Easel Painting
4servo motor, easel, plastic panel, wood, steel, webcam, PC
317X130X244(cm), 2008
Asiagraph2008 / 2008.6. 27~7. 1/ Shanghai Exhibition Center
Bird Strike / 2008.8.20~8.31 / Gana art forum space, seoul
Phantasmagoria / 2009. 03. 29 ~05. 24 ICAM Museum
1. Concept
Easel Painting (2007) is an interactive installation employing an easel as the main subject matter. An easel is a tool that supports a picture while an artist is painting. It is generally considered an assistant tool linking an artist and a picture. In Easel Painting, however, the easel becomes an independent subject that affects or renders a picture. Removing its function as an accessory or tool, I offer a new role for the subject of a drawing or picture. In this work, the relation between the artist and a tool cannot be formed since no subject, namely a human being, exists and no canvas appears. In this situation, the easel loses its function and role. Instead of its original function, I use an interaction between a drawing apparatus I set up myself and the signal processing of a computer. Through this process of drawing, I render a picture on an empty canvas, using interactive information. The viewer’s color and motion involving in this work provide the easel with the material for drawing. The viewer participates in this work as a provider of raw materials.
2. Techniques and Structures
A crucial element that decides the position of an artist and an easel is the gaze. The artist looks at the canvas on an easel. In this structure, the two face each other. In Easel Painting, however, the artist is replaced with a mechanical apparatus. The gaze of the subject is substituted with a web camera. Information captured by the web camera functions like an artist’s palette. In this work, the structures, replacing the canvas, randomly revolve by four servomotors. I intend to deconstruct the function of the object by separating the easel and canvas that usually collaborate with each other to perform a specific function.
3. What does this work mean?
Despite this difference, the process an easel draws a picture corresponds to the one an artist follows. When seeing a moving object, the artist perceived it by his brain and reproduces it with his hands through the process of nervous treatment. In this piece, the web camera captures moving viewers, the computer encodes them using visual information and output their images on a canvas. This process is an imitation of the input-output mechanism of human’s visual perception. As man imitates and represents nature, media art can be another subject of production mimicking man and nature. This imitation can be made by learning and memorizing human’s behaviors. I intend to show this context through this work.
