I recently re-licensed a couple of my fractals for elementary school math books and decided it was time to revisit the old fractal program and see if I could come up with some new designs. I also discovered a neat batch rendering window which I hadnt noticed before which really helps me to crank out variations. Feel free to contact me if you would like to license any of these images.
2009 hasn’t been the best year for me in the photographic sense – Possibly since I’ve spent a good portion of my free time in the studio working on music and art. I think that may account for my complete lapse in judgment when I decided to leave my camera at home while heading out to Idaho for a Christmas break vacation. I realized the errors of my thinking when I finally found the hexagonal Hoar frost I’ve been itching to see for over a year now since my friend Christian showed me some photos he took of these amazing geometric frost patterns. Luckily Bill lent me his Nikon and I was able to salvage the situation (though If I had my macro lens I know these photos would be phenomenal) I’ll consider this a lesson learned. You can view all the photos here if you desire
Ice Bridge
Edge of Motion
Priest Lake Panorama – Click to see in full detail
Hexagonal Ice Crystals
Crystallizing Ice Matrix
It’s hard to trace where this fascination come obsession really started for me; from my early childhood I’ve been a fan of MC Escher and the way he conveys mathematical concepts through highly precise and ultimately unforgiving mediums such as lithography. As I’ve grown older and subsequently geekier I’ve come to understand more of the ideas that underlie MC Eschers work and meanwhile playing with my own process oriented art including the ever evolving window art Ive been doing, which while is nowhere near the same caliber it still really requires you to plan things out so you don’t make a royal mess of things.
Line art study for the window
Orcas – window with spraypaint – for photos detailing the process click the photo
Since I’ve been using line art for my windows, lately I’ve been really taken with woodblock cuts, particularly the late 18th century Flammarion woodblock which depicts a man poking his head through the sky to see the inner workings of the universe (as depicted by the wheel within the wheel)
the caption in french stating “A missionary of the Middle Ages tells that he had found the point where the sky and the Earth touched…”
As I have a shared love for this print with my friend/ music partner Rubin I decided I would remix / redraw this piece to paint on a window and subsequently like any true nerd would, decided to research the subject and see what else was out there. Of course there is the piece that Rubin first sent to me – Tuefels Dudelsack which is an amazingly executed, albiet twisted, woodcut of a furry owly demon playing a human head as a bagpipe. I’ve only managed to discover a few pieces of information about this woodcut (though I plan on digging deeper when time allows) The name translates in german to Devils Bagpipe, and it is a satirical cartoon depicting the devil playing a bagpipe made of Martin Luthers head.
A few other favorites include these three – Ive chosen to ommit “The sale of indulgences” woodcut because I fear I would want to write a whole post on that alone and end up sidetracked… but if you are the sort that is familiar with the Catholic church selling indulgences thereby bringing the printing press to popularity I would recommend check the link out.
So we recently went to the MC Escher exibit when it was here in Portland and what I loved most about it was the chronological ordering of his work and through the years you could see him work with various media and really refine his craft. I realized how many years he worked to get it down to the razor sharp cleanliness we’ve all come to know. There were also a number of studies which were my favorite part of his work as it shows the steps involved and thereby makes the whole thing more human and inspiring. While gaurds were looking the other way I had to sneak this photo of a study of his geometric progression study for angels and demons.
Additionally I checked out which of his pieces might translate into a nice window painting to adorn my house and at first thought the ants & mobius strip piece would translate nicely though would be an insane amount of work as there are soooooooo many lines.
If i ever feel up for it theres always the final piece MC Escher did before parting our mortal realm – Snakes which is a three color lithograph – which was highly efficient in that it only created blocks for 1/3 of the image and rotated them to create the whole thing. If only I could do the same for my process. I plan to someday paint this onto a circular piece of glass which I will then use as a table.
Lastly while doing this research I stumbled upon this 3d representation of Snakes which is really cool and reminds me of playing with xenodream.
Snakes from Cristóbal Vila on Vimeo.
Indra’s Web, is based on a buddhist spiritual metaphor of a web of consciousness connecting all life with each point in the web reflecting all the others. I first became aware of this concept through the book Indra’s Pearls – the vision of Felix Klein. The book uses the metaphor to describe Felix Kleins work which is somewhat difficult to understand without a decent mathematical background.
I chose to use an Apollonian gasket (which is derived from a Kleinian Group – so named after Klein of course) for the artwork for Renas CD. I took some liberties and remixed the Apollonian gasket for the CD face. The CD fits inside a perfect circle created from the same design which covers the inside three panels – this conceptually embodies the concept of the “one point containing & reflecting all others” See images below
For the cover of the cd I did a remix and created an action in photoshop and transformed the scale of the gasket dropping the transparency a little every time. I then overlaid some transparent 3D fractals I created using Xenodream.
I am going into detail because a number of people have asked me how I did this.
Below you can see the long view of the inside of the digipack containing the larger gasket which encapsulates the cd.
And finally the back cover – with the famous bubble chamber neutrino image as a background texture and a couple of images from the processing application I coded.
I went with Alisha and classmates to the coast to collect seaweed and chill at the beach. I took a number of macros at low tide which proved to be pretty difficult considering the waves crashing around and the razor sharp barnacles and my fear or broadcasting buttcrack to the world at large. Additionally since its somewhat relevant I put up a picture of my newest painting which is based on the San Juan islands (yeah thats right Orcas peeps!)
View the rest of the photos here
Possibly my favorite frame ever.
Wave crest and Star filled twilight detail.
Surf Crash – Indian Beach – Ecola State Park – Oregon Coast
Starfish vs Waves – Ecola State Park – Oregon Coast
Bubbles in pool above sea anemones
Sea Anemone macro
Tide Pool traffic jam
Beach Still Life
Seaweed Hunting
Starfish arms
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I was honored to be asked to play at the Portland Om Records 15 year anniversary party with house legends Dj Heather from my hometown Chicago, Olivier Desmet from Belgium and local hero Mercedes. Since I played early in the night I decided to use this as a chance to try my hand at playing a bunch of the 100bpm space disco I’d collected and work my way into all the new goodies Ive collected over the summer. Please leave your thoughts and comments below – they are always welcome… Also to be informed of new mixes please sign up for my mailing list below
Tracklisting
Finally! the highly anticipated Jaded Review issue 2 has arrived and is ready to ship. This issue is set up as a grandiose version of what we envisioned the first issue to be – a 24 page guidebook set up like a bird-watchers guide – to assist outsiders in understanding and navigating this crazy hippie culture. Currently there are 15 hippie archetypes with illustrations, saftey guides, festival guides and a reprint of the much lauded guidebook to euphemistic star-childe terminology.
Due to the nature of the magazine and the fact that there is zero distribution and not available anywhere but here - it tends to inspire people to “borrow” them and never return them so I recommend buying a couple to share with your friends and to keep one for yourself – It also makes shipping more economical.
I will post a few pages from this as soon as I have a free moment but for now enjoy a few of the illustrations. There is also a page about the creation of this zine. To be kept in the loop about upcoming issues join the newsletter at the bottom of the page
“A featherhat”
Illustration of a “wook” spotted in a parking lot
Natalia Price:
it was all the talk at earthdance festival. It rips on us so hard….hilarious…..really makes us laugh at ourselves and the absurdity of defining ourselves through fashion and ego
Robert Gordon:
this is no joke one of the greatest things i’ve read! sooo funny!!
Vanessa Harlan: HILARIOUS!! This truly made me laugh out loud! I need more copies! Soooooo funny! (great job Kris!!!)
Chelsea Ross: The jaded review arrived today and made us laugh the whole line thru at the city pound. we were glared at. it’s friggin brilliant and hilarious. it should be filed in every respectable library in the land. Hats off to yous!
Tim Donlou: heck yeah, this thing had me in stitches out there. thx fer postin’
Elizabeth Cahill: funniest sh*t I’ve read in my life- so true!!
David Jerome:that shit was HIGHlarious! I never got a copy so hit me up!
Amanda Lilikoi: massive hysteria was induced at sunrise with the discovery of this zine, and to learn YOU were the responsible party just makes it all the better!
Andrea Campbell:So freakin’ funny mister!! Thanks again for your hilarious mastery on the hippie perspective!
Arun Once Was ZyGoat: I am SO GRATEFUL that the jaded review has moonifestivalled onto our coffee table! deep breath, everyone! I am galactivating all over myself just thinking of it!
Hey People it’s been a long time since a group of friends and I whipped out that pathetic excuse for a zine – The Jaded Review and passed it out at the 2006 emerg-n-see and then posted later. Totally surprising to us its become a bit of a phenomenon being reprinted by friends and the demand for a new issue has been highly requested so I’ve let it sit on the back burner for over a year as I slowly worked on parts of it. Now at the end of the festival season Ive finally got off my ass and finished it… its like waiting until spring to buy your winter coat – oh well. Issue two was more of a serious endeavor – a 24 page guide to hippie watching in america – the different types with illustrations, blatant generalizations, and all manners of subtle snarkiness. I took a few photos of the progress as I was working on it. If you wish to order it check this page. (coming in a second)
Wook, Baller, & ShirtCocker illustration pre-inking
The Dj & The Hater page spread
The test run – full of incomplete sentences, bad grammar and errors. Now a collectors item like 3 legged buffalo nickels.
No jadedness here! Our first ecstatic customer
As a long fan of Ernst Haeckels work Kunstformen Der Natur – the forms of nature it was a real treat to find this Michael Hansmeyers platonic project this morning. Conceived in Processing, inspired by Ernst Haeckel, this project explores 3 dimensional subdivisions of topographic models recursively applying the subdivision process to a source form, which is restricted to one of the five platonic solids. A mouthful for you non-nerds I’m sure but the results speak for themselves.
Image Index | Project Index | Extra Images in an Animation
Hello everyone, Alisha and I went on a little mini-vacation in Eastern Washington and went for a few hikes – including one to one of Alishas favorite places – Emerald lake – which is a mountain lake you have to hike miles over a mountain to get to – In the summer the upper lake dries up and the lake bed is left to slowly dry leaving large cracked earth. There are also beautiful mint fields, deep emerald lake and flower filled meadows. Below are a number of the macro photos I took here and in Priest Lake Idaho.
Fractal Drying – Emerald Lake, Colville, WA
Lake Bed Composition – Emerald Lake, Colville, WA
Large Grasshopper – Emerald Lake, Colville, WA
Underlying structure – Emerald Lake, Colville, WA
Bursts – Emerald Lake, Colville, WA
Baby Frog Macro – Emerald Lake, Colville, WA
Emerald Lake, Colville, WA
Creeping Lichen – Emerald Lake, Colville, WA
Lichen Composition – Emerald Lake, Colville, WA
Emerald Lake, Colville, WA
Tree sap over chartreuse lichen – Emerald Lake, Colville, WA
Rock Lichen Ecology – Emerald Lake, Colville, WA
Throrofare Liminal Zone – Priest Lake, ID
More Lichen – Emerald Lake, Colville, WA
Shipwrex – Priest Lake, ID
Trout Lake from Above - Colville, WA
Trees - Colville, WA
