as the illustrations in an interior decoration magazine.” AIRA, César. (2013). About contemporary art.

As you may have read, Aira refers to artistic installations that cannot be captured in their entirety through a photograph, but, in my opinion, this is not limited only to installations. The reproduction of the image of a work (be it a sculpture, a painting, an installation, etc.) will depend on who captures it and the means they have to do so. And even if he is the best photographer in the world with the best equipment, the reproduction will still not be like the original, it will not have the same meaning that the author gave it.

‘That missing, small or large, in the reproduction (and I continue referring to the photos that illustrate my art magazines), that programmatically imperfect reproduction suggests another work; the irreproducible point is there to generate not exactly a different work, but a different story.” AIRA, César. (2013). On contemporary art.

The other work, the “Capture”, was taken by the spectators. The observer somehow becomes the author, whether to save a memory, post it on social networks or criticize.

Now, from the technical side, the aesthetics of the head with the lights give us a fantastical, neon environment; which is interrupted with the public’s cameras, changing its aesthetic depending on the focus. To make “CAPTURE” download some 3D models from the Paint3D library and modify it in Blender to form the head with the flowers. I drew the platform on which it is positioned in P5.js with the “createShape()” function that allows creating 3D figures. Modify the color of the lights and the position they point to with the directionaltLight() function. I also created 3 cameras from different positions with different frames that give the impression of being a video camera, a digital camera and a phone. All this makes it a generative design.

(…) Generative art is fundamentally interested in the results created by generative processes. In this area, software is seen and used as a pragmatic generative tool or device for the creation of certain results – without questioning itself. The generative processes produced by the software serve in this case fundamentally to avoid intentionality and produce an unexpected, arbitrary and everlasting diversity of forms.” ARNS, Inke. (2005). The code as a performative speech act

REFERENCES

• AIRA, César. ([2013], 2016). “On contemporary art” in On contemporary art. Buenos Aires: Random House Literature, pp. 11-56. (DAA: 1:02m)

• ARNS, Inke (2005). “Code as performative speech act.” Artnodes [article in line]. UOC. [Citation reference: dd/mm/yy]. http://www.uoc.edu/artnodes/esp/art/arns0505.pdf ISSN 1695-5951