Tokyo's Mori Digital Art Museum

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An old-fashioned digital print of Tokyo's Mori Digital Art Museum

When I was a Junior in high school (1962) I took a typing class which, as it has turned out, was one of the smarter educational encounters I've ever undertaken. We used to enjoy creating pictures with the various numbers, letters, and keyboard symbols available by using the variable density of each character. Of course, that recollection stretches well past any contemporary definition of digital art. However, as early as 1976, I painted what may be the first digital self-portrait using just such computer-generated characters and a rudimentary application of impressionist color principals. As computers have developed more and more power for less and less cost, digital art has developed along side them from photo editing to digital "paintings" printed out on paper or canvas, framed, and hung on a wall in a traditional manner. Running parallel with this evolution has been an expansion of the very definition of art itself, to include virtually all visual forms of creativity.



Perhaps the most important of these has been various imaginative uses of colored lights. I mean, where would art be without the key element of light? It simply wouldn't exist. Going back in history (my own) I can recall disk jockeys with expensive light arrays which eventually came to be keyed into the music they played. Again, computers came along and geometrically enhanced the possibilities. I mention all this in case you happen to be in Tokyo sometime in the future. If so, don't miss the EPSON teamLab Borderless Mori Digital Art Museum. But in doing, don't expect to see old-fashioned, framed, digital art from the past(top). It's not that kind of museum.



As you can see in the videos above, this type of art is all about light, music, color, lasers, sound, even the movement of air. Thus most of the images I'm using demand video presentations to be truly seen and appreciated. It's a whole new and different art requiring a whole different type of image to even write about. Produced in collaboration with local urban landscape developer Mori Building Co. Ltd., the amazing light displays are housed in their very own building, spread out over two floors in a huge space in Tokyo’s Odaiba district. TeamLab, the Japanese art collective behind the world’s first truly digital art museum, has developed a borderless, boundary-breaking future. There are no frames to mark the limits of the art and the real world. The viewer becomes part of the art itself.

teamLab, Universe of Water Particles on a Rock where People Gather (2018)

 

It’s taken time, but today, the art world is slowly turning its back on analogue and going digital. Nowhere is that clearer than within the huge, 10,000 sq. meter space, of the Mori Building Digital Art Museum. The museum is divided into five zones and utilizes 520 computers and 470 projectors. TeamLab have transformed a traditional museum space into something futuristic, groundbreaking and challenging. For the teamLab collective, their digital art exists on a separate plane, liberated from the constraints of material substance. In their newly defined museum, they hope to transfer the feelings and thoughts that visitors would have gotten from a physical artwork through their own bodies, relationships and experiences. When an artist can put thoughts and feelings directly into people's experiences, artworks too can move freely, form connections and relationships with people, while embracing the same concept of time as the human body. Such art can transcend boundaries, influence and sometimes intermingle with each other. In this way, all the boundaries between artist, people and artworks, dissolve and the world of teamLab Borderless is created.



Visitors walking freely around the museum are expected to lose themselves in an alternate, art- based, borderless world, immersing themselves in each experience. In Borderless World, visitors are invited to understand and recognize the world through their bodies, moving freely and forming connections and relationships with others. TeamLab Borderless is a group of artworks that form one borderless world. Artworks move out of the rooms freely, form connections and relationships with people, communicate with other works, influence and sometimes intermingle with each other, and have the same concept of time as the human body.



In Athletics Forest (above), for example, teamLab have manufactured a “creative physical space” which trains spatial recognition ability by promoting the growth of the hippocampus of the brain. It is based on the concept of understanding the world through the body and thinking of the world three-dimensionally. In a complex, physically challenging, three-dimensional space, the body becomes immersed in an interactive world. The interactive aspect continues in Future Park, an educational project based on the concept of "collaborative creativity, co-creation". It is an amusement park where you can enjoy the world creatively and freely with others.

teamLab, The Way of the Sea in the Crystal World - Colors of Life (2018)

 

Is teamLab’s museum is an example of the art world becoming more digital in general? Even the collective can't answer that. But, they explain that digital technology allows artistic expression to be released from the material world and for ideas and experiences to change and flow more freely. In art installations with the viewers on one side and interactive artworks on the other, the artworks themselves undergo changes caused by the presence and behavior of the viewers. This has the effect of blurring the boundary lines between the two sides. When the viewers actually become part of the artworks themselves the relationship between the artwork and the individual then becomes a relationship between the artwork and the group. Another viewer, present within that space five minutes before, or the particular behavior exhibited by the person next to you, suddenly becomes an element of great importance.



The digital domain can expand art and change how we view the capacities of art in our world, which can actually help us to create new relationships between people. TeamLab wants visitors to understand how digital technology can expand the conception of art as well as liberate art from a value system based only on physical materials. The museum encourages people to rethink the relationship between humans and nature as well as their relationship with the world. Traditional art museums have tended to treat the existence of viewers as a nuisance. At an exhibition with no other viewers, for example, you are likely to think of yourself as extremely lucky. Yet teamLab encourages people to think of the presence of other viewers as a positive factor. The importance of this shift in thinking stretches even beyond the art world. In modern cities, the presence of other people around us, as well as their unpredictable and uncontrollable behavior, is often seen as an inconvenience to be endured. This is because the presence of each person and those in their vicinity do not have a visible effect on the city. If entire cities were to be wrapped in the type of digital art conceived by teamLab, people would begin to see the presence of other residents in a more positive light.



Described as Tokyo’s most "Instagrammable" spot, the museum is unlike any other experience in Japan. The Mori Building Digital Art Museum is quickly becoming one of the country’s most popular destinations. However, there are a few tips which may help in enjoying the museum. Wear white or light-colored clothing and flat-heeled shoes. Touch everything, enjoying the museum as would a child. Don't rush, and by all means buy your tickets online if you harbor any hope of seeing the museum at a given date and time--or at all.

Mori digital art-museum design room.

 

Hugo Heyrman

Lady of the Desert, ca. 1995, Hugo Heyrman

Copyright, Jim Lane

Computer Self-portrait, 1976, Jim Lane,
the first computer-generated self-portrait.

If you want to be rich and famous in art (or in other areas, for that matter) one of the best ways is to be the first (or one of the first) do do something. Theoretically that's true though in practice, it's sometimes more problematical. The attention paid to such individuals varies in direct proportion to how important their "first" might be. For instance, I claim to be the first artist to paint a self-portrait based upon a computer printout. I'm neither rich nor famous so my "first" must not have been very important, (or I need to hire a publicist). Thomas Kinkade was the first to paint really sappy, nostalgic, highly-sentimental, good-ole-days landscapes for backward-looking conservative Republicans not concerned with wasting energy by keeping a light burning from every window in the house. That was important--he became rich and famous--the self-proclaimed "Painter of Light." Of course, every landscape painter paints light so his fame may have more to do with PR than paint.

 

Dr. Hugo Heyrman

That's also probably the case with the Belgian painter, Hugo Heyrman. If anyone deserves fame and fortune it's an artist not only adept at painting, but film-making, video, sculpture, Internet art, and synesthesia (a word he coined himself for pulling together all of the above). It would seem to have a lot more meaning than the dubious distinction, "Painter of Light." Heyrman is a "new media" researcher, and as for his first and foremost "first," he is credited with having created the first digital art around 1995. That sounds, at first, to be rather recent, but keep in mind, before that, when I was playing around with computer images around 1976, they were still using typewriter punctuation and symbols to create pictures. Heyrman got into pixels. He even created a sculpture, Lady of the Desert, around  1995 using pixels, then built (or had built) the real thing using painted concrete blocks, erected out in the Mojave Desert (as the title suggests) some 120 miles north of Las Vegas. It's interesting especially in that it demonstrates just how far digital art has come in less than twenty years.

 

RealityXL--2008, Hugo Heyrman

Belgiëlei, (detail) police force at horse,
1975, The Monograph cover of Joannes
Kesenne's book on Heyrman.

Heyrman was born in 1942. If you want to be a famous artist, a healthy degree of intelligence is a formidable asset. Heyrman's is undoubtedly in the "genius" range. Though he's studied everything from painting to nuclear physics, his PhD is in art sciences, magna cum laude from the Universidad de La Laguna, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands). His thesis was on computer art and the transition to digital imaging. During the 1960s, Dr. Heyrman was a "happening" artist (conceptual and performance art). During the 70s, he turned to video art dealing with ecological themes. Later, Heyrman returned to his painting roots, then began to mix the two (synesthesia) while in the 1990s he pioneered digital art, trading his brushes for a mouse. Yet, he still paints, his canvases melding the "zooming" qualities of digital art with his earlier concerns with urban life and the modern-day body language governing it.

 

Snowing, 2008, Dr. Hugo Heyrman

Unlike so many artists now and in the past, Heyrman starts with the idea or theme--the message. Then he draws from his vast toolbox of technical skills in virtually every communicative medium, that which would work best in conveying his message. His work is the very definition of Postmodern--drawing from the past, mixing media generously, making a point, contributing to contemporary discussion without hogging the conversation or overwhelming the viewer. He never clobbers the viewer with shock schlock. His work is subtle (almost to a fault), sometimes lighthearted, yet thought-provoking, without rudely soaring miles over the heads of his intended audience. Whether painting, sculpting, "videoing" or digitizing, Heyrman's work is not wall art. It's not very decorative, usually not even pretty or attractive. One might call him an art scientist--a researcher bent on exploring the interrelationships of thoughts, media, and technology. Oh, and he's even become rich and famous as a result (both being relative terms).

Why--City Life & Body Language, 2007, Dr. Hugo Heyrman

 

1990s Art

The 1990s--the birth of GIF art, though the X-Men,
created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, date from the 1960s.

It seems hard to believe now, but the art of the 1990s goes back as much as 27 years ago. My, how time flies when you're having fun...or, as Kermit the Frog once said "Time's fun when you're having flies" Speaking of time, Kermit is now old enough for Social Security (62). For me, the 1990s were memorable in that it was the decade which brought us the home computer. We got our first one in 1995 (below). It was a Packard Bell Legend 814CD with a 100MHz Pentium Processor, 8MB, of memory, a 1.2GB 4x NEC CD-ROM Drive, and two Floppy Drives (5.25 disk and the "new" 3.5 disk). Notice, it did not contain a modem. Though the Internet had been around since 1969, dial-up access in the 1990s was both slow and expensive (CompuServe was five cents per minute). I think we paid about $700 for the computer, monitor, and accompanying software (about $1,100 today).

It was not very artist friendly.

Despite a whole bucket of bugs and numerous limitations, digital art began to take hold as the decade progressed. Computers grew friendlier and more powerful by leaps and bounds. Apple prodded Microsoft to forego MS-DOS in favor of Windows, which progressed from 3.1 to Windows 95, Windows 98, and finally, in 2000, Windows ME (Millennial Edition). Some of those operating systems are still in use today. With each new permutation came radical improvements in the capabilities for producing digital art, either from photos or from the "scratch" of the artist's imagination.

Fractal Art--beautiful, but the computer does all the work.

As might be expected, older artists turned technophobic while Millennials embraced the digital revolution. Nerds ruled, and their favored art was fractal, based upon mathematic algorithms ideal for even the relative low-power processors of the day (above). Among the artist who embraced fractal art were Desmond Paul Henry, Hamid Naderi Yeganeh and musician Bruno Degazio. Fractal art is not simply computerized art, lacking in rules, unpredictable, nor something that any person with access to a computer can do well. Instead, fractal art is expressive, creative, and requires input, effort, and intelligence.

Bob Ross, the mighty painter of friendly little trees retired in 1994 after a TV run of seven years.

The Bob Ross Dress

It would be false to relegate an entire decade of art to that which accompanied the advent of low-cost computers and their software. Although painting was starting to decline as a viable form of creative communication, its multi-media challengers, TV, motion pictures, and in its nascent form, digital art, were waiting in the wings. TV had its Bob Ross and Ben Alexander, both of whom retired in 1994. CGI-technology, made its debut in films such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, Independence Day, and Titanic. Disney con-tributed the first totally computer animated feature length film, Toy Story in 1995. This they followed with such forgettable epics as Hercules, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and finally Fantasia 2000 (all of which lost money).

Plus dozens of sequels, prequels, and horror films
enough to fill (and sink) the Titanic.

I'm confident there must have been some, but in perusing hundreds of traditional paintings on canvas from the 1990s I didn't recognize a single one as being memorable. That means that few, if any, such work has left a lasting impression on the world of art. In a Postmodern world paintings on canvas are so, for lack of a better term, "modern." That's not to say that artists from other decades didn't continue to produce. They did, but their art had changed little, if at all, from that which the produced decades before which made them famous. So, inasmuch as my own work would seem to be as memorable as any other produced in the 1990s, I'm including Tantalizing (below) dating from 1998 as being representative of the painters art from that era.

Copyright, Jim Lane

Tantalizing, 1998, Jim Lane

The typical American family
of the 1990s.









































 

Video Game Art

No, it's not a Jackson Pollock original, but a montage combining just a small
fraction of today's video gaming characters. How many can you recognize?

Very few generations have been privileged to see their world of art change as much as ours. Actually, in contemplating the changes that have occurred just in my own lifetime, I'm more accurately talking about two or three generations. But, be that as it may, the point is that, since I was born...since the end of World War II in 1945, we've gone from Jackson Pollock to Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell, not to mention some guy calling himself Driedzone. Take a quick look at the image above. At first glance, one might mistake it for a "drip-dried" Pollock, but actually it's a digitally composed montage of a representative sample of the animated gaming characters alive and well, and entertaining children of all ages today.

 

How did get from Pac-man and Space Invaders to Superman Returns?

Few would argue that there has been a tremendous evolution in all the media and art forms of today during the past seventy years since the end of WW II. They, alone, are quite remarkable. But when we start talking about gaming art, and the broader category of digital art under which it falls, the changes have been so relatively rapid and extensive as to constitute not evolution but revolution. Back about 1980, I bought one of the first home video games. It was called Pong, made by Magnavox. It plugged into the back of any TV set. So far as I know, it still works. As for it's gaming artwork...well, a WW II radar screen had more going for it in that regard. As the name suggests, it was electronic ping pong. Shortly thereafter computer games all migrated to the crude conventions of home computers or the stand-alone video game consoles of shopping mall arcades. The "art" of Pac-Man and Space Invaders (above), such as it was, rose barely beyond that of cave painting.

The art of Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell (top) and Driedzone (bottom)

Gaming art has a deep and long
fascination with the nude and erotic.

During the 1990s, as computing power doubled and redoubled in accordance with Moore's Law (Intel founder, Gordon Moore, that is), much to some parents' surprise, the world did not end. The earth kept revolving and the world of digital graphics did likewise. The revolution grew more flabbergasting with every new generation of Intel chips and each new version of Windows. Gaming split into dozens of different compartments from the erotic to the horrific (above), to the sophomoric, the juvenile, even to include the pre-school Speak and Spell. In each case gaming artists rose to the occasion, restrained only by the limits of available memory and processing speed. Today, gaming art reflects the fact that both of those concerns are of little concern. Game designers innovate, while gaming artists illustrate, each inspiring the other in a revolving spiral of digital creativity that theoretically knows no bounds. Virtual reality is now, or soon will be a...virtual reality.

Superman Returns (top) to find Gotham City can also soar skyward.

Despite the technical differences and the totally different tools involved, gaming art has a surprising amount in common with all other art content areas. We find awe inspiring urban art (above) and poignant, even dismal wilderness art (below). Both serve to underline the fact that gaming art has been gradually changing our concepts of beauty.

Art from the games Lost (top) and Resident Evil (bottom).

It would be rather passé to note that virtually every type of art from the past has a digital equivalent today as seen in the White Tiger (below) and the automotive art (below that). What is far more remarkable is that just about every possible era and content area from the past also has a gaming equivalent today. Keep in mind, all the images in this post come not from online digital art galleries but from actual video games. They may appear here as "stills," but believe me, there is nothing static about them. They are all blockbusting animated entities. Even my own contribution (bottom) was created using the simulation video games, Sims 3. I seldom actually play the game, but I do enjoy it's features allowing the creation of 3-D architectural environments which permit me to, not only design and landscape the exterior but to also furnish and decorate the interior, then take a virtual video "camera" inside each house and look around. It feels almost like living there.

From the video game, The White Tiger.

From the video game, Split Second

Copyright, Jim Lane

Cantilevered Beach House, Jim Lane,
Created using the video simulation game, Sims 3.

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Animation created using Maschina software:

 

                                                               The sleigh must be computer driven.
                                                                  Merry Christmas





















 

DAZ

A Glimpse of Ancient Times, Esteves, (created using DAZ).                    

Every few months I dive into a discussion of art created on a computer. Sometimes I've labeled it digital art, or fractal art, electronic art, or CGI (computer generated imagery). It all sounds complicated. Even the terms tend to induce a spinning head. Although I've probably been guilty of making it all sound very complicated, really, it's not as bad as it would seem. In the beginning, it was. But, one of the hallmarks of digital imaging is the fact that computers tend to make the complex simple...or at least simpler. The more powerful the computer, the less challenging it is for a user to produce a desired result. I started out on a Commodore-64 using a word processing program called EasyScript. Believe me, it was far from easy--horrendously complicated, in fact, requiring me to memorize dozens of menu commands to use it with any degree of efficiency. The first computer drawing programs had similarly steep learning curves (or if they didn't, they weren't worth fiddling with). The same paradigm is at work today in the creation of digital art.

 

Wandering Brian, Szark (Brian is the seated figure in the right, center).

Soft V6, Elele

Although there are one or two others similar in form and function, one of the best pieces of creative software available today is called DAZ (actually, DAZ Studio 4.6 Pro). In the past, such software has been exorbitantly expensive. However, one of the most amazing factors in computer software is the ironic fact that the more powerful (better) it gets, the cheaper it tends to be. DAZ is listed at $249. However, believe it or not, you can actually download it for FREE. Why? Because the DAZ people have lost their minds. No, really, they simply have a somewhat strange business model. It would be like General Motors giving their cars away, but only if you buy all your gas from their dealers. That's right, the program is free, but the content isn't (far from it, in fact).

No extra charge
for nude poses.

 

Meet Victoria and Michael (her foot, his hands). I swear, it's not a photo.

Adam and Eve, Devon Oreschnick

DAZ (Digital Art Zone) had it's birth around about 1999. Her name was Victoria, which would make her about fifteen at the moment. However, one of her primary virtues is that she's really quite ageless. Using DAZ software she can be made to look virtually any age, any height, any build, any size, shape, weight, as beautiful and seductive as the dewy dawn, or as ugly and repulsive as a dark and stormy night. Her male counterpart is Michael, and similar traits apply to him. Each sell for a nickel less than $40. That's Victoria in the role of Eve and Michael playing Adam (left). Even though it's painted entirely with pixels, those pixels don't come cheap. In addition to the modeling fees (each figure has its own software package), the artist also purchased the jungle background ($9.95); the grassy foreground ($14.95); an "Enchanted Forest" ($34.95); the apples ($29.95); Adam's "Surfer Hair" ($14.95); and Eve's "Sultry Hair" ($16.95). If you don't have a calculator handy, I'll be glad to add all that up for you.  It comes to...WOW!!! $201.60. Ah, but the program is free.

Need an antique classic automobile for your painting? There's an app for that...
and you can turn it every which way but loose.

Red Skin, Danny Thesen.
Realism is only one option.

Why so much? Well, as any professional artist will tell you, getting started costs money. Here it doesn't (except for owning a reasonably powerful computer). However, the models, the background, every single, tiny, bit of content has been rendered digitally by a DAZ artist (or subcontractor). All the user has to do is to choose and assemble all the parts in a pleasing manner to suit his or her tastes and purpose. That does not make the creative process exactly what you'd call "easy," nor does it guarantee great (or even good) art. Far from it in fact, regarding both elements. What it does do is to make the creative process more intuitive, and less technical. While it does not, by any means, eliminate bad art, it does tend to facilitate better art. DAZ eliminates most of the need for the artist to be an expert at figure drawing (anatomy), drawing faces, perspective, textures, and greatly reduces the technical problems with color, shading, and lighting by making simple the age old practice of trial and error.

Skin Study, Hellboy.
Screen resolution and visual textures are totally the decision of the artist.

DAZ Dragon, Laticis Imagery

In effect the artist simply makes decisions and "directs" (poses) his models (actors) much as would a movie director, except for the fact the DAZ artist gets instantaneous visual feedback allowing his or her decisions to be quickly and easily "second guessed." The movie director has to wait for the film to be developed. However, like the movie director, DAZ provides a virtually unlimited "back lot," as well as a virtual warehouses full of props, sets, costumes, makeup, wigs, whatever you want or need...for a price. Special effects? Whatever you like...and can afford. Action? Well, that's a little more tricky and time consuming, but animation is built into the software as well. If the action calls for children, whatever the age, there's no agents, no parents, tutors, or child labor laws to worry about. Need a monster? How big? How ugly? How vicious? How hairy? Design your own nightmare based up a DAZ prototype.

Sleeping in an Airline, Story Rendering. Digital modeling and posing solves
many of the problems in creating such an image, but not all of them.
Notice, the head is just slightly too large for the child's tiny body.

Hel, Buda San. Beauty is only skin
deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone.

Although the vast majority of artist using DAZ seem to prefer at least some degree of realism (or Surrealism), neither are mandated. The fact is, DAZ software seems to appeal most to fantasy artists, creators whose wild imaginations have, in the past, far outstripped their technical virtuosity in rendering them. Not any more. Learn-to-paint-and-draw goes out the window. The whole definition of being an artist changes. No longer must he or she be a master of eye-hand coordination, or the owner of a steady hand constantly concerned with neatness and precision. Instead the DAZ artist needs to be gifted with a sharp eye for proportions, composition, visual clarity, atmosphere, posing, expressions, and good taste. These are all intellectual talents feeding into creative genius. The computer in the hands of a digital artist, as with so many other computerized tasks, relieves the artist of the mundane in favor of far greater freedom in the act of creative communication--the very definition of art.

Undead Donuts, Storypilot.
Not a photo, not a painting either, nor very
appetizing; but it makes up in creativity and humor,
not to mention shock appeal, what it may lack in "good taste."

 

Digital Art

Inasmuch as all really creative artists are innovators, they, like those in many other fields, are constantly trying to peer around the corner and see what's coming down the pike before it hits them smack in the face and leaves them for road kill. As Web denizens, some friends of mine on the Net have been trying to do just that, every so often rubbing their eyes and wondering in amazement "What hath God wrought?" echoing the first words ever tapped out by artist, Samuel F. B.  Morse, over a 160 years ago with his telegraph key. It's fitting that an artist of Morse's caliber was the first to move beyond visual and written communication to an electronic medium. Even so, no doubt he too would "rub his eyes" at what's happening now, though I don't think for a minute he'd regret having started it all way back in 1844.

A Mandelbulp--Mandelbrot fractal art
comprises some of the earliest computer
generated digital graphics.

I've preached for some time that the future of wall art is digital just as a hundred years ago, the brightest future in the performing arts was in the then infant medium of motion pictures. This is not to say that traditional arts will not continue to flourish just as has live theater and live concerts today, but the incredible digital art we see on the Internet daily is barely an inkling of what large-scale wall monitors will be able to deliver in the not-too-distant future. Just as today when computers are left running 24-7 and deliver delightful "screen savers," tomorrow these lovely moving images, whether abstract or highly realistic will be seen in landscapes with Java-generated watery ripples the norm, and not just with the Kinkade crowd either!

Digital art also extends to sculpture, either
illusional or actual, depending upon the media.

I dare say, if there's any money to be made from it, even traditional art such as Monet's watery Impressionist paintings will be digitized and animated much in the same way old black and white movies are colorized today. We can lament this technicalization of art all we like but it is going to happen. The hardware is coming, the software is here (and rapidly getting better); all that remains is for the right economic elements to fall into place. That doesn't necessarily mean we won't continue to paint using traditional methods, but just as now, when the really "hot" painters paint for print reproduction, the selling artists of the future will paint for digitization. In fact, inasmuch as digitization is so quick and easy (and perhaps quite lucrative), we may all paint for this method of sales and exhibition. Our landscapes may have rustling leaves and flowing, babbling brooks, our still-lives may not be quite so still (flowers that occasionally drop a few petals), our portraits may smile as someone walks by (their eyes now literally following you around the room), and portraits of dearly departed canine pets will bark a friendly greeting from time to time. Okay, so it seems funny now, a bit spooky, maybe downright frightening in its implications for how we will think and work, but then the future has always been all these things. Keep in mind, a hundred years ago, as crude visual and audio recordings were just coming onto the horizon, philosophers were having to rethink and redefine the meaning of the simple little three-letter word, "now."

This is not a photo...or a painting in the traditional sense. What you see is a digital landscape generated by a computer program called Terragen.

Chris Thunig

No, this is not an ad for 1965 Pontiac Bonneville. Notice
the wheels. Chris Thunig's futuristic vehicle has
mastered the science of levitation.

A car from fifty years ago
inspires the future.

If you've never heard of Chris Thunig, don't worry about it. Up to about four hours ago I never had either. I chose to write about Chris, not because he's a great artist, well-known, rich, or famous, but because he's none of that. Chris lives in the Orange County area of Southern California where he works in the film industry as a visual effects artist, sometimes art director, and digital matte artist for Blizzard Entertainment. An informed guess would suggest he earns in the neighborhood of $75,000 to $100,000 per year. Chris studied to learn his art at the Universität Leipzig in Germany. His professional involvement in producing concept art and visual effects began in 1999 when he went to work as a storyboard and preproduction artist at a Babelsberg Film Studios near Berlin, Germany, (a 3D animation company). As part of a small team he was able to expand his skills in computer animation before getting his first job as a digital matte artist for a French visual effects company in Paris. After spending more than a year on a feature production headed by renowned comic artist and director Enki Bilal, Thunig joined The Moving Picture Company in London.

Matte painting concept art, City of Troy, Chris Thunig

Chris Thunig

Both in London and the U.S. Chris has worked on the special effects for an impressive number of major films including Troy (above), Kingdom of Heaven, Corpse Bride, The Da Vinci Code, Alien vs. Pre-dator, and Sunshine. Of course, Blizzard Entertainment did not make these films, they and their artists such as Chris were simply contracted to do pre-production art to suggest to companies such as Warner Brothers (as in the case of The Da Vinci Code) what various scenes might look like as guidance for the production manager, and in-house set designers, carpenters, special effects designers, storyboard art-ists, and lighting coordinators. Artists such as Chris are conceptual, with a special talent for communicating their vision of the film to others.

I'm not positive, but I'm guessing this piece was done by
Thunig in preparation for The Da Vinci Code. It appears to
depict Leonardo, secretly working in the dead of night studying human anatomy by performing a cadaver dissection. (Such
activities were illegal at the time.) His assistant is probably
a grave digger. 

Fantasy Sci-fi.

An artist working in the motion picture industry is only as good as his or her resume; and is often paid accordingly. That of Chris Thunig includes his current position as 2D Art Director at Bliz-zard Entertainment (producing and coordinating art and artists for video games); Senior Digital Matte Artist/Concept Artist Digital Matte Artist at The Moving Picture Company (London), and Digital Matte Artist at Duran Cinematics (Paris). In his first major motion picture, Immortal, (right) working for Duran, Thunig was just one of eighty other visual effects artists. Today, depending upon the complexity of the project, Thunig often supervises up to one-hundred such concept artist, who not only design visual effects, but are also tasked with figuring out how to create them on film (and on schedule, and on budget).



A futuristic waterfront by Thunig.

For the benefit of any artists interested in a career similar to Thunig's, visual effects artists require some formal education, but not necessarily a college degree, though it's typical for them to earn a bachelor's degree in computer animation or visual effects. Such artists need to be skilled in technical software in order to create designs and showcase their talents to potential employers. As in the case of Chris Thunig, visual effects artists are responsible for creating computer-generated animations and special effects on screens at home and in theaters. Industry-standard software programs include Autodesk Maya, Adobe, and RenderMan. Job growth during the next ten years is anticipated to be around 6% with median salaries around $64,000 per year.

A Chris Thunig digital animation frame.

Visual effects artists usually create imagery working from movie scripts or story outlines. Often writers conceive scenes which are either impractical or impossible to film. That's when the visual effects artists are called in. Nearly all such work is currently done on a computer. According to The Wall Street Journal, this work can include creating animations or fixing up details for television shows, commercials, feature films, and other film media. Visual effects artists often work with tight deadlines due to theatrical release dates and other constraints related to the film industry. The job usually involves following verbal instructions from a client or supervisor which may not allow for the possibility of much personalized input. However, true professionals in this field gain satisfaction in knowing that their work contributes significantly to the completion of a major media project.

A digital matte image by Thunig--a hell of a lot cheaper
than sending a camera crew to Switzerland.