The intent of this gallery is an exploration of reality and existence. To deal visually with questions like what is real? What exists? What could be real? Further, more profoundly to ask: What is reality anyway? Do some images show things that are real and other not? What is honesty in art? Can images be truthful or lies? Or is it that all images, including what we see when we look with our eyes, are merely 2-dimensional projections of something out there which we call reality but which is basically unknowable? Perhaps all images are lies, just good lies and bad lies, useful ones and useless ones..
One reason why these questions are important is that movies are increasingly based on a blend of 3-d modeling and photography. So are online games preoccupying the time of millions of young people. One second you are looking at a filmed image of an actress, the next second you are looking at a 3-d model of the same person entirely created by computer. You can’t tell when the transition takes place. And computer actors and actresses will increasingly replace the “real” ones, if for no other reason than that they don’t require work contracts and are remarkably free of personal problems.
The images in this gallery are mostly combinations of photographic picture segments and images generated by 3-d modeling. Some are only of one kind or the other. A photographic image is a 2-d projection of a 3-d “reality, ” created by optical rays which bounce off of objects (sometimes multiple times) and are focused by glass lenses on film (or on the sensor of an electronic camera). All the laws of optical physics come into play, including optical properties of surfaces like reflexivity, color, refraction, texture characteristics, etc. The image is not the reality; it is a specialized projection of reality from a particular viewpoint and perspective.
An image derived from 3-d modeling starts with a mathematical characterization of some “reality,” say a scene including mountains, vegetation, sky, rocks, and rippling water. The modeling program, when properly directed, uses the same laws of physics to render a 2-d view of the scene from a particular viewpoint and perspective under particular lighting conditions, just like taking a photo. The resulting image is also a specialized projection, but the underlying reality is a mathematical model if what could be real in this or in some alternative universe, and possibly of what is not real in this universe.
Combine, mix-and-match and confuse among the photographic and modeling-derived images, a typical deft move of Art KOU KUO, and what do we get? Re-fractalized reality or re-fractalized fantasy? Clever lies, or alternative models of things that are more profound?
The images ask the questions. The boats are mostly from pictures taken on Lake Winnipausakee in New Hampshire where I spend as many summer days as I can. The mountains, sky and water, and things like airplanes? well you guess which are which. Some are from photos and others from 3-d modeling. The people cast in stone? Cave carvings perhaps, or what exactly? The other people? Lost in some hyperspace? Same for the strange objects, mechanical monsters, unlikely plants and insects. Enjoy, think, and write me if you are so inclined.
This music and all the music associated with the images in this gallery is played by Mark Giuliano.
For fun and to bring out alternative perspectives, each image is show both as I made it and as affected by a dynamic transformation.
Please write me about your reactions to my Art KOU KUO at vegiuliano@comcast.net
All images on site © Copyright, property of Vincent E. Giuliano.