The Familiar Remix

The Familiar Remix (2012)

 

Halloween was always my favorite holiday. Maybe it's because my elementary education took place in Catholic schools taught by nuns who were quick to rap your knuckles if you blew reciting your Apostle's Creed. Halloween was the one night allowed for Catholic kids to take your id out for a walk on the wild side. I mean, why not, once a year, literalize those demons and witches and ghouls?

Halloween was a much bigger deal on the Great Plains (where I grew up) than it is in the South (where I now live). I blame the Southern Halloween Apathy Syndrome, comparatively speaking, on the near-total influence of party-pooping Baptists. If dancing is frowned upon, then going door to door dressed as Satan is a serious offense.

Give me Halloween's sliced up jack-o-lanterns and arched back black cats any day over Easter's formally arranged baskets and stylized egg rolls. If a ghost is going to the considerable trouble to resurrect, I want him to scare the shit out of me -- not drift tranquilly into the heavens like a small balloon filled with hot air.

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One of the few black and white images selected for remixing last sumer. Image originally rendered in Tiera-Zon in 1999. Remixed until it became even more familiar.

At the Mountains of Madness Remix

At the Mountains of Madness Remix (2012)

 

It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth's dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be left alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.
--H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness

Another artifact from last summer's remix delirium. The blacks deepened. The snow thickened. The purples feathered and drifted.

Originally rendered in Fractal Vizion in 2002. Post-processed until blind six-feet-tall penguins appeared.

 

Equestrian Death Match Remix

Equestrian Death Match Remix (2012)

 

Another testament from this summer's remix frenzy.

The black, striatic lines really leapt out in the remix. Depth became more defined. Still, the most radically altered feature was the lighting. It irrupted.

This one goes out for Ann Romney's horse:

 

Now, Ralfalca. Remember your Battle Royale training.

I remember, twelve years ago, when I first studied this image, the forms reminded me of tracks, and the title was remiscent of an xtreme posse.

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Originally rendered in Fractal Vizion in 2000. Remixed until the polo sticks were slick with gore.

Io Remix

Io Remix (2012)

 

Even 35 years on, our rugged Voyager spacecraft are poised to make new discoveries as we eagerly await the signs that we've entered interstellar space," Voyager results turned Jupiter and Saturn into full, tumultuous worlds, their moons from faint dots into distinctive places, and gave us our first glimpses of Uranus and Neptune up-close. We can't wait for Voyager to turn our models of the space beyond our sun into the first observations from interstellar space.
--Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena

Another remix now seen by better telescopes.

The photos from Voyager(s) blew my mind as a young adult. For years, I had luminescent shots of Jupiter and Saturn prominently displayed in homes and offices. These were neighbors worth taking the time to get to know.

Both the density and the light became more prominent in the remix. Orginally rendered in XenoDream in 2000, and remixed to the point of eruption.

School's Out Remix

School's Out Remix (2012)

 

Another remix. Forgive the cognitive dissonence caused by posting this one at the start of the school year. Think of it like viewing a snow fort in the Dog Days.

Aspects of motion and absence were murky in the original, and light at he bottom of the ocean floor suddenly became visible...

...which appears possible:

Oceanographers struggle to explain a strange glow from seafloor vents.
--Richard Monasterkey, Science News, 9-7-96

This remix expands, then dives deeper.

 

Cut Down on the Anime Remix

Cut Down on the Anime Remix (2012)

 

Another summer marathon remix.

I always liked the rounded, tentacle-like lines in this piece. The eye form reminds me of both the tripods in War of the Worlds as well as cheeseball horror films like The Crawling Eye.

Originally rendered in Sterling-ware in 2002. Remixed until physical characteristics became even more exaggerated.

Great White Feeding Frenzy Remix

Great White Feeding Frenzy Remix (2012)

 

I've been in hibernation much of the summer working on an art project I never thought I'd be able to undertake.

For many years, I've searched for a process to make my earliest work suitable for framing and viable for HD digital display. All of my art created prior to 2003 was produced at a very small scale -- mostly at the size of 800 x 600 pixels. Given the extent that I commonly post-process, the computers I had at the time were not capable of rendering extremely detailed work at a larger scale. Over time, I resigned myself to the fact that all of those early pieces could never be reproduced with enough vibrancy and resolution to do the pieces aesthetic justice. To paraphrase (and distort) Donald Rumsfeld, I went to war (that is, making art) with the technology I had -- not the technology I wish I had.

Wishes, though, as it turns out, can come true. This summer, with a new computer and a software upgrade, I rebuilt my digital studio. Now, I've finally been able to satisfactorily blow up and remix one hundred of those early works. Some of these remixes will appear on this blog in the coming weeks and months.

Digital artists often have a tough go placing their art in real-world galleries. I’ve shaken my head sadly many times while weighing the advantages of a physical original (like a painting or a sculpture) over a digital original, but one advantage the latter shares with digital music is the capability to remix – especially as tools (like a computer) evolve options and expand firepower. To my eyes, the remixes have more resonance and better exemplify what I saw in my head when initially creating these works at the size of a trade paperback cover.

Ironically, although I originally undertook the project to make some early images feasible for printmaking, I found that I spent much more time and attention fine-tuning the pieces with care for how they would appear digitally. As much as I enjoy prints, and have been an advocate for actively making fine art prints of original digital art, I also pine for the day when large-scale, high resolution HD screens will find fittingly representational wall space in brick and mortar art galleries.

I thought the image above might be an appropriate one to start the show. Think of it as beach viewing for the waning days of summer.

Skrillex Remix

Skrillex Remix (2012)

 

I went back to the digital drawing board here. The original was much too dark. Detail could not be seen. So I remixed -- which seems understandable given the subject matter.

Initally rendered in Quasz. Post-processed until it re-remixed itself.

Lake Serotonin

Lake Serotonin (2012)

 

In addition to the physical contact, it surprised us to find that these immume cells also have the machinery to take up serotonin and to secrete it in an excitatory manner.
--Gerard Ahern

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Image initially rendered in Quasz. Post-processed until it closed its eyes and said aaaaah.

And, because I feel serotonin is conducive to jam-on noodling, today's musical correspondence is the Meat Puppets playing "Lake of Fire."

 

Alien Hipster

Alien Hipster (2012)

 

With Ridley Scott's Prometheus making its debut this weekend, it's worth remembering that not all of the face-hugging, acid for blood aliens strove to be human killing machines. A select few of the xenomorphs just wanted to be hipsters.

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Image initially rendered in Quasz. Post-processed until it went from malicious to groovy.

For today's musical correspondence, here's Man or Astroman in 2010 performing "Invasion of the Dragonmen":