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Scott Hessels

Website Link

Scott Hessels, also known as Damaged Californians, is an experimental artist who, for the last decade, has been working with film, video, web, broadcast, music, print, and performance.

The Image Mill is an award winning public sculpture. As you can see. The sculpture is made up of a mill that spins as water falls into it creating a sort of picture show of a horse galloping. This fast paced mill is almost like that of a flip book or flash photography. The structure stands at twelve feet tall. Using two wheels, the shutter action is created. One wheel has the horse animation while the other spins the opposite direction and has slits in it.

The water is one of the main keys in how this sculpture works. Without the water, there would be no motion. Quite literally the water creates fluidity in the motion or the gallop. Rhizome suggests that Hessels may have invented a sort of cinema for the future calling it "environmentally responsible".

The mill is a metaphor for the autobile industry. The horse was one of the first forms of transportation in the world. Using the mill, which is also a large part of history, the structure transports your mind. The mill is shaped as a wheel much like that of a car or train. In the short cinema that Hessels designed the horse begins galloping and then falls and then continues on again. The main metal work was done in Michigan where the automobile industry first took off.

I find Scott Hessels to be an interesting look at new media. He has a different eye than the other artists I have looked at so far. The structure of The Image Mill is in and of itself a wonderful thing for the eye to see. When the animation and motion created by a natural resource takes its place, there is a sense of magic to what is being shared by all of the viewers. It is no wonder he won the ArtPrize in 2009.

Other works by Scott Hessels prove to be just as amazing as this invention. He is definitely a legend to the new media world.

http://rhizome.org/object.php?49467
http://www.dshessels.com/

Sergey Kotsun

Website Link
Funny Video of an Orchestrion

Sergey Kotsun is a Russian media artist who works with interactive media. His most popular work is the Orchestrion. This internet machine transforms motion into music, making the viewer, the artist. The style g orchestrion was first introduced in 1911. The musical machine was said to contain the sounds of a piano, violin, flute, mandolin, bass drum, snare drum, tympani, cymbal, and triangle. The orchestrion was capable of making very high volumes of noise. Using the model for the original player, Kotsun developed a program which turns motions made with a webcam into both orchestrion music and visuals.

For those of you reading this and have about twenty minutes to spare. Please take some time to explore just what kinds of animation and visuals this guy makes. It's pretty cool. If you don't have time, at least take a look at the video of someone doing it. The link above is kind of trippy.

Sergey Kotsun has also developed some video games. They seem simple enough but with the use of 3D glasses, the game is a little more excited. In the game Star Collector, a little man walks through obstacles, collects stars, and turns moles into birds. In the game paper waves, it looks like your boat is moving through the waves and has to dodge the oncoming octopus, monsters, and whales while still collecting the floating treasure.

Besides the very cool interactive music and video games, Kotsun, has also provided the sites of programs that take the written word and turn it into music. As well, he made a program which can read off the letters spelled out. I put my name into the piano machine and it was interesting to here my name through the portal of a computer.

I think that the visuals are lacking in the composition, but the concept of turning the viewer into the artist a incredibly well thought through. I find it interesting that Kotsun used such a different sound to make this work. The orchestrion was a good idea because it doesn't limit the variations of sound.

Rhizome Link

Taras Hrabowsky

Website Link
Thingpit Link

Taras Hrabowsky is a young painter from New York who has recently delved into the world of digital time-based art. As a child he mostly painted graffiti and small designs, but now his graffiti are impermanent videos touring the streets of this country.

Hrabowsky designs video images which he broadcasts off the side of buildings across the country. His most popular clip is called ThingPit, "a dense vacuum of detrius." If the motion is slowed down or paused repeatedly, it's obvious that there are things falling into an unidentifiable pit. Toward the end of the clip, everything that flew into the pit is dramatically pulled back out and into the world. Some things being thrown in could be fire, water, trees, houses, people, airplanes, and more. However, the film starts and ends exactly the same. The screen or wall being played on shows a gray brick wall. Starting slowly, the wall is crumbled into the center and begins to pull everything down with it. They are digital images computer manipulated to move across the screen.

There are other popular clips from this artist made using the same sort of technique and style. For someone who grew up and worked most of his life on painting, Taras Hrabowsky has managed to enter the digital world without explaining himself. In none of the bios or blogs flying around the internet, does it ever lead the reader to understand how this projection came to be. Hrabowsky animates things with the help and combination of his painting skills.

To better understand ThingPit, the viewer can read the meaning or definition of the title:
\’th`ing\ p`1t\
Noun
An entity, an idea, or a quality perceived, known, or thought to have its own existence.
a. The real or concrete substance of an entity.
b. A natural or artificial hole or cavity in the ground.
c. A natural hollow or depression in the body or an organ.
d. The single central kernel or stone of certain fruits
Verb
(often foll. by against)to match in opposition, esp. as antagonists:
a. a concealed danger or difficulty
b. guerilla projection made in opposition to a static view of our surroundings
c. a re-presentation of a coming together / an envirotron of differentiation
d. the commonly overlooked exultation in between
ORIGIN Old English (also in the senses “meeting” and “matter, concern”)

Personally, I feel that this artist conserves the mystery of the draw. The reason people feel a pull toward this art, not just because it is shown so publicly, is that the images moving so fast are hard to recognize as anything more than things. At a closer look, more familiar objects can be made out.

Sources:
http://rhizome.org/object.php?49677
http://beautifuldecay.com/2010/02/03/taras-hrabowsky/
http://www.impakt.nl/index.php/artworks/thing_pit
http://tarashrabowsky.com/?page_id=60

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