It is inevitable. It is the modern age, after all. Digital painting. While it is wonderful, I feel, that in the 21st century we can still produce work in paint and other media on traditional substrates (canvas, paper, etc), by hand, we can not also overlook the possibilities allowed by digital technology. I have been exploring giclée printing, already a digital means of reproduction of traditional art works, so why not take the next step?

Untitled – digital image – 8″ x 10″

And if going digital, why settle for a more or less static image? I’ve long imagined also that a painting could have an associated sound track. Often times, after all, we paint to music. Why not also make the experience more synesthetic?

The audio track is the NASA Voyager recording of the “Song O Earth.” It is the radio signals emitted into space by our own planet, transposed into audible form. Working with GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program), the original digital image is comprised of four overlaid layers. By adjusting the mixing of those layers I created a dozen variations, which I then arranged in video editing software with the audio track to yield the above clip. I suggest it be viewed full screen, with good speakers or headphones. Ideally, a video such as this would be a continuous loop. This is just a first experiment, a minute and half in length.