J U L I A N - O L I V E R : T H E - N E W - A R E N A - P A I N T I N G S
Hannah Maclure Centre
University of Abertay, Scotland. 15 February - 30 April 2010http://hannahmaclurecentre.abertay.ac.uk/Julian_Oliver.html
Abstract Expressionist painters have long explored strategies for decoupling gestural habit and tendency in their work by means of automatic or chance-based operations. This exhibition by Berlin based artist Julian Oliver represents a new strategy along this vein, deploying a computer game as canvas, paint and brush.
Generated by four software agents in combat in a virtual arena, these new paintings by Oliver mark a significant evolution of his 2003 game based painting system, ioq3aPaint. Here, each agent is purposed as a kind of digital brush; every twitch, lunge and change of state registered immediately as a graphic mark.
From the 36 million paintings that will be generated in the duration of the exhibition, a total of just 250 small prints will be made freely available, alongside the source code of the system.
A number of large prints selected by Oliver from earlier iterations of the process will be displayed in the gallery. Each print is made using a photographic printing method and mounted on substrate of the highest quality.
Printing generously sponsored by:
