some sketches
Place your face on overlayer .com
My friends at OKFoc.us made a cool new website: Overlayer.com
It’s pretty simple:
With your webcam, you can take a picture with an “overlayer”, a transparent picture frame.
You can also add your own overlays, which is even cooler.
You can see my overlays here. Give it a try and send me your pics!
I made 10 Gif animations for AND Festival
AND (Abandon Normal Devices) Festival is a summer Festival that happens in several cities in the UK each year. They always ask artists to make new work, and this year they asked me to make a series of ten animated gifs for their blog. They were posted week by week onder the name Happy Mondays.
Here they are all together:
I’m on my way to Los Angeles
I’m on my way to Los Angeles.
I’m happy to go there again and eat some tacos.
I will also work on my exhibition at Steve Turner Contemporary, hope to see you there!
“Everything Always Everywhere” my solo exhibition at Steve Turner Contemporary in LA, opening September 8
I am happy to let you know about my exhibition
“Everything Always Everywhere”
at Steve Turner Contemporary.
I will be there and I hope to see you!
Press release:
Rafaël Rozendaal
Everything Always Everywhere
September 8 – October 6, 2012
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 8, 2012, 6 – 8 PM
Steve Turner Contemporary
6026 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036
Steve Turner Contemporary is pleased to present Everything Always Everywhere, Rafaël Rozendaal’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles that will consist of two installations.
Popular Screen Sizes is a site-specific installation consisting of fourteen mirrors that range in size from a large television monitor down to a cell phone. Installed successively from largest to smallest, the mirrors create an abstraction of the gallery space through multiple reflections that result in many perspectives of the gallery’s interior. These protean views encompass both abstraction and representation.
Falling Falling is a physical manifestation of a website Rozendaal created of the same name. The website features a continuous animation of abstracted shapes falling onto themselves which, in the installation, are projected onto the gallery walls and reflected in shards of broken mirror scattered on the floor. Its soundtrack-a Shepard tone-is a seemingly descending pitch that continues endlessly. The combination pulls the viewer deeper and deeper into a slow audio-visual illusion.
In his multifaceted practice, Rozendaal utilizes the electronic screen to create work that resides somewhere between painting and animation. He creates websites as individual works of art, each having a title that also serves as its domain name. Though collectors may buy his websites, Rozendaal stipulates in his Art Website Sales Contract that the sites must remain on public view. His installations involve oscillating light and reflections that transform his online works into spatial experiences.
Born in Amsterdam in 1980, Rafaël Rozendaal has had solo exhibitions at Spencer Brownstone, New York (2010), TSCA Gallery, Tokyo (2010), Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam (2010) and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2006). His works were presented on the world’s largest LED screen in Seoul Square (2012, curated by Lauren Cornell) and have been included in the Internet Pavillion at the Venice Biennial (2009) and the Valencia Biennial (2005). He also participated in Maps for the 21st Century at the DLD Conference in Munich (2012, curated by Johannes Fricke & Hans Ulrich Obrist. He lives and works everywhere.
Steve Turner Contemporary is a contemporary art gallery based in Los Angeles that represents the work of emerging and established contemporary artists. Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11- 6. Please contact the gallery for further information.
Bright Lights After Armageddon: I’m in a group show in New York, opening September 13th
I’m happy to be part of the group exhibition Bright Lights After Armageddon, curated by Mark Brown.
The show features works by Anne de Vries, Michael Bell Smith, Travess Smalley and me.
I love all of the artists in the show and I think you will too.
Opening:
Thursday, September 13, 7 – 9 pm
Pablo’s Birthday
25 Cleveland Place, New York
Here is the exhibition text by Mark Brown:
What if we are living in the end times, but as Joseph Campbell wrote, “Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end”? What if rather than an all-consuming fire, Armageddon is a scintillating brightness, illuminating the first stirrings of a much better future? Could the day after Armageddon be the most beautiful day ever?
Perhaps a symptom of postmodern anxiety, the idea of Apocalypse—the final end of days—pervades the culture. In reports on the global economic crisis. In news stories about bath salt-crazed cannibals. In best-selling novels for teenagers and in the trendy academic cynicism of critical theorists. In disaster movies inspired by vague Mayan prophecy and in the dubious claims of religious leaders whose final-day predictions are pushed later and later into the calendar. Our culture sounds the alarm of Apocalypse like the Times Square bell-ringer whose sign reads, “The End is Near.”
Judged solely on the pervasiveness of the rhetoric, it would seem we live in troubling times. While there are always those who fear change, our rapidly-advancing info-technological society inspires many to proclaim we are bringing about our own destruction. But as much as our machines are responsible for intellectual atrophy, ecological devastation, and ubiquitous surveillance, they likewise provide us a glimmer of hope to deliver us from disease, political tyranny and, just maybe, our own mortality. Media doom and gloom frequently overshadows the good news, but from a different perspective, the story is quite different.
Maybe it is all a matter of a change in perception. If the Apocalypse is soon to come, perhaps we should be welcoming Armageddon. As in the Hindu myth, where the destruction of the world at the end of the restless and turbulent satya yuga era ushers in a new world of peace and enlightenment, the day after Armageddon may be much brighter than the day before.
The limits of creativity
I love finding ideas, so I try to find methods to push myself… more ideas, better ideas, whatever that means.
I like using a sketchbook to get ideas out of my head. Usually sketching helps, so now I made a deal with myself: every day, for at least an hour, I have sit somewhere without internet and sketch for an hour.
So far it has helped a bit, but it is also very daunting. After all, this is the era of self publishing. You don’t need a movie studio to make a film, you don’t need a publisher to share your novel with the world. Just put it on the internet.
The tools are cheaper and easier every day, and the only limit is your own motivation and talent.
This is great, but is also very intimidating.
When I sit and I have a pen in my hand but there are no ideas, it’s not a great feeling.
When the ideas do come, it makes me happy.
This is what it looks like when I sell a website
On this photo you see the certificate/contract for likethisforever.com.
I sell my websites as unique art pieces. The collector receives a certificate, a backup disk with source files, and ownership of the domain name.
Part of the sale is still “physical”. I still print the contract on paper and I still burn a disk. But that will change, from now on it will be a digitally signed pdf certificate and I’ll email the files.
I think it’s cooler that way.
I sold a painting on The Paint Shop .biz
Jonas Lund created The Paint Shop .biz, a very simple website to quickly make and sell a digital painting. While you paint, other users paint simultaneously on the same digital canvas. Social painting…
When you’re happy, just hit “Sign & sell the painting”, and your work is offered for sale on the gallery page. That’s it!
The sold images are printed on canvas and shipped worldwide.
Check out my painting, it sold for 114 Euros. Easy money 🙂
The history of electronic music on a Facebook timeline
Nice use of Facebook Timeline, very comprehensive:
Bleep’s guide to Electronic Music is a visual and audio guide through the historical emergence of electronic music by looking at landmark figures, inventors, musicians, producers, record labels and bands from the 19th century up to present day.
As well as a Facebook page, exploring the timeline of electronic music, we are also selling a 55 track compilation highlighting some of the most important tracks in electronic music.
Our aim with this selection of music is to show the length and breadth of the medium, providing a snapshot of the genres forms and styles, and the development of the artform. Whilst there are omissions (e.g. Kraftwerk) and compromises that we have had to make, we hope that we achieve our aims and we do some justice to the variety of music that we love.
I’m looking for an online intern
Hello you,
I’m looking for an intern.
I’m always traveling, so it will be an online based internship. I’m looking for someone to help out with visual research and animation tests. Ideally someone who is good at finding images, taking photos, drawing and animating.
If you are interested, please send me an email with examples of your work. You can send a link or a pdf or whatever you think is the best way to show what you do.
Looking forward to hearing from you, have a nice weekend!
composition & the browser
According to Wikipedia:
“Composition is the placement or arrangement of visual elements or ingredients in a work of art.”
Works of art usually have a fixed size. The artist will carefully position all the elements until a perfect tension is found.
What if the medium does not have a fixed size? How do you deal with composition?
Everybody uses their browser in their own way. Websites are viewed in various dimensions. This is an interesting moment for artists. Composition has been exhausted, many artists in many media have explored all the options, leaving little room for invention. But now you can make art objects (websites) that adapt.
A good website acts like gas, using all available space.
I’ve always tried to make websites that work any way you want them to, small, large, square, tall, flat. Some of my websites stretch, some scale, some crop, and some rearrange according to your browser size.
My approach (vector based generative images) is one possibility, but I think there are many ways to deal with composing images for a browser. Art historians of the world, please be alert, there are probably a lot of artists right now inventing ways to deal with “the liquid canvas”.
The world’s biggest kiss (HD video)
I was invited by curator by Lauren Cornell and the New Museum to show a selection of my websites on Seoul Square, the world’s largest LED screen, measuring an impressive 80 x 100 meters. The event happened on May 24, 2012 and was produced by Calvin Klein.
I always thought moving images are very versatile. They are energy based, not atom based, just like music. You can listen to a song at home, while you run, in a club, or in a huge stadium.
It doesn’t change the song, it does change the experience.
Works shown on Seoul Square:
Much Better Than This .com (Collection of Almar & Margot van der Krogt)
Falling Falling .com
Like This Forever .com (Collection of Allen & Overy)
Towards and Beyond.com
Music by Cold Void (Rafaël Rozendaal & Luuk Bouwman)
A big thank you to everyone involved…
I’m on Instagram
I’m on Instagram. My user name is Newrafael.
I resisted Instagram as long as i could… I’m already running out of time as it is. Social media are incredibly fun, but also incredibly distracting. All this Tweeting and Facebooking when I could be making REAL WORK…
But then again what is real work?
Perhaps micropublishing is a more honest and direct connection between humans. Instead of professionals trying to make big and well constructed works, everybody is sharing every thought, our minds… more and more connected. Perhaps micropublishing is about enjoying the process and not about results. I’m not sure…
I’m doing an artist talk in Rio tomorrow
Rafaël Rozendaal – artist talk
Friday, April 13, 20:00h
Comuna
R. Sorocaba, 585 – Botafogo
Rio de Janeiro – RJ, 22271-110, Brazil
Into Time with mirrors at Nova Sao Paulo .gif
Installation with projectors and broken mirrors by Rafaël Rozendaal.
Museu da Imagem e do Som de São Paulo, Nova Festival.
Resonate Festival
This weekend it is time for the Resonate Festival in Belgrade, Serbia.
I’m excited to speak in a lineup of great artists, designers, musicians and technologists.
See you there!
Into Time T-shirt available at Netstyle.es
Sterling Crispin started the Fashion/Art project Netstyl.es,
a series of beautiful high quality T-shirts by internet artists.
The editions are very limited so you better buy that Into Time shirt soon!
art & time
What was the art that captured the spirit of the industrial age?
What will be the art that captures the spirit of the information age?
Should art capture things, freeze them?
A lot of art freezes reality, it makes time stand still so we can have a better look.
Can today’s time still be frozen? Or are things moving too fast?
Or perhaps things are not even moving that fast? Is today that different from 10 years ago?
classic subjects in new formats
new subjects in classic formats
new subjects in new formats
classic subjects in classic formats
New York Operations Office
click on image for larger view
I decided to expand my operation, this office is just what I needed.
My booth at web-based VIP art fair
Dates: February 3 – 8, 2012
Location: VIPArtFair.com
Tickets: Visiting VIP 2.0 is free.
“Enter the art world online”. VIP is the only art fair that is exclusively accessible on the internet. The world’s most prominent contemporary art galleries are part of it, and of course most of the works are paintings, sculptures and photographs.
This year Rhizome was asked to participate and curator Lauren Cornell asked me to present my websites in the booth. Doesn’t it make sens to show online artworks at an online art fair?
You can see a video-tour of my booth here.
Press release by Lauren Cornell:
Rhizome is pleased to present a solo exhibition of work by outstanding artist Rafaël Rozendaal, who is known for his trailblazing explorations of the web browser, and for his forward-thinking contributions to the curation and sale of digital art.
Rhizome will present eight recent works by Rozendaal at the VIP Art Fair, all unique websites, each one an animation representative of the artist’s exploration of the browser as a limitless pictorial space. Here, in the ‘white walls’ of the online VIP Art Fair, each work is represented as a screenshot: a single frame that also includes the browser window that demonstrates how these works exist natively online. Colorful, minimal and redolent with feeling, the exhibited works range from figurative, such as Hot Doom. com’s depiction of a volcanic explosion, to abstract, as seen in From The Dark Past. com’s rendering of a scorched emotional terrain. Rozendaal’s formal aesthetic—his tendency to render commodities, like popcorn, or familiar scenes, like sunsets–recalls Pop art’s interest in the mass market and kitsch. Yet, in these works, each image has been pared down, stripped of idiosyncrasies related to place or time, and transported into a visual language of computer graphics and figuration–a language the artist suggests is more ‘universal’ today.
Rozendaal is noted not only for his own digital work, but for his inventive, free-form curatorial project BYOBthat has been staged around the world, and his contract that outlines how a browser-based work can be sold. This contract applies to all works for purchase at VIP Art Fair, and is available online here. As an organization dedicated to advocacy of digital art, and education around its history, preservation, and exhibition, Rhizome is proud to share Rozendaal’s contract within the VIP Art Fair as an example of an artist’s bold move towards defining best practices around the sale of digital art. Proceeds from the sale of Rozendaal’s donated works will be split between the artist and Rhizome.
“Finger Battle” animated portrait by Isabella Rozendaal
My very cool sister Isabella Rozendaal made this “Finger Battle” animated portrait of me.
Check out her photography website and her website on hunting.