notes from underground

I’m going to keep notes and musings here regarding my Digital Painting independent study, with the hopes of condensing them into a longer piece at the end of the course. First up: Definition of Painting.

Courtesy of the OED:

1. a. Painted matter; that which is painted. … a representation on a surface executed in paint or colours; a painted picture or likeness.
b. The representing of a subject on a surface by the application of paint or colours; the art of making such representations; (in extended use) the practice of applying paint to a canvas, etc., for any artistic purpose.
c. Computing. The creation of graphics or images in electronic form in a manner analogous to painting (sense 1b), as by the use of a paint program.
2. a. The action of applying a coat of paint to a surface; the action of colouring or staining something; (occas.) an instance of this. Also fig.
c. Computing. The filling of (part of) a display screen with a particular colour.
3. The result of applying paint; the fact or quality of being painted; colouring; pictorial decoration. Also: the relative condition of something as regards paint (freq. with modifying adjective).

Obviously the usage cited in definition 1.b does not discount painting on wood or other surfaces, but both of the computing definitions are disappointingly complicated. At first we have digital painting defined as a process analogous to (and by extension not the same as) “real” painting. This is acceptable inasmuch as there exist many painters who were not regarded as doing “real” paintings by their contemporaries, for example the initial disdain for impressionism. To be viewed as parallel to but separate from the mainstream, important part of the art world is a natural side effect of being a nascent medium. Of course it was generally accepted that the impressionists were at least [mis]using paint, which is less widely acknowledged in regard to digital work.

This issue is represented in the worrisome divide between the concept of Digital Painting represented in 2.c, which uses painting in its most basic programming context, juxtaposed against the tactile application of physical paint cited by 2.a and 3. Paint is something invoked by a computer, versus something applied by a painter. It is a subtle difference in agency, but it’s a problem for anybody who wants to argue digital painting as comparable in its own way to oil on canvas. No matter how complex the drawing instrument you use, many galleries view digital work as nothing more than a side effect of software rather than a human creation.

All of these definitions of the noun painting are naturally targeted at defining a physical end result. In my mind it is the process of painting that defines the work, not any particular end product, and I believe art history will corroborate. I have often heard painters and sculptors talk as if their target image or form was already present in the canvas or marble and their job was to find it, using forms of color to bring out the painting from the canvas. This artistic process translates perfectly to a digital context: computer monitors already “contain” every color they are capable of producing, and the job of the digital painter is to pull out the right ones.

In closing:
A pastel teacher of mine, irritated at the dual view of pastel work as both drawing and painting depending on the caprice of gallery owners, once defined painting as the definition of form with mass and drawing as the definition of form with line. Images may incorprate both techniques, of course, and drawings with mass or paintings with line exist in droves, but at its most basic level the definition struck a chord with me. Digital painters rejoice! None of the difficulties of the OED definition are present here. Nothing is to say that form cannot be articulated on a screen.

…And some mathematical formula I forget for determining the maximum number of distinct possibilities were you to flip them all.
To explain, I have six courses I wish to take this semester, and it is almost uncanny how precisely they represent the dual sides of my main areas of interest. On the one hand I have a course on Japanese Cinema, emphasizing cultural and film theory, and on the other I have Advanced Animation, emphasizing production. Another set: History of the English Language, with its stress on linguistics and the evolution of language, and Russian Science Fiction and Fantasy, with its focus on the evolution of a literary genre. Finally there is a great course on Dada and Surrealism, taught by a man best described as a whitebeard sage, juxtaposed against an independent project in Digital Art with my energetic art professor from last semester.

Each of these pairs represents a distinct interest from two different angles, and none of them are easy pairs to give up. Animation & Film is what I hope to do with my life, so I’m somewhat committed to it; Art is the impetus for that decision, always the most important of my passions even when it was undernourished by my coursework; finally, Language and Literature are what I came to Brown assuming I was going to do, and to forsake them now would be to deny some of my notions of what college is for. Add to this that I am more or less committed to one course of each pair–Russom’s “History of the English Language,” Barb’s Advanced Animation course, and my ISP with Jay on Digital Art–and I find myself forced to choose which of these directions I should go in my last regular course credit at Brown.

There is so little time left, and it is intensely frustrating.

A chance look at an animation project somebody in the List MML was working on simultaneously reminded me how much I like Chinese painting and also lead me to discover more about 20th century Chinese painting. The guy who was working on that project was animating on top of an ink sketch by Wu Guanzhong, and I poked around online until I found a biography with some of his work. I like a lot of it– there is more at the following sites:

• Wu Guanzhong at Fernando Botero Art, including some more abstract works
• A painting of Wu’s at Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery
• Another webpage devoted to Wu — the bottom ink painting is the one the guy in the MML was working with.
• More Wu paintings

On a broader Chinese painting note, here is a site focused on contemporary Chinese art, and how the painting tradition has changed (I particularly like the top image, by Zao Wou-ki): Transformation of Tradition: Chinese Painting. I am beginning to seriously consider trying to track somebody down in the EAS department who would work with me on a brush painting independent study next year, both Sumi-e style and traditional Chinese. I wish I could pronounce these names, though… maybe I’ll vagabond the first few weeks of Chinese 10. Great idea, eh? ^_^

Not because it has anything directly to do with Wu Guanzhong, but because I discovered this site through searching for Wu’s painting: Song Li’s website: “Anyway, this is a personal website about what I paint, what I think and what I XXX. It’s just from an ordinary Chinese person.” He’s got some nice stuff, and I’m putting the link in this post so I can remember it.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, I am still alive, and slowly in the process of restoring order to my life. The room is clean, I know where [most] of my money disappeared to, and this paper is not due for another 3 hours… that’s plenty of time, right? …..

Big things this week:

-Japanese paper due in far less time than it will take to write

-Research like crazy for History 42 final… what the heck is my topic, anyway?

-Panic LR21 Project with Dan Byers…

For people (none of whom, ironically, read this blog) who have asked what Electronic Writing means, I present a link to the website where my instructor, Brian Kim Stefans, explains What Is Electronic Writing?

The overarching blog that page is from, brown_ewriting, is the course blog for my class. Feel free to look around… it’s got some cool projects and links, including one I submitted to Brian about the amazing Word Disassociation music video. You may know the band who did the music as the same group that created the song The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny. Then again, you might not.

Since my first project for that class is just beginning to take shape, I thought I’d post my initial project proposal here. (Warning: Adobe PDF File)

More updates later this week, but for now I have a play of a page to write and a Japanese quiz to study for.

We finished our final render at about 9:45, putting us 2nd in order of hand-ins and one of only two groups to beat the official deadline. w00t! Dan Byers has been in the art building media lab all day, re-doing the sound effects; the current soundtrack that we turned in was OK, but really not that special, and didn’t incorporate our frenetic recording session last night. Dan, Alice and I all piled into the Techhouse work room, and spent a good half-hour banging shit around, making metal clanking noises, me and Dan yelling at each other and screaming into the camera to create battle sounds, and culminating in my drop-kicking a threaded metal rod all the way down the basement hallway, into a wall. It made a GLORIOUS sound!

I’m back in the MSLab for now, which is kind of ironic given that we’re technically done… after this year I don’t know how much I ever want to see this room again, I’ve spent more time in the lab over the past few days than doing anything else, including sleep. I’ll escape around 3:15, I think but in the meantime I’m waiting for Dan to turn in his final sound file and studying Japanese poetry.

Professor Viswanathan’s Japanese Lit course is tomorrow morning at 9am. We get extra credit tomorrow if we know a hokku (what later became “haiku“; originally, hokku were the first verses in renga, or linked verse, and the only stanza that could stand on its own.) I memorized a hokku by Matsuo Basho (who else, honestly ^_^), written in 1689.

Ah, such stillness:
that the very rocks are pierced
      by the cicada’s drone!

shizukasa ya / iwa ni shimiiru / semi no koe

This winter, if I find myself with too much free time, I think I should register with Wikipedia and rewrite some of their articles on Japanese poetry. Most of the definitions are woefully incomplete.
I really wish I remembered the Tale of the Heike better… I read all but the last 100 pages, but those are a pretty significant 100 pages. I’ll hit them up over break, but das intahrweb doesn’t have a proper summary of the actions of the last third of the book, so i suppose I’ll go to Barus and Holley early to try and discuss it with a classmate. I think I’ll be better off than most on the essay question, though… she’s planning to give us webs of quotations and make us link them together through common themes. I like that stuff. Really, as long as this exam is better than my Japanese Language final earlier today, I’ll be good… that was death.

I’ll post a few sample clips from the animation up on Thursday, after the official debut showing in Lubrano at 4pm. In the meantime, SO relieved to get it done with! Just this literature exam and a philosophy paper between me and home. It’s a wonderful feeling