Artist Post #3: Charles A Csuri

            Charles A. Csuri, an American artist born in 1922, is considered one of the pioneers of digital art. He began experimenting with digital art in 1964, making computer animated films and digital 2D artwork. Many of his pieces used algorithms and different softwares that he created. He has been creating digital art for more than 40 years, since the beginning, when they were designing the software needed to create different affects and he is still alive and creating digital art.

            His piece from the reading, Sine Curve Man, made with James Schaffer, is a portrait of a man who is distorted or seems to be melting. They created the effect by laying one image of a man over top of another and displacing them using sine waves. You can see the separate lines of each image, creating a sort of echoing effect, sort of like when an image on film is distorted when a signal or connection is being lost. It seems like there is a glitch and the image keeps repeating when it shouldn’t be, and the result somewhat disturbing and gruesome. The face looks like it has been mutilated or distorted in some way. Unlike many people working in computer art, Csuri actually had a background in art. He was a painter, which can be seen in a lot of his work. Many of his pieces, like combinePICS_1974, have a more classical look to them. This image in particular looks like a virtual 3D still life. The background looks like paint, but is clearly pixelated at the same time. Also, there is a strong light source one what appears to be oranges, again characteristic of a still life. There are many images similar to this one, images containing spherical 3D shapes that are only partially there, with a sense of fantasy to them. And again, most of his work is using specific algorithms to create the art.

 Sine Curve Man

 combinePICS_1974

 Infinite Universe

 Frozen Moment

astroTEX

            What I’ve noticed about a lot of his work, or the pieces that I took a closer look at, even though they aren’t necessarily representational, is that they have a really strong sense of space and texture, which I appreciate because many of the other artworks from the reading don’t have that same sense; they feel more flat and just seem like patterns. Also, his painting background really comes through in his work. I also appreciate that you can see some of the more classical elements of art in his work because it makes it easier for me to understand and relate to, rather than just an algorithm creating some pattern. With Sine Curve Man, a mathematical system was being used, however there is still the recognizable image of the portrait of a man.

Citations:
http://www.csurivision.com/
http://www.siggraph.org/artdesign/profile/csuri/