Anne Morgan Spalter
2001
I am currently working with new ways of thinking about dimensionality and visual
reality made possible by the computer. My subject matter, the modern landscape,
has remained constant in my work over the last decade, but new digital means
of image creation have enabled me to use high-tech processes that are intimately
related to the modern subject matter of the works. I believe that one can better
truly see one’s environment and understand it through images that incorporate
the very tools and processes that now so profoundly influence that environment.
My imagery comes from drawings or photographs that I take while driving in my
car, flying in planes or otherwise experiencing the modern world. They often
include technological elements or events made possible by them, such as factories,
automobiles, cruise ships, traffic jams or crowded beaches. Frequently, the
subjects are aspects of the landscape that one mentally edits in order to imagine
a more bucolic landscape of the past. For example, the water towers and radio
and microwave installations that one sees everywhere by the highway. I am often
inspired by the writings of J. G. Ballard and aesthetic accomplishments of futurism.
I consider my work to have been successful if, after viewing it, you suddenly
become aware of modern aspects of your landscape in new ways. Some of the most
satisfying moments of creating this work have been when friends call me to say
"I saw "X" by the highway today and I thought of you."
The methods used in my current work are inspired by my research with the Brown
University Computer Graphics Group, of which I am artist in residence. In the
Graphics Group, we use the computer to create new worlds. Sometimes they are
simply 2D images, using traditional depth cues such as overlapping, shadows,
and linear perspective; at other times, they are objects and scenes defined
in an abstract three-dimensional mathematical coordinate system. With 3D data,
one can make realistic pictures of one’s virtual environment or even step
inside it with the help of virtual reality equipment such as head-mounted displays
or Caves (rooms with rear-projected imagery on three or more walls).
My artwork reflects the processes used to create 3D worlds on the computer and
the ways of thinking of dimensionality that these processes engender. For example,
on the computer, one often designs 3D objects by working in top, bottom, and
side views; one’s actions are most often made in a 2D realm (such as with
a mouse or tablet) and the computer translates these instructions into 3D forms.
The whole piece is stored as 2D text and numbers and assembled when needed into
2D and 3D visual information.
In the "folding/unfolding" series, I have created images that include
instructions for assembly into a true three-dimensional form. I have chosen
to begin with a cube form as a canonical 3D primitive that breaks the dimensional
barrier, but only just. The folded cube provides a middle ground between a flat
image and fully realized sculptural piece and stresses the moment of conversion
from 2D to 3D.
As an "object in the real world", the folded piece takes on different
scale effects than when it is a 2D image: one more immediately compares it with
natural scale of the actual type of object if possible. The scale of the space
suggested by identically-sized cubes can vary widely --from small -- a single
flower--to vast--the ocean or an entire universe. For landscapes like the Ocean
World or Alternate Universe, the scale of folded versions changes the nature
of the pieces from a photograph-of feeling to a small-scale-model feeling to
an implication of vast spaces.
I am also exploring the ways in which the six images that make up the cube surface
are composed, both in the 2D versions and when fully assembled. In some pieces,
the six sides are views of the object or scene from the top, right, left, back,
front, and bottom. In others, the scene wraps around the cube in all directions
like a panoramic photograph. In others, I use the texture-mapping feature of
a 3D graphics program to project one or two images onto a cube and then work
backwards to create the 2D instructions.
I plan to continue making modern landscape cubes (both folded and unfolded)
and also to explore some other 3D forms that can be folded from a flat sheet
of paper. For this effort I will draw on the age-old art of origami, as well
as computer-assisted methods of folding and unfolding 3D shapes.