Monday, January 24, 2011

Lillian Shwartz


While reading the packet for class, I came across Lillian Shwartz. She used the computer to merge and manipulate images to play around with her interpretation and analysis of famous works (Christiane Paul). She is famous for her works using the computer, graphics, video, film, animation, special effects, and other computer generated art (lillian.com).

Her works were some of the first of their type to be displayed in the Museum of Modern Art. This new movement began a new field of art. She began this work of art as a continuation of her earlier works, and the merge between technology and art continued to grow. She later became more involved in the computer workfield and worked for AT&T as well as IBM (lillian.com).

One of her works discussed in the readings was a merging of Leonardo DaVinci's face with that of the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa is such a famous piece of art, and most everyone has seen it somewhere: on a coffee mug, a magnet, or parodied on television. Many people might not, however be as familiar with DaVinci himself. I found it to be a very interesting dialogue between the artist and the work of art itself to be a whole other art object.

I thought this particular work to be extremely successful, and made me think about the relationship between the artist and his work more than usual. Especially with a piece so iconic in nature, where most people do not go beyond the fact that it is famous.

Some of her other works include her anatomy series. These are 3-D images which can be viewed with 3-D glasses to achieve the full effect. Here, she payed attention to the pixel itself and how altering individual pixels could change a piece (lillian.com)
Her pieces in general strongly resemble something generated from a computer based media, and are not intended to be "hyperreal" or super realistic. They are taken for what they are.

Here is a documentary of her thoughts on the Mona Lisa and the development of :

1 comment:

  1. Lots of artists paint or photograph themselves as part of their work--I"m not surprised to see this with Davinci!

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