This series of images are a response to my experimentation around the idea of the image and the screen. Genie effect is a animation created by Apple that transitions a window between minimise and maximise functions. The feature is used to make the activity of using a computer feel more seamless and fluid. Yet this effect completely distorts the content of a window as it disappears away from view. I felt that this process of minimising and maximising images was quite indicative of how we treat images online. We have constant access to every image yet we pick and choose what we want to see. And the process of opening images and closing images added to this idea of distortion. This is a distortion of sight, aesthetic and meaning. Any image becomes lost within the plethora of image data withheld online, our own grasping actions of this data draws from some sort of archive with idling significance.
I wasn't really to sure what image I could begin distorting through this effect so I began where I felt comfortable. The Tate’s collection of art always feels like a bedrock to me. It is my foundation for artistic reference, and am sure that it has contributed to my own knowledge of art and design as much as any other institute. I was drawn to the collections most popular items, the images that had been viewed the most online. Conveniently the Tate website orders its art collection online in such a manner. I found the popularity of this art important as it has shifted from aesthetic joy into iconic importance. These images online are a reference of the art its self, they exist as a digital copy that can be accessed any where. It is these images that are being opened and closed more than any others. I guess it brings into question what the purpose of viewing these images achieves. Are they being viewed for pleasure? are they being considered as art entering into the personal space of anyone displaying them on the screen? or is it purely for reference of the image to remind us of its existence? as well any relevant information that might go along with that, its date of creation, medium etc.
I really like the fact that the computer is making this abstraction and distortion almost automatically. The genie effect is a structure that I am capitalising on in order to manipulate the image. No expensive software or any sort of skill is needed to create the image, and I like that level of accessibility that is created. My images reveal a twisted distortion in the image, something is incredibly familiar in the iconic imagery as well as the genie effect its self that has familiarity with any apple mac user. This is an image that has been trapped between two points, we cannot tell if it is emerging or retreating from invisibility. I would argue that it is both, it lies still between a period of maximisation and minimisation. The visual information of the image is reduced but we can still piece to gather enough of what we see to form a representational image. This representation is formed from appropriated art. This distortion adds a layer of abstraction to the work that was never intended. Yet this series is much more about how iconic art work exists as a copy on the screen. I am taking away a part of the image and drawing upon ideas of pictorial copies having some sort of effect on the purpose and value of the original. Our screens our full of images that are just a few clicks away, and some of these images are of some of the most valuable works of art from the 20th century. They are trapped in a limbo between visibility and invisibility but are made up of data and values ready to be interpreted by the computer into an image that we can see and experience.
I have also experimented using the genie effect with out any appropriation of image. To do this I created this infinite picture of the same window being repeatedly minimised or maximised. This cycle is clear within the visual information that is given when we see the image. The process creates this pattern that drags the eye into the invisible. The closer the lines get together the more muddled the definition between each image becomes. Its quite curious that this image has its roots firmly in Op-Art where as the other set of image are clearly an extension of Pop-Art. It was quite interesting how this same technique could be applied to two themes of art that are often contentiously associated. As a piece of experimentation I think this image works very well but the series of images are much stronger collection of images contextually. I am beginning to question how this technique could be best applied. What images are trapped in constant state of visible and invisible , hidden between the idea that the are minimised or maximised? I feel there might be something to do with classified and declassified information that would be perfect for process but its trying to find appropriate image that will be the challenge. The context of the image becomes the pinnacle within this work, its context within the sphere of the internet, art, culture and society.