Artist Research: Aaron Meyers and Richard Vijgen

For our first research assignment, we were asked to find a new media artist and relate their work to an article we read. The article, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Production by Walter Benjamin, discussed how the evolution of society through the technologies mechanical production was changing the way we think about art. It talked about how our concepts of image and artist have both changed drastically, and how our experience as a viewer has changed to delete the personal relationships that we develop with the artists themselves. 

We discussed the article in class, sharing our experiences and how Walter Benjamin's theories either have or have not manifested themselves in our lives. One common thread that we could all agree on was how much our lives and ideologies have changed with the advancement of computer technology.

 

With the evolution of internet culture and social media, our ideas about creativity have also shifted drastically.

 

Aaron Meyers, an artist that I found on eyebeam, is one artist that is responding to this new medium and considering the vast ocean of creative possibilities that can arise from these emerging technologies.

Aaron's Personal Site

Aaron Meyers "is a designer and programmer using generative strategies in the creation of software and moving image." Meyers's makes work with a range of content spanning from augmented reality and interactivity to visual music, and his work seems to echo the changing ideas of audience experience and collaboration.  

One work of his that I found to be inspiring was the "World Series of 'Tubing'" a interactive game-show reworked for modern purposes. The two opponents are using QR codes which correspond to youtube videos, trying to out-do each other to come up with a more interesting video. The audience  can see the battle projected on a wall, and can vote on which contestant is winning by pointing a laser on a target which corresponds to each of them.  This project repurposes a game show model for modern context and shows how the possibilities for interaction and community as a result of emerging technology can be endless. 

Meyer's work, which goes in a lot of different directions, could be critically analyzed from many perspectives which I find to be relevant to the class. His collaborative project about visual music, for example, involved the effort of programmers, artists, and musicians, to try and think about the new ways the computer can be used as an art medium. 

A second artist who I found to be pertinent to the discussion of the evolution of media is Richard Vijgen, whom I stumbled across on the rhizome database. I was particularly interested in his work Deleted cities, a project which recreated the website "Geocities." Geocities used to exist on the web as a virtual "space,"a search engine that was organized like a map. People could become "tennants" having a semi-physical spot near other items related to them. The site was eventually taken down, but the project has captured the site and preserved it as an archaeological "site."  I thought the piece really spoke for a change in perspective in what real or authentic really is. 

Richard Vijgen describes himself as an information designer with dynamic and screen based media. His website for his studio is presented as a studio for object oriented information design and research. To be honest, it's tough to say exactly what the guy does for a living. It's for certain that he is an idea guy, and his studies have put him into the real of new media.