Towards a new kind of art

Participation

What if the Mona Lisa was looking right instead of left? What if Mondrian had used blue in that piece in place of the red? How would the scene outside my window look if Seurat had painted it?

Agita, 2023—an initial exploration of what forms interaction might take

Something that has always struck me about Art is that I, the Artist, present something to you, the Viewer. As the Artist, I get to choose what medium to use, which elements to include, how many of them, which way to orient them, what colors to make them, what variations to make in a series. But you, as the Viewer, you can choose only to look at my works or to look away - that is the sum total of your choices.

I have always chafed against that restriction. I want you to be involved in the artwork, an active participant in the choices that go into how it looks.

So with my artwork, I want to be able to bring you, the Viewer, into the artistic process itself, so that you can experience all the choices involved in creating the art, be immersed in the world of possibilities under the surface of the print, and become, as far as possible, the Artist.

Interchange, 2023—homage to Victor Vasarely

Accessibility

The world is increasingly full of screens. They fill our pockets, they fill our walls, soon enough they will float in the air in front of us. We have the technology to color in the whole city with light and joy, but all too often, we are surrounded by banal images, advertisements for the mundane, commercial products, political attacks.

I want to coopt those screens, engage the people viewing them, change the way we all interact with our surroundings.

“Artibles”

So this is what I am trying to achieve my art—artworks that can live on your phone, or fill your wall, or crawl over the surface of a building, and that you can interact with, things that I am calling “artibles.”

Rivers, 2023—a further exploration of ways to let the viewer actively participate in the composition

From the beginning, I've envisaged this series as interactive. As I created these pieces, I got to see how they looked as the images came together, as the colors were applied and changed, and that to me was as interesting as the finished prints. So ultimately I'm expecting all the images in the Print section of my gallery to be available in an interactive form, as well as static prints, snapshots of the pieces.

Shield, 2023—making one of my own designs interactive

Shield, 2023—making one of my early designs interactive

This series is still very much a work in progress. The underlying computer technology is complicated, possibly overly so, requiring the use of multiple languages: it is like trying to write a novel, and being forced to write successive chapters in English, French, Russian and Chinese. Moreover, different devices have different quirks, and some standard things do not work on common devices like iPhones.

But each successive piece is bringing me further along the road to the place where I want all my artwork to end up.

The images on this page are my first few fully interactive pieces. They should work on your phone or most any other device with a touch screen or a mouse: please try them out! If you do encounter any weirdness, please reach out to me with information about what happened and the device you were using to look at them!

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