Synthesis

Somebody was telling me today about an artist who takes photographs and then digitally manipulates them to create abstract art. Quite ironic — using reality itself as the basis for non-representational art.

I realized in that moment that the art I create is exactly the opposite. I never start with direct capture of real-world information. Rather, I look at a texture, or a geometric form, or a kind of human movement, and then I build up a simulacrum from scratch — creating “art from math”, as it were.

I consider this process a success if the result evokes in the viewer the sense that they are seeing a glimpse into reality itself, whether a marble vase, a flickering flame, or the graceful movement of a dancer’s arm.

Essentially, my work insists that all analysis of “what do we see when we look at the world” must happen inside my own head — not within computer software. I realize that this is an extreme view, which puts my work into opposition with those who try to create textures by piecing together bits of real-world texture, or human movement by stitching together motion captured sequences.

By doing the analysis myself, I force myself to develop a real understanding of how we see. I suspect that it is the quest for this understanding in itself — as much as the resulting simulated marble vase or interactive animated dancer — that drives my work.