Mon, 30 May 2005
Digital Art - Digipop
Karim Rashid, digipop, Taschen
Karim Rashid has been exploring computer art to generate
2D and 3D decoration. In this he declares himself to be in
disagreemnt with Adolf Loos's proclamation that "ornamentation
is crime". This is part of a modern movement away from what appears
to be the anti-humanist thoughts of early modernists. It is, of
course, a matter of context in that it was understood or at least
presumed by those early twentieth century people that things would
be done right -- that the materials and workmanship would actually
be better than reasonable. No doubt if they could see some of
the atrocities erected in their name, which looked good for
approximately one week, they would have a word or two to say.
In any case, pattern and decoration seem somehow to be
interesting to humans whether or not they want to paper the walls
with it or wear it on their t-shirts. This book has a rich selection
of such things and some are curiously exciting and interesting for
reasons that seem largely intuitive. The designer/artist attempts
to give them reason by referring to big brother surveilance societies
and the digital claptrap that enables them. The link is spurious
and self-seeking I think. These things are interesting for what
they are and make poor billboards except for the tenuous idea that
digital means the enabled rebellion of blogs, filesharing, and the
web. The fact that people can only be a regular part of those things
by being part of that system is a nice irony.
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pre Dec 04 reviews are here