If you are in Tokyo…

Wednesday, July 17, at 7 pm,
I will present a new website and do a talk at VACANT.
The event is organized by Takuro Someya Contemporary Art.

Info here (in Japanese)

The last 12 months I have been posting my sketch process to my Instagram.

I’ve always wondered how computer sketches are perceived. Usually, an unfinished digital work does not look like a sketch, it just looks like a not-so-good-work. Pencil sketches are clear: they are in process, the artist is still searching.

Last night we projected vai avanti .com & stagnation means decline .com
on the corner of Kenmare & Bowery in New York.

Thanks to Mark Brown for making it happen!

Modern Matter is a magazine focusing on art & fashion.

In this issue a number of artists (Maurizio Cattelan, Bjarne Melgaard, me, …) are interviewed,
talking about what it is like to live and work in New York.

Photos by Phillipe Gerlach.

Renowned Dutch art magazine Metropolis M recently published an article about “Digital Discrimination”. Technological art and museums/galleries seem quite separated.

I’m curious how the times will develop. I think we can all agree that computers are changing the world, but how that will change art still remains to be seen.

Classic subjects in new formats or new subjects in classic formats?

Probably both.

I am happy to let you know that I had

47,166,931 visits in the last 12 months across all of my websites.

more than 47 million!

My working method has always been simple:

– Make whatever I want.
– Get as many people as possible to see it.
– Make as much money as possible.

Step 1 & 2 are going well. I love the web. No interference from anyone, I can make whatever I want to make and share it with you. I don’t take this freedom lightly. Any other system seems like there is always some friction. I never have to explain to anyone why I want to make something, what it means, if it will sell…

Now to find out how to make 1 cent from each visit…
Working on it…

Thank you for visiting!

Opening this Thursday!
The exhibition #FutureMyth, curated by Christina Latina & Daniel Leyva.
319 Scholes
Apr 18 2013 – May 05 2013
Opening Hours: 7:00PM – 10:00PM

I will show a new work called “Future Novel”, it’s a sci-fi book in a new language.
Thank you to Frieda-Raye Green & Manuel Vargas for helping out.

From the press release:
“The interior of man has been essentially the same for 40,000 years, since the first emergence of Homo Sapiens. Myth has to do with the spiritual potentialities of this constant, this human being. But the images of myth must be derived from the environment of today and in this place. There is therefore a constant transformation of the image, but not of the reference.” —Joseph Campbell

List of artists in the exhibition:
Kari Altmann, Matthew Arkell, Iain Ball, Enrico Boccioletti, Manuel Bürger, Sterling Crispin, Claire L. Evans, Ryan Whittier Hale, Erin Henry, Emily Jones, Taylor Kuffner, Paul Laffoley, Kareem Lotfy, Jonas Lund + Sebastian Schmieg, Einar Öberg, Rafaël Rozendaal, Jasper Spicero, Tanner Family, and Clement Valla + Erik Berglin.

I’m in this group show, check it out if you’re in London!

Brand Innovations for Ubiquitous Authorship: A group exhibition stolen by Eva and Franco Mattes.
Opening reception: 6-8pm Monday 22 April, 6:30 – 9pm
Carroll / Fletcher
56 – 57 Eastcastle Street
London W1W 8EQ

For this exhibition each artist was asked to produce an object using a custom printing or fabrication service. These services, such as CafePress and Zazzle, exist to provide users a cost-effective way of producing fully customized products, from t-shirts to iPhone cases, and a host of other objects– custom 3D printing from companies like Shapeways, full printed books from companies like Lulu, &c.

Participating artists:
Annabelle Arlie, Andreas Banderas, Aram Bartholl, Body by Body, Chris Coy, Christofer Degrér, Nick DeMarco, Constant Dullaart, Andreas Ervik, Matt Goerzen, Aaron Graham, Toby Huddlestone, Parker Ito, Justin Kemp, Brian Khek, Martin Kohout, Bryan Krueger, Lindsay Lawson, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Jon Rafman, Sean Raspet, Rafaël Rozendaal, Borna Sammak, Oliver Sutherland, Daniel Temkin, Brad Troemel, Artie Vierkant, Andrew Norman Wilson.

BYOB is a series of one-night-exhibitions.

The idea is simple:
– Find a space
– Invite many artists
– Ask them to bring a projector

I organized the first edition in 2010 together with Anne de Vries in Berlin.

Much to my surprise a large amount of people around the world organized BYOB events themselves. As far as I know, 124 BYOB’s happened in the last 3 years. There might be a few more but these are the ones I have a record of.

Check the BYOB Google map or the full archive on the BYOB website.

I’m happy to see an alternative to traditional ways of exhibiting art.

Thank you to everyone for all your energy!

This is an image of my new lenticular painting,
“Into Time 13 01 31”.
36 x 48 inches (90 x 120 cm.)

Gif Melter by Chris Shier is a weird tool that turns an animated gif into a psychedelic interactive webpage.

Below are some of my “melted” gifs. Click on the images to get the full interactive experience.

(via Today&Tomorrow)

I’m participating in Decenter,
an Exhibition on the Centenary of the 1913 Armory Show,
curated by Andrianna Campbell and Daniel S. Palmer.

Think of the show as cubism through the eyes of contemporary artists:
Cory Arcangel, Tony Cokes, Douglas Coupland, David Kennedy Cutler, N. Dash, Michael Delucia, Jessica Eaton, Franklin Evans, Amy Feldman, Andrea Geyer, David Gilbert, Ethan Greenbaum, Gregor Hildebrandt, Butt Johnson, John Houck, Barbara Kasten, Andrew Kuo, Liz Magic Laser, Douglas Melini, Ulrike Mohr, Brenna Murphy, John Newman, Gabriel Orozco, Rafaël Rozendaal, Seher Shah, Travess Smalley, Sara VanDerBeek

Opening:
6-8 PM Sunday, February 17, 2013
Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, New York, NY
DecenterArmory.com

Composition: the arrangement of elements in time and space.

The browser is very different from other media, especially when it comes to composition. I believe we are at the very beginning of the aesthetic potential of the networked image.

This is an (incomplete) list of compositional characteristics of the browser.

The internet presents artists with challenges, opportunities, and best of all, a lack of history.

The size of a browser can change at any moment. There is no fixed dimension or ratio. Think of an image, that can shrink or expand at any time. Ideally the artwork anticipates every possible dimension. Colors are rendered differently depending on hardware, software and usage. Websites are ubique yet inconsistent in appearance.

There are many kinds of devices. Some have big pixels, some have small pixels. A 1 pixel line on a smartphone is different from a 1 pixel line on an old CRT monitor. The physical experience of each device is unique.

The user is present in the pictorial space. There might be a cursor or finger that can influence the composition. Interaction is not unique to the browser but it is something that is natural to internet users.

Many people at the same time can influence an image. There is a potential for social images that change over time by allowing users to modify an image, like a wikipedia article.

Computers are good at generating random numbers. I’m not sure if those numbers are truly random, but it’s good enough. Each time the artwork is viewed, it can be slightly or dramatically different.

The networked image can keep pulling information from the web. The elements of composition can change all the time, because the web’s content changes all the time.

In the early days of the internet, bandwidth was very limited. This digital frugality created a new visual language.

Browsers do not have the same rendering power as native applications. This is a limitation and an opportunity at the same time. Challenges like these force artists to come up with new solutions.

I recently received an email, asking if my website much better than this .com could be projected at a wedding. I’m happy to see my work being enjoyed all over the world, especially in Japan, AKA the coolest place in the world!

I hope Noria & Haruna had a nice wedding, and lots of love in the rest of your life!

You can find me on Instagram: @newrafael

Google image search just got a whole lot better. The new interface is very effective. Just search for images, and select an image. It shows a large preview in the same window. And you can browse through the results with your cursor key.

(this new layout is rolling out now, you might have to wait a few days before it appears in your region)

We still have a long way to go in interface design. I think one big challenges is how to make large amounts of content digestible. Coffee table books are still much better if you want to sit down and look at a large amount of images. But I think it won’t take long before the web becomes better at artists monographs than printed books.

I’ve had many discussions with different people about cultural disciplines or categories.

How Art has a longterm value over Pop Culture, how Books are often better than Movies, how Architecture is following Technology, how Fashion always takes from Music, on and on and on.

All these categories are restricting and mostly useless.

It does not matter if something is Literature or Advertising or Entertainment or Academia,

what matters is if something is interesting.

Finally!

I have been searching the internets for years and I found it, a Towelie towel! (Affiliate link)

From Wikipedia:
Trey Parker and Matt Stone explained on the DVD commentary for “Towelie” that the character was conceived as a joking reference to the over-marketing of characters in the wake of the series’ success. Eric Cartman delivers the penultimate line of Towelie’s eponymous episode: “You’re the worst character ever, Towelie,” to which Towelie responds, “I know”.

Every frame from Please Touch Me .com (2005)

I decided to unfriend everyone on my private Facebook account. Facebook is a big distraction and this is the best way for me to deal with it. It’s too tempting, I’m always curious what’s going on.

I couldn’t delete my account because my public page has a lot of followers and I want to continue publishing there.

OK, back to work!

I work a lot with geometrical images. They are shapes based on mathematical instructions.

You can write down the equation of the circle, and imagine the circle in your mind. In your mind, the circle is absolutely perfect. It is absolutely round.

Unfortunately there is no screen, printer, or natural phenomenon that can render a perfect circle. There will always be some particles bouncing out of place. And even if we did somehow manage to create perfection for a brief moment, our imperfect eyes would not be able to perceive it. Our eyes show us a distorted image that our mind corrects.

Geometrical images are conceptual images, they only really exist in our mind.

I’m excited to let you know I will be showing a selection of works on the video wall of Salon 94.
6 of my websites will be playing day and night for a month.

The gallery is right next to the New Museum on the Bowery in New York.

This Friday my presentation will be launched together with the opening of Takuro Kuwata’s exhibition.

Arranged by Mark Brown.

Salon 94
243 Bowery
New York, NY, 10002
Opening: Friday, January 18, 6 – 8 pm.

Back in 2004 I moved to Los Angeles. I shared a studio with Jonathan Maghen and we started a T-shirt line called Tagbanger.

As artists, we were most excited about creating images. It was a nice form of collaboration, we both created and found images and then we would sit together and review the ideas. Sometimes we would execute the ideas together, sometimes separately. We found a great printer who used waterbased inks, we found a great T-shirt manufacturer, and we had nice labels made.

What we underestimated is that a business requires a lot more than just creating a product.

I tried going to stores to offer them our shirts but I would just feel awkward. And the logistics were not easy either.

We sold quite a few shirts but it never became a big thing that we could do fulltime. I really admire artists who are able to create a business of consumer oriented art products. In simple words: affordable art that anyone can buy.

Below are all the T-shirts we made. It was great fun and we made some money, and I learned a lot.