ARTPHILIPCHUDYOccasionally, in conversation, I refer to my proto and early digital/CG imagery (as I did here on this site) and thought it time to present a token gallery of that work in one place. So – here it is.
https://artphilipchudy.com/galleries/retro/#1 (103 images)
The saying goes, ‘the older I get the better I was”.
‘‘Historically significant‘, ‘unique‘– in the title above, are high sounding claims, but looking back, it seems right. These images are among the earliest and most influential of their sort.
In general, pictures speak for themselves. If they speak to one’s’ sensibility, one tends to like them, .
In the pre Cryptoart era, those images which resonate most with people, usually end up framed and displayed on their walls.
And in the pre-tech/pre-Cryptoart eras, pathfinding, innovative art identified itself and was to be found initially, in ‘pure artistic space’ (galleries, concert halls etc.). Thereafter it was subject to exploitation and commercialization by corporate interests which spread their message more widely.
In more recent times, in our tech age, popular art has occasionally done things the other way round – only being recognized as representing something more important in high art terms, much later.
This collection of images started out with absolutely no high-flown fine art aspirations, other than those which inadvertently rubbed off onto it during production. The collection was produced merely targeting corporate need, at a point when companies where hungry to rebrand, signaling that their operations were ‘futuristic’ and they were getting into tech in a big way.
In the subsequent decades, ‘digital tech for tech’s sake’ had overstated its dream, lost its lure and then was forgotten. An overcautious corporate pivoted, to show its ‘natural’ or human face with wholesome/furry picture content, hoping not to left holding the ‘tech baby’ when the general public got tired of sitting in front of screens all day. Then Cryptoart came along to re-dramatize the digital ethos and it is ‘love all over again’.
Harmonic resonances might be discerned in Cryptoart, both to the initial celebration of tech for tech’s sake, of which my images were influential, but also unashamedly to early computer games graphic design, Computer games graphic design has grown to maturity meantime. Games designers were not looking back however, in the same sentimental way as many Cryptoartists. Their efforts were driving them to total photographic realism, the sooner the better.
If Cryptoart relies on non fungibility, there is an extra layer of compatibility which this specific ‘cultural island of legacy images offers. Non fungibility in this sense is simply that history cannot be changed and this collection is indisputably a ‘slice of the past’.
In the doldrums for decades, production of similar work by me and others dried up. This style of imagery has been scarce for decades and remains so even in advance of ‘minting’ further levels of scarcity – with the NFT process.
The image-making tech I used back then is scarce too, by virtue of being totally defunct. The unique hybrid digital analog production equipment was disposed of long ago.
Although I am working on new up-to-date art, I am not going backwards, stylistically or otherwise. No more work quite like this will be forthcoming from my hands. Hence a limited number of drops of this specific body of work.
HISTORY
What then is special about this collection in terms of historical precedent?
The work is unarguably a precursor of much the Cryptoart of today, on the basis of creation date alone. Aesthetics and design style are usually assessed on the basis of individual judgment. But judging origins done best after historic details are known.
A considerable amount has happened in technical and cultural terms since the mid-80s, to early 90’s, when these were ‘minted’. It difficult – even when one lived through it – to remember what was real back then. It is hard to project back and understand what turned eyes – to warrant this work be featured as these were – on magazine covers, ads and posters round the world.
There was nothing quite like it around in the stills/print world.at that time. The design style – occasionally referred to as ‘hitech’ or ‘futuretech’ by the marketers – once suggested the ‘big bad future’.
And now, somewhat In contrast, now for many, they appear as ‘techno cute’ and are perceived to exhibit a kind of naive retro charm.
PROPOGATION
The wide popularization of these images starting around ’86-87, was in consequence of a daring leap by an international stock photo agency, who responded to my suggestions of this as a new adjunct to their regular business. They in turn promoted them to an unwitting international art and design market, which responded enthusiastically.
If for no other reason of brute force, the unusually wide dissemination of the work in promotional manner of the day (many thousands of print catalogs sent to agencies etc.), was certainly a significant factor, popularizing and defining an aesthetic for computer imagery beyond the design community.
The level of uptake at the time by publishers and designers, ‘respectablized’ the idea of computer graphics in the public imagination, importantly in the conservative business world.
Business jumped at the chance to brand itself as participant in the new tech, at a time when high fidelity CG was not achievable by designers at any cost. No one could make images like this and for once, off the shelf images trumped ‘bespoke’.
And meantime the public was exposed to my readymade art work, in print and in exhibitions, fairs and even on TV (where quarter of a million dollar Quantel devices were being employed to do basic things such as throw titles and such like around on the screen).
The release and success of these images initially precipitated a considerable bandwagon effect from competing image creators and suppliers, to the degree that, as time went on, it became hard to discriminate between the originators and the plagiarists. It took a couple of years for the competition to wake up but by the mid-90s, every stock agency collection had to include token images, copied from or inspired by these. No one as far as I know duplicated the production methods I used, with its particular subtle analog quality.
As with current waves of Cryptoart, the ‘bandwagon’ contributed as much, if not of more, to the notoriety of this type of work, and this particular collection of images, than the actual artistic creativity, or artistic merit, or the content.
Comparing aesthetics and marketing muscle: certainly one could not have happened without the other.
MAKING THE ORIGINAL IMAGES
Looking back, it would be easy to forget that, what set the content apart at the time, was not only the design, concept and artistic subject matter. A lack of available tools to make images such as these was another factor. The design concepts were somewhat contiguous to a tradition of science fiction illustration (which went way back.) and early, crude, but ‘real’ computer graphics. Computer generated imagery was self-consciously beginning to appear in movies where budgets were huge, but not in print. Print at that time could not justify development costs of one off assigned images to suite an art director’s whim.
Real computer images then necessitated million dollar mainframe computers and custom low level programming. And artists with dual skills were almost nonexistent. For graphic print layout people the imminent release of the Macintosh II, with the first color monitor (640x480px), would define state of the art for personal computers in the design/art world. And that ‘art world’ did not yet even dream about extending that to even crude image manipulation – for press purposes or creative artistic pursuits. That would come some years later. There was no Windows in ’87. The world would have to wait for that too. It was released in 1992.
Even high budget movies were only just scratching the surface of CGI, capitalizing on ‘effects’ during that era, Meanwhile the movie industry really dreamed of the tool for delivering tangible photo realism on demand, not just lasers and glowing lines. The moving picture industry did not exist solely to service science fiction fans. Being able to make regular ‘non effects littered’ photographic movies and bypass impossible or expensive sets and sequences would serve their needs more comprehensively and would only come decades later.
CRYPTOART TRASH
To a contemporary CGI operator’s eye, these images are undoubtedly technically crude or even primitive, yet strangely enough, as with much retro art, it is hard to replicate quite the same thing, with the same feel, with any level of artistic honesty these days.
This is mostly, because the technical limitations of the day defined the style. And now, it would be hard to produce the same kind of imagery with the same ‘naive but cutting edge enthusiasm’ as when working with those limitations was something a totally new and yet untested. In art and design worlds many things are copied and developed, but because it is only new once, it is unique and never ‘repeated’.
All is not to say that contemporary Cryptoart does not indulge itself in seemingly crude images. The crudity in current Cryptoart does echo and pay some kind of tribute to the design legacy which it imitates. By legacy, I refer back to when we unleashed these pics to the world in the 80’s/90’s. And it clearly pays considerable tribute to the icon designers of the first computer games. Those early computer games were current at the time this work was being produced.
Much current Cryptoart plays naive/dumb, frequently reveling in a faux trash aesthetic. But in some senses it fails in the sense of not covering up the considerable sophistication of the artists who work it. There are many years of design aesthetic which have been distilled into most contemporary Cryptoart images, to say nothing of the tech, which permits the artist to choose precisely what they intend. Many of the current images, which might be described as generations removed from my early work, even as doodles, are closer to branding statements, or tools for tribal recognition, as opposed to the pretty naive voyage of discovery I undertook back then.
Computer games graphics back then, although intriguing because it was wondrous and so new, was considered ‘below basement’ in terms of high artistic merit, Other than corporate, who had to pretend that my work loaned them some industrial credibility. Both were regarded as representing lowbrow or even trash aesthetics.
Much of the current Cryptoart statement has its roots in and harks back to those early days, when in high art circles would then have been branded not just as techno trash, but total, unadulterated trash.
One technology tidal wave has passed over us since then, while the next big one is welling. Identifying with trash aesthetics a second time, when the first wave proved its unimaginable power, is at the same time a tongue in cheek parody of itself and an expression of considerable confidence.