81 Landscapes is a new collection of 81 fully on-chain artworks.
Smart Contract by Alberto Granzotto.
This is not a generative project. All colors were manually chosen… human intuition.
This project will be “released” next year. I decided to mint them early, the works were ready, and I like the feeling of having a record when the work was first complete. But none of these are for sale till some time next year.
Into Time 22 10 series
Framed lenticular prints
160 x 120 cm
Courtesy of Upstream Gallery
Photos by Gert-Jan van Rooij
COMPLEX COMPUTATIONAL COMPOSITIONS
RAFAËL ROZENDAAL
UPSTREAM GALLERY AMSTERDAM
3 SEP – 8 OCT 2016
Photos by Gert Jan van Rooij
Complex Computational Compositions is the second solo exhibition by Rafaël Rozendaal (1980) at Upstream Gallery. In this last decade Rozendaal has made name with his artworks in the shape of websites through which he reaches an audience of over 60 million unique visitors a year. Since a couple of years he also produces physical works – in which the internet is however never far away. During Complex Computational Compositions, Rozendaal shows new works including tapestries and sculptures. A recurring theme within his body of work is to limit the influence he has as an artist on the final composition of his work.
Abstract Browsing tapestries
In 2014, Rozendaal developed the plug-in Abstract Browsing. Its code alters information from websites: images, advertisements and text fields are transformed into brightly colored geometric elements. This way, the narrative of the Internet makes room for an abstract composition that reveals the underlying structure of websites.
Rozendaal collects thousands of screenshots of Abstract Browsing generated compositions. A number of these are then selected by him to be produced as tapestry. Rozendaal: ‘I look for compositions that are the least picturesque. Painting is about a concentrated view, about beauty rather than utility. Websites are built exactly the opposite: developers are constantly looking for new structures that entice users to click somewhere, generating the highest advertisement revenue. Websites are created from necessity and efficiency, not beauty. I select compositions that are a bit awkward, unlike classic abstract painting that is about tranquility and contemplation.’
Artforum wrote about these works: Rafaël Rozendaal’s tapestries materially fix the Internet’s fleeting forms into pulsing, vibrant abstractions. […] Rozendaal’s pieces suggest a conflicted modernist hybrid of painting and tapestry—its historically intertwined relative—echoing works by Anni Albers.
Internet art and the loom are less far apart than one might think. Rozendaal: ‘It feels natural to work with this technique. The loom stood at the beginning of the industrial revolution; the punch card for mechanical looms was the first form of digital image storage. Not all output of computer art finds its manifestation on screens.’
The websites that served as the basis for the tapestries are still recognizable. The Google homepage, the Twitter feed. The floor sculpture that is also on show is constructed in the same way: the composition consists of mirrors, based on the layout of Pinterest.
Haiku
Another ongoing project of Rozendaal is his series of Haiku, short poems inspired by the Japanese tradition. “In Japanese art, the idea applies that the physical entity of a work of art is not essential. I find it interesting to distribute my work in different ways. When you scroll past a Haiku on Instagram, your concentration is very different from when you read them bundled in a book, or view them in a gallery as an isolated wall painting.’
Shadow Objects
The Shadow Objects series consists of aluminum plates with laser cut geometric shapes. For this, an industrial algorithm is used to calculate the composition that delivers the most efficient use of materials. Just like Rozendaal’s earlier series of lenticular prints, the composition is further influenced by its illumination and the point of view. With an emphasis on the dynamic potential of shading the series can be seen in the tradition of artists like Lucio Fontana and Jan Schoonhoven, translated into the twenty-first century.
The Internet versus the gallery
‘When people asked what I did in the past ten years, I had a simple answer: I create art in the form of websites. ‘ Nowadays, Rozendaal does much more: his physical and digital works emerge simultaneously and influence each other. Within that fluid practice, exhibitions constitute important moments: ‘Because I do not have a studio, I almost never see my physical works; in that sense they are more virtual to me than the websites that I can watch at any time. I see gallery exhibitions as an opportunity to examine the materiality of my work and to experience it with a different concentration. Where the Internet is about distraction, art in a gallery is about introspection, calmness and tranquility.’ Moreover, Rozendaal sees no hierarchy between his websites and physical works. ‘The experience that you have when you are at home using Abstract Browsing on your computer is as authentic as viewing one of the tapestries in a gallery. From my point of view: the Internet is like a waterfall, an exhibition more like an aquarium’.
I was interviewed by Marvin Jordan for DIS magazine. We talk about the social, economic, and aesthetic conditions that characterize the landscape of internet-based art.
Very happy about this text, read it here.
Press release:
all i want to do
is sit on a beach
and write haiku
once again
staring
at a screen
sun rises
sun sets
repeat
Postmasters is very pleased to present a show of haiku wall paintings by Rafaël Rozendaal, Haiku2014 Rozendaal. Catching a daily moment, freezing a thought, a shortcut from one brain to another, easily transferable raw data, truly mobile, universal and indestructible, haikus are an essence in text. Artifacts deteriorate, but words are forever.
Rozendaal’s art, be it his websites, his lenticular paintings, his installations, or his animations, are always about focus, locating an essence of a thought or an image. For this show all it takes is a color and a font.
Like www.muchbetterthanthis.com, his current installation in Times Square, where a simple, minimal animation of a kiss transcends its frenetic surroundings for the fleeting three minutes before midnight, Rozendaal’s haiku rise above the noise and chaos of contemporary art. It’s a joy to write them, so little trouble, just an idea, he says, I find comfort in simplicity… it’s an escape.
The exhibition is accompanied by a $10 book of almost one hundred haiku.
would you create
something amazing for us
we have no budget
Much Better Than This .com is this month’s Midnight Moment on Times Square.
Each night in February, from 11:57 to midnight, the work will play simultaneously on 47 screens.
Big thanks to: Times Square Advertising Coalition (TSAC), Times Square Arts and Dutch Culture USA.
Photography by Ka-Man Tse for @TSqArts
This is a selection of texts from my Spheres book, in collaboration with Philippe Karrer.
When we stare at the ocean, we can’t see that far because of the curvature of the earth. Clouds are not that far away either. Stars can be very far away, but a lot of stars don’t even exist any more by the time their light hits our eyes. The further something is, the longer it takes before you see it.
People always emphasize it’s good to grow and innovate, but it’s also good to repeat and refine.
In the future, people will not carry around devices to access the internet. Instead, with a pocket knife, they will cut a rectangle out of thin air, right in front of them, and there the internet will be. Unfortunately, many people will leave pieces of sky on the floor which might be dangerous. (More…)
Austin Lee interviews Rafaël Rozendaal for SFAQ magazine.
New York, February 2014.
AL: Your artwork has strong ties to both painting and animation. How do you think about time in both mediums and how does it function in your work?
RR: I’m interested in movement, and I’m interested in staring. That means I want to make moving images that don’t have a beginning or ending, no specific duration. The computer makes it possible to create images that run infinitely, always a bit different but also kind of the same. Think of a fountain: it’s in motion, it’s moving, but it’s not going anywhere.
External Memory, exhibition by Rafaël Rozendaal
at Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam. March 2014.
Photography by Gert Jan van Rooij.
The following conversation was re-published from the book Spheres by Swiss graphic designer Philippe Karrer. Jürg Lehni and I discuss our shared interest in vector graphics, which are based on mathematically-defined geometrical entities such as lines, circles, and points, in contrast with more commonly used bitmap graphics, in which values are assigned to grids of pixels.
Rafaël Rozendaal: Vectors are based on mathematical equations. The equations are perfect. No matter how we try, we can never render a perfect circle in any medium. And even if we did, our imperfect eyes would not be able to register its perfection. Do we have to accept that such shapes can only exist in our mind?
Jürg Lehni: What a start of a conversation! This distinction between the abstract mathematical formulation of geometric shapes, and their realization into concrete, physical forms is pretty much at the core of my fascination (or shall I say obsession?) with vector graphics. The shift is always there, whether it is illuminated pixels being turned on or off, a mark-making tool being moved by motors, or a laser beam being guided by electronically-moved mirrors, burning a line permanently into a physical surface. What it boils down to is the difference between the abstract idea behind something on one hand, and its concrete form when it becomes reality. Plato’s theory of forms comes to mind, with its ideal or archetypal forms that stand behind and define the concrete, physical things.
Modern Matter is a magazine focusing on art & fashion.
In this issue a number of artists (Maurizio Cattelan, Bjarne Melgaard, me, …) are interviewed,
talking about what it is like to live and work in New York.
Photos by Phillipe Gerlach.
Back in 2004 I moved to Los Angeles. I shared a studio with Jonathan Maghen and we started a T-shirt line called Tagbanger.
As artists, we were most excited about creating images. It was a nice form of collaboration, we both created and found images and then we would sit together and review the ideas. Sometimes we would execute the ideas together, sometimes separately. We found a great printer who used waterbased inks, we found a great T-shirt manufacturer, and we had nice labels made.
What we underestimated is that a business requires a lot more than just creating a product.
I tried going to stores to offer them our shirts but I would just feel awkward. And the logistics were not easy either.
We sold quite a few shirts but it never became a big thing that we could do fulltime. I really admire artists who are able to create a business of consumer oriented art products. In simple words: affordable art that anyone can buy.
Below are all the T-shirts we made. It was great fun and we made some money, and I learned a lot.
Brand New: Text Free Browsing, a chrome extension by Rafaël Rozendaal & Jonas Lund.
Text Free Browsing does what the name says: once you install it, you can click on a little nerdy face to turn off all text on the internet. You can turn TextFree on and off on at any moment. Try it!
You can download it for free in the Chrome Web Store
“Everything Dies”
Exhibition by Rafaël Rozendaal at Kunstverein Arnsberg,
curated by Vlado Velkov, April 2012.
