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Selected transcripts from the online opening for The Electric Posters Exhibition at the Silicon Graphics Innovate Online Gallery April 16, 1997 Gallery.3.1: Motet Administrator (motet) Wed, 16 Apr 1997 16:10:40 PDT (2 lines) Welcome to the online opening reception for Electric Posters by Piotr Szyhalski. Piotr will be here to talk and answer questions. Gallery.3.2: Jetta Tatom (jetta) Mon, 21 Apr 1997 09:59:07 PDT (7 lines) Hi Piotr, your artistic design is incredible. What stimulates your creative spark for the number of animations that you have designed? It's very impressive! By the way, what tools do you use for creating the animations? Thanks, Jetta Gallery.3.3: Mary Henry (maryh) Mon, 21 Apr 1997 10:00:52 PDT (4 lines) Your posters seem to have a dark quality to them, both visually and viscerally. As technology such as the web connects more and more people, do you see its development as empowering or as another method by which someone else controls thoughts and actions? Gallery.3.4: Caroline Lowry (clowrys) Mon, 21 Apr 1997 10:09:28 PDT (5 lines) Hello Piotr, I'm wondering where you get the inspiration for your work? Your images are really beautiful and striking. Do you ever involve your students in any work? Gallery.3.5: B.J. Murphy (beejay) Tue, 22 Apr 1997 14:27:31 PDT (5 lines) Piotr, I was cruising around a little on the spleen and I couldn't see anything about you on there. Are you the only one working on that site, or is there a team of people? Gallery.3.6: Piotr Szyhalski (piotr) Wed, 23 Apr 1997 09:33:14 PDT (4 lines) Hello Everyone, This note is just to confirm that indeed i am here to answer your questions and will do so throughout the day (and later?)... p. Gallery.3.7: Piotr Szyhalski (piotr) Wed, 23 Apr 1997 09:49:35 PDT (31 lines) Answer to jetta Tatom: Jetta - thank you for your kind comments. Your response to the work is indeed one of the chief stimulations for me - I do believe that we are both (and ALWAYS!) participating in the process of art-making andany and every sign or trace of such participation is an incredibly important stimulant in my work... Often I find it inspiring to create specific pieces... Also - as it is specifically the case with Electric Posters - actively searching out the inspiration ON the Web is a big part of the process. In many cases pieces were designed in response to particular visual or verbal material retrieved from the web (those would be images found in photo archives or lines of text from the abundant self-help resources etc...) I find it an important component of my work to establish a clear connection between the work itself and the context one views it in. The Posters are part of the digital reality and belong exclusively on the screen, so it seemed only natural that they be created with the use of "screen-native" material. Similar process (I hope) takes place when it comes to referencing the historical concepts... Whether through historical visual material or with recognisable phrases I try to place the concept of individualised self-help in a larger socio-historical dimension. As to the tools: the original series was created with the Photoshop using its ability to separate fragments of the composition into a layered, "spacial" entity... The time factor was then provided by the web browser... where the inherent slowness of download actually contributed to the pacing of the pieces. I have later rendered the same posters in Director to further control the time and pacing, and finally worked on fully interactive pieces that directly involved viewers' decisions. p. Gallery.3.8: Piotr Szyhalski (piotr) Wed, 23 Apr 1997 10:31:51 PDT (18 lines) Answer to Mary Henry: Mary, There is no doubt in my mind that the web technology and especially the publishing dimmension of it is empowering and provides a true alternative to the now traditional mass-media. This does introduce a reflection on the nature of distribution of information. The notions of political or corporate sponsorship is succesfuly questioned by the individual web broadcasting. The new concept of public art emerges, and a role of an artist in the life of societies (locally and globally) once more is brought to our attention. As it is always the case with mass media - the issue of control comes into play. I think that artists do not control, but rather invite thoughts... The work is not an order, but an artistic PROPOSITION... I often describe my work not as art itself, but as an expression of my HOPE FOR ART... which may or may not be fulfilled in the viewers' minds. p. Gallery.3.9: Piotr Szyhalski (piotr) Wed, 23 Apr 1997 10:43:42 PDT (16 lines) Answer to Caroline Lowry: Caroline, I have described some of the issues regarding inspiration in an earlier note (see above.) As to the students' involvment - yes in some cases I work with my students from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. One of the Electric Posters does indeed feature the portraits of four of them - the "Unrest" poster. More often however, my family helps me resolve certain visual issues when desired material can not be found on he web. In many cases models photographed for use in the Posters are my wife and daughter (for example "Win" featuring my wife and me, "Every Night" fetures Pamela composited with some archival WWII imagery, and "Future" includes a portrait of Rosie - our daughter, also "Trust" is a lovely depiction of the father - daughter dynamics...) p. Gallery.3.10: M Normal (miga) Wed, 23 Apr 1997 11:22:26 PDT (7 lines) Hi Piotr, I like the layered quality of your works, and I'm fascinated to learn that they are inspired in part by the interconnectedness of the web. I'm interested in the transition from the static images that are revealed gradually to viewer driven interactivity that you mention above. Can you say a bit more about this? Gallery.3.11: Piotr Szyhalski (piotr) Wed, 23 Apr 1997 13:10:24 PDT (28 lines) Answer to M Normal (miga): Thank you for your comments! My goal in the creation of the Electric Posters series was to work with time as an essential component of the revealed message. I was attempting to still communicate my messages with the forceful vocabulary of a good poster design, but to challenge its traditional stability and "stretch" the meaning in time - beyond the typical "one hit" startegy of political poster. I attempted to present certain part of the message in the first layers of the Electric Posters, and then gradually question or in some cases clearly negate the initial meaning ... perhaps making the impact of the design even stronger (again - we are talking about my HOPES here - whether this actually works or not... you would need to decide on your own!)... The more interactive posters are now available on the Net as a piece caled "Amends". Those are availble to the users whose browsers are equipped with the Shockwave plug-in. In this new series (of 7) I worked with meaning/messages not only stretched in time, but most importantly messages that RELY on the viewers' actions. They need to be actively released and sometimes require some decision making effort on the viewers' part... This way the meaings are not presented to the viewer "complete" and "intact" - they in a sense need to be constructed by the viewer (or "reconstructed") and I hope that because of that the meanigs belong to the viewer a bit more - that the experience becomes more intimate and private... This is the direction my current projects are heading - I hope to have some new pieces up by this July. p. Gallery.3.12: Piotr Szyhalski (piotr) Wed, 23 Apr 1997 13:17:13 PDT (13 lines) Answer to B.J. Murphy: B.J., The work that I always mention as being the most "about me" is "The Chest Piece"... one of the older works within The Spleen. This is never my objective though, and I think that the most succesful pieces are the ones in which the "creator" as such is the least present and important... Yes - I work on The Spleen as an idividual, however (as it is often the case) the work wouldn't be there without the support of my family and many friends! (Not to mention the support and hospitality of MCAD) p. The Electric Posters Exhibition at the Silicon Graphics Innovate Online Gallery |
piotr_szyhalski@mcad.edu