Last weekend the Dutch Institute for Media Art (NIMK) showed a reconstruction of Projekt I-'90, a work by Dutch computer art pioneer Peter Struycken (b. 1939), that he created in 1989 for the exhibition 'Energieën' ('Energies') at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. It's a projection of shifting abstract forms and colours, originally shown on 16 mm film and slides. At the NIMK the digital reconstruction of Projekt I-'90 (done by the Stedelijk together with the Dutch Filmmuseum) was simply beamed on a wall.
The reconstruction of such a work is an interesting and complicated matter – but I'm not going into that. The thing is, I was pleasantly surprised by the work's freshness. Peter Struycken is of course 'old school'; it was 1969 when he first started to use the computer to make art. His work is rather 'formal', in a seventies sort of way; it mainly focusses on computer generated structures and colours. Does this sound exciting to you? I'm sure it doesn't. Nevertheless, please take a look at a very short (and very shaky, sorry) clip of the projected work. Even if you're not the big pixel loving kind, you must admit this is a very beautiful piece of work.
But is this stuff still relevant? Appearantly it is. Check Calibration Celebration (on the melody of 'Holiday' by Madonna), a recent work by young Dutch artist Constant Dullaart (b. 1979). You can still see it at Arti et Amicitiae (until March 22), it's part of their current group show Contemporary Semantics Beta (also curated by Dullaart). The work is a collage made out of found images used to calibrate printers and monitors. Seen in lights changing colour (disco lights), the collage seem to behave as animated .gif pictures that are normaly only seen on computers. This is what digital formalism looks like in the naughties.
(I apologize for the bad quality of the clips, it's just to give you an impression. If possible, please go see the work for real.)
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