Digital Artwork, China Exchange 1999, International Programs @ TCC

Before I left for China, my colleagues at the Visual Arts Center graciously agreed to let me exhibit work that I produce on the trip at the Center's gallery. This exhibition will take place this Fall. I arrived in China with no preconceptions about what this work would be. I am too neurotically polite to be a very effective photojournalist so typical travel images of China was not really an option. This also has to do with the attitude of many Chinese people about being photographed. People here use photogrpahy much as we do, to take pictures of family and friends. But the idea of photography as a hobby is less common. People on the street are often suspicious of why someone would want to take their photograph. I would rather not give offense in this manner. After being here for a couple of weeks I have decided upon two directions for the art work that I will produce from my trip. A brief description of these two projects follows.

One of the thing that strikes the visitor to China is the beauty of the written language. While the people of China speak many different dialects they have shared one written language for centuries. It is what has allowed them to exist as a united people. I have learned enough spoken Chinese to get by but so far only one character, an important one, the one for the men's room. Anyway, one project that I am working on involves collecting images of Chinese characters and combining them with other pictures of form and texture to create digital collages on the computer. I have included an example of one of my first attempts at this below.

I used the following three images:

To create this:

Again, this is a first effort but it will give you an idea of what I am up to. I am using the digital camera to collect images of Chinese characters and textural images that I can put together to create these collages. I am also collecting bits and pieces of written material that I can scan when I return.

Another project that I will work on while here is a group of portraits of the faculty, students, and staff of BBI. While there are many wonderful things in China, food comes immediatley to mind, my memories of this trip will be mainly of the warm and gracios people that I have met here. I first got the idea of doing a series of portraits when I saw the sun room in my apartment. The room has windows all around and faces north. On a sunny day the light in this space is wonderful. I have been searching for background paper to use for this work. Though this page is titled digital art, for these images I will use traditional photographic materials. I brought a medium format, twin lens camera and a supply of black and white film with me on the trip. My wife, Deborah, is bringing supplies so that I can develop the film here. While working on this project, I will also shoot with the digital camera so that I can post some of the images on this page. TCC has a long history with BBI and I think an exhibition of images of the people here will be a fitting tribute to that relationship. If I do exhibit these images at TCC, I will include a short statement about each of the subjects.

A view of the sun room

I am not sure whether I will exhibit the digital collages or the portraits or both, it kind of depends on which turn out better. I will probably not update this page very frequently while in China. I don't want to spend all of my time in my apartment working on the computer when I could be out on the streets of Beijing.

NEXT: DIGITAL ART page three

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ED GIBBS
egibbs@tcc.edu