Strange Attractors
Artists, there's just no stopping them. Give them 'sterile technology', throw loads of postmodern theory at them and they still make 'nice pictures'.
Nice pictures? Yes I know there is many a reader who would consider that irrelevant if not a down right insult. But look again. Look in fact at the exhibition by Edite Vidins and Csaba Szamosy.
Using computers these two artists have produced radically different work that is encouraging for those looking towards technology and wondering what good might come of it.
Szamosy's work edges up to the painterly with no apologies. That these pictures are computer generated becomes a consideration which is secondary to their visual appeal. The expanded pixels (the millions of little square units that make up a computer screen) are there for all to see, but they are layered over each other and move in organic waves in defiance of their square form.
The majority of Szamosy's works in this exhibition do in fact have their origins in the organic. They are pictures of cells from science textbooks that have been changed beyond recognition, and in some places combined with self portraits that continue the theme of previous work. This combination of the personal and organic with the technological has potential for further investigation.
However to contribute more to the current debate about art in the age of technology other than to prove visual appeal, the tension between the biological and the logical needs to be underlined.
The element of collage in these works is a result of the limited size of computer printouts and is therefore an accident of the technology. It may prove useful in the future for developing the content