Gardners Art through the Ages A Global History

puter graphic design can be changed quickly through an electronic

program, allowing artists to revise or duplicate shapes in the design

and to manipulate at will the color, texture, size, number, and posi-

tion of any desired detail. Computer graphics pictures appear in lu-

minous color on the cathode-ray tube. The effect suggests a view

into a vast world existing inside the tube.

DAVID EMOne of the best-known artists working in this elec-

tronic painting mode,David Em(b. 1952) uses what he terms “com-

puter imaging” to fashion fantastic imaginary landscapes. These

have an eerily believable existence within the “window” of the com-

puter monitor. When he was artist-in-residence at the California

Institute of Technology’s Jet Pro-

pulsion Laboratory, Em created bril-

liantly colored scenes of alien worlds

using the laboratory’s advanced

computer graphics equipment. He

also had access to software programs

developed to create computer graph-

ics simulations of NASA’s missions

in outer space. Creating images with

the computer gave Em great flexi-

bility in manipulating simple geo-

metric shapes—shrinking or enlarg-

ing them, stretching or reversing

them, repeating them, adding texture

to their surfaces, and creating the il-

lusion of light and shadow. In images such as Nora (FIG. 36-84),

Em created futuristic geometric versions of Surrealistic dreamscapes

whose forms seem familiar and strange at the same time. The illu-

sion of space in these works is immensely vivid and seductive. It al-

most seems possible to wander through the tubelike foreground

“frame” and up the inclined foreground plane or to hop aboard the

hovering globe at the lower left for a journey through the strange

patterns and textures of this mysterious labyrinthine setting.

JENNY HOLZER Another contemporary artist who has har-

nessed new technology for artistic purposes is Jenny Holzer

(b. 1950), who created several series of artworks using electronic

signs, most involving light-emitting diode (LED)

technology. In 1989, Holzer did a major installation

at the Guggenheim Museum in New York that in-

cluded elements from her previous series and con-

sisted of a large continuous LED display spiraling

around the museum’s interior ramp (FIG. 36-85).

Holzer’s installation focused specifically on text,

and she invented sayings with an authoritative tone

for her LED displays. Statements included “Protect

me from what I want,” “Abuse of power comes as no

Performance and Conceptual Art and New Media 1023

36-84David Em,Nora,1979.

Computer-generated color photograph,

1  5  1  11 . Private collection.

Unlike video recording, computer

graphic art allows the creation of

wholly invented forms, as in painting.

Em builds fantastic digital images of

imaginary landscapes out of tiny boxes

called pixels.

36-85Jenny Holzer,Untitled (selections from

Truisms, Inflammatory Essays, The Living Series, The

Survival Series, Under a Rock, Laments,and Child Text),

1989. Extended helical tricolor LED electronic display
      signboard, 16 162  6 . Solomon R. Guggenheim
      Museum, New York, December 1989–February 1990
      (partial gift of the artist, 1989).
      Holzer’s 1989 installation consisted of electronic signs
      created using light-emitting diode (LED) technology.
      The continuous display of texts spiraled around the
      Guggenheim Museum’s interior ramp.

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