ALEX TURNER

ESSAY | Two Rivers Gallery Exhibition

Digital PrintS

October 2003

By George Harris

This exhibition is comprised of a series of digital prints produced by Amy Greenbaum, Gerald Hushlak, Laurel Johannesson and Alex Turner. Although they are united in their dependence on computers, software and various input devices, each of these artists takes a different approach when producing their work. For some artists, digital prints are a logical extension of a photographic practice. For others, software, and its capacity to significantly manipulate an image offers an exciting opportunity to produce something that may previously have been impossible. The work of these four artists represents a selection of four out of many possible approaches to the production of digital prints, a relatively new and rapidly growing means of art production.

Although, growing in popularity, digital prints, occupying an enviable position in Contemporary art. As a relatively new art form, they fall in between the cracks that define the semantic and conceptual distinctions between, among other things, traditional prints, reproduction and photography. Some traditional printmakers, reject the term print in this context, because images are produced electronically with the aid of an electronic printer. Traditionally, prints have been produced manually, pulled from a printing plate, onto which the artist has registered an image.

Prints have typically been produced in multiple copies, called editions, with each print, given a number that represents what place and sequence it was printed out of how many prints. 7/30 would indicate the seventh print printed in a total edition of 30 prints. After the last print in the edition is produced, the plate is destroyed (canceled) preventing additional prints from being produced. For some printing techniques, editions are kept very small as the plate starts to degrade after relatively small number of prints are taken, resulting in poor prints.

Digital prints only exist as electronic files before they are printed, therefore many electronic copies can be made. They don’t deteriorate the way that some printing plates do, so that theoretically, unlimited copies can be made. Because images are produced from digital files, of which many copies may exist, it is difficult to demonstrate that no more copies can be printed. For these reasons, as well as the fact that prints are generated using an electronic printer, rather than being pulled by hand, digital prints, may sometimes be confused for reproductions. Reproductions, however, are copies of an image that exist elsewhere in a tangible form, such as an oil painting, or drawing, for example, whereas outside of a printout, digital prints exist only as data.

This is an important dilemma at the heart of computer-generated prints. It is precisely the capacity to translate an image into a format that can be manipulated electronically that makes it possible for digital print artists to produce images that could not have existed otherwise. Therefore, in spite of the challenges that make it difficult to locate this work in the context of contemporary art practice, we should embrace digital prints as an art form that exploits new tools and technological innovation.

Seeing digital prints strictly as an emergent art form, however, downplays an interesting evolution that has led to the current incarnation of computer-generated art. In 1974, for example, Jerry Hushlak won the World Print Competition hosted by the Smithsonian Institute and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for a computer-generated print, and its roots considerably predate that, claiming a conceptual link to caligrams, concrete poetry, “typewriter art” and their close relation ASCII art. According to Joanne Stark, an authority on ASCII art, ASCII art was commonly utilized in cyberspace when the Internet was entirely character-based, prior to the introduction of images. These very simple images were constructed using a selection of 128 characters to impart shape and density, in more complex examples, according to their placement.

ASCII art represents the first point of engagement between “artist“ and the computer as an extension of the artists body and as a tool to facilitate image making. Since then, technological innovation has rocketed the computer as a creative tool that has moved past the limitations of the keyboard, batch processing, drawing tablets and programs, to the current point on its evolutionary trajectory.

For artists like Alex Turner, these innovations have resulted in an extension of their work as a photographer. Often, starting with photographic material, Turner constructs a base image, which he then scans or otherwise digitizes, then manipulates. In this exhibition, work from his Lots and Lots series are amalgamations of images. Fragments of picture elements appear to dissolve in mid-image, suggesting seams and revealing their composite nature.

In Chilliwack-Sardis Overpass, for instance, automobiles appear to dissolve while the surrounding environment seems intact. Although this is a function of “stitching“ multiple images together, it suggests the passage of time and speaks to the human impact on the environment. These themes recur throughout Turner’s work, often addressing development, “big box“ stores and the urban landscape. Mall in waiting, for example, depicts an open field, which, as the title suggests, awaits development. Although it is cleared, the lot stands in great contrast to the bleak asphalt and concrete structures that dominate the other work in the series.

Compared to high noon, it is hard not to question these values that will eventually transformed this lot into somethings so utterly disconnected from nature and aesthetic or even human context. These and other works in the series utilize the creative potential of the digital studio, new technology and software, while turning the constraints of digital art making into an advantage….

The artist whose work comprises this exhibition have embraced technologies that are available to them. Having incorporated these tools into their practice, each has unique practical and philosophical approaches to the work that are revealed in this collection of digital prints. Although one might have to acknowledge the challenges that digital prints have faced in locating themselves in the semantic and conceptual discourse of contemporary art production, it is clear that they deserve a place.