Constant Dullaart

Dullaart, not to be mistaken for Dull Art (it is his real name), investigates a world that is build around the internet. His varied practice is full of humour but challenges our perception and interactions of a resource that has become so fundamental in our lives. Dullaart dismantles the digital world in front of us, and allows us to see under the hood. A substantial part of his work focuses on Photoshop. He has a fascination with Photoshop’s history and the way its shaped our world. It has even driven him to track down the one of the creators of photoshop, John Knoll’s wife Jennifer. 

This is significant to Dullaart as well as the rest of our cultural society, for one simple reason, Jennifer appears in the first ever image to be photoshopped. In Dullaart’s eyes this image is just as important as Joseph Nicéphore Niépce photograph taken from his window or Louis Daguerre photograph that first captured a figure or even Edward Muybridge’s Horse sequences that went on to be a major step to creating moving image. ‘Jennifer In Paradise.tif’ looks simple enough the effect of the photoshopping isn’t really evident, yet this image is the start of a generation of images that have been manipulated, edited and altered all through the use of digital technology and computing. This image is the start of it all. 

Dullaart was amazed that the presence of this image on the internet is confined to a relatively low quality jpeg. To counter act this he rebuilt the image using screen shots from a demo video released by Adobe. Of course this isn't the best solution and we still only have quite a poor quality copy but this image as become Dullaart art. 

He has appropriated this image in various ways, applying photoshop’s in house filters to distort the appearance. His work becomes obsessive with this image of Jennifer, and as well as the standardised settings and capabilities of photoshop. The filters become Dullard’s tools, he almost treats them like the internet treats the meme. The are repurposed and applied with with out diligence. He is pushing this image to its extreme and almost mocking the intentions and purposes of Photoshop. 

In another series, Dullaart uses a google image search to collect as many white images as he can find. He questions the purpose of these image that hold no information and form blank voids within the internet space. This work is almost a mis-appropriation. There is nothing to fill the blank space these images cannot be edited or reattributed as nothing exists within them. When we think of the abundance of images that exists online we assume that most of them are meaningless but when confronted with images that are truly meaningless all we want to know is there purpose or meaning. 

Dullaart's Practice is very closely linked to performance, the way he produces work is very cognitive and his projects seem to evolve in real time. He is publishing work through his website constantly and ideas only really become truly realised or considered once they are taken into the space of the gallery. One project that follows this path are his recorded performances that imitate youtube loading screens. A few years ago when high speed internet wasn't commonplace it felt that we were constantly confronted with buffering screens. One of the most well know buffering screens belongs to youtube, the collection of dots that rotate in what sometimes seems like an endless cycle. Dullaart adapts this animation and brings it into the real world, he carries out performances that involve the artist moving discs around and around in a circle on the floor for as long as he can be bothered. This length of time is fairly arbitrary, but the repletion in the video becomes mediative. He is carrying out a bizarre action in creating this video but I feel that its interesting how he tries to connect his own body to a process of the internet that traps its audience. Of course within Dullaart’s work nothing ever actually loads. Aside from their existence on the web Dullaart has transitioned this work for the gallery.  These performances have been relaid over webcam from the comfort of his own home into the gallery space. 

I think that Dullaart address a shifting culture and has manipulated our expectation of contemporary internet art in a very bold sense. The humours elements of his work act as a means of engaging with an non traditional audience. But also allows him to subtlety comment on our engagement and interaction with this digital space that seems alien to some but is also almost a home for other.