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With the success of their Flash publishing program Friends of ED loosened the definitions of the intructional and inspirational computer graphics book last year and initiated their 4 x 4 Project.
The series’ modus operandi is to set a subject for four digitial artists to work on, see what they come up with, publish a tutorial on the process, then have them swap files and produce variations on a theme. It is a brave idea although I ma not so convinced of the usefulness of the remix process at the end of it. Remixing works just fine in dance music, but it is a concept mostly still alien to the visual arts.
Instead, the value of these books is as a window into other people’s thought processes, and how they express those thoughts digitally, in this case mostly using the software tools of Photoshop and Flash. Arron Bleasdale tackles the subject of Time and Stasis through a slideshow of an airtrip he took from the United States back home to Britain, over a period of 24 hours.
Karen Ingram’s interpretation is filtered through thoughts on the Greek myth of Narcissus, and observations of how birds and fighting fish react to their own images in glass. Vietnamese-American Jeremy Tai Abbett adds Illustrator to Photoshop and Flash to animate an onscreen virtual park. Francine Spiegel’s project is perhaps the most personal of the three, drawing on her experiences of growing up in Florida and musings on love and femininity.
The Book:
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