between flipping and flopping
I've ebbed and flowed between analog and digital since the beginning of my venture into collage orientated work.
Nothing is better than the sound, touch, and smell of paper. The limitations, the restrictions, the textures, and imperfections. But, I also relish how malleable and fluid digital tools can make things.
Sometimes, finding myself on both sides of the divide has been the bane of my creative existence. When I work digitally I miss the tangible qualities of making physical things. But, sometimes I want to push an idea beyond what I can do with analog scissors and glue.
For a long time I've used analog assets in my digital creations, but lately I've been trying to come full circle and close the loop. I've been wondering what it would be like to take these digital things and make them analog again.
Like most things, there's a term for that already. I discovered it in an article I came across in
's newsletter by writer Robin Sloan.It's called "flip-flopping".
According to Sloan, "flip-flopping" is defined as:
1. the process of pushing a work of art or craft from the physical world to the digital world and back, usually more than once; 2. a work of art or craft produced this way”
I’ve been toying with this ‘flip-flop’ idea for a bit without realizing it. I take scans of analog collages, remix them digitally, print them out, and then cut them up to use in other analog collages. It's yielded some interesting, albeit discrete results.
I made this digital composition of analog elements and printed it.
I also printed out digitally manipulated screen shots from Sascha Bregenhorn generative art site, Artifactor (which I’ve written about previously here).
I physically cut them up, added more analog fragments, and made this collage with them:
Here’s one more.
I took a digital photo of weathered, physical signage.
Tweaked digitally and printed it.
Made another digital composition of analog scans and printed it.
Cut out the interesting bits, crumpled them for texture, added more analog things, and made this:
It’s been fun and frustrating, like nearly all creative experiments, but it’s also been instructive. Though I’m still processing and analyzing what it all means. It’s very subtle the way I do my ‘flip-flopping’. I don’t know that it’s even noticeable. And maybe that’s a good thing. But, it makes me think that maybe there’s a way to push it further, but I don’t have a clear vision for that yet either.
I guess we’ll see. Let me know if you have any ideas.
P.S. ICAD - Day 136 - 138
P.P.S. - Most of you probably already know that I do a weekly collaboration with
, where either she gives me a poem and I make a piece of art inspired by it, or I give her a piece of art and she replies to it with a poem. Sometimes the collaboration continues to inspire me even after it’s done. She’s just that good of a writer. Something she wrote in one of our previous collaborations prodded me to make something new. Hope you like it.
Thanks for sharing this one. It’s like collaborating with different parts of yourself!
I just love your work, Duane.