In general I prefer not to bother readers of this blog with personal entries: the artwork I post is far more interesting than anything happening in my life, and twitter is a much better place to find out what people had for lunch. That said, I’ve been absent from the blog so often that an explanation (or at least some BS excuse) seems in order. Also, I’ve gotten some emails wondering if my obsession for dangerous fish finally took me down.

That is, however, not the case. I’m fine-ish. I’ve just been slaving away in my not-so-dank arbitrage cave, obsessing about numbers and algorithms until my head cries our for sweet liquid relief, coffee or beer or what can you bring me? I tend towards the lazy, simple life, so I build these extrodinarily complicated tools to save me from thinking and effort. Problem is, creating those tools isn’t so simple. The savings from my labor saving devices are supposed to pan out in the long run, but everyone knows what happens in the long run.

At any rate I feel ready to emerge from my coding-cave and step back in the world of color and image. Hopefully my devices are now are ready to be left to their own devices, we shall see.

Shown above: a photo from the Robot Series by photographer Markku Lahdesmaki.

There are lots of modern versions of the Last Supper out there. Shown above is my favorite, in part because of a personal connection I have with it. Photographed by Raoef Mamedov (Russian name Рауф Мамедов), this sequence of 5 images portrays Jesus and his 12 disciples as “sufferers” from Down syndrome…

The Last Supper is an occasionally notorious Rorschach test for artists and critics alike. One author invented an entire plot around his interpretation of a single, albeit extraordinarily famous, depiction of the event. Mamedov’s Last Supper patterns the poses of his men after da Vinici, which makes his work disarmingly familiar even as it is strikingly different. What I see in the images probably says more about me than about his photos, but here’s my take:

In the center as always is Jesus, alone, in a moment of calm reflection. Or perhaps he is drifting into a nap, a possibility that seems borderline offensive. Each cluster of 3 disciples occupies its own large photo, so you can view it as a stand-alone image. Seen all at once (something I had the unexpected opportunity to do once in a church in Utrecht), the effect is nearly overwhelming — startling at first and then magnetically captivating.

I see a series of photos that are funny and brilliant, which seem to border on the exploitative and unfair (Did the actors understand what they were doing? Did they know how their genetic differences were being used by the artist?). As always when confronted by images of human anomalies, I also feel the dual pull of revulsion and captivation.

The figures strike me as awkward, but the blessing of Down syndrome is that the people who have it seem blissfully unaware of this awkwardness. It’s those of us with normal chromosomes, with longer lifespans and square shoulders, who are prone to obsess about our physical peculiarities or the ways in which we are social misfits. Perhaps it’s hard to look at people who by our calculations should be suffering, then realize we are the ones suffering. This leads me to consider the possibility that Mamedov is the true outlier, the weirdo who just wants to pass for normal, to live his life without being gawked at.

So why not? Why should it seem so strange to see the apostles portrayed like this? Clearly it does seem odd at first, and that is troubling. I have no real answer for why this matters or why it’s troubling or why the photos are so hard to look at or so compelling. And that, perhaps, is even more troubling. I keep wanting to see these photos as a cheap shot or black humor or a mistake. But dignity requires that we see the actors as they are: fully human, yet decidedly different. So why can’t we just do that?

Artist, sculptor, and toy maker Andrew Bell built a custom wagon sculpture, tied an absurdly large and bulbous cargo to the roof, and posed it for Road Trip photos.  The result is a perfectly charming image of slightly warped Americana.

Art has been about re-mixes for centuries. Retelling of famous stories, painting and repainting what is essentially the same bouquet of flowers or bountiful still life of food, the same battles, over and over. Another trick is to take an icon from one context and put it into another. Paint a sculpture, sculpt a painting, create an opera from a talk show.

Read on for more…

Recently some artists have been taking 2-D cartoon figures and re-imagining them as real 3D persons, created in photoshop or as paintings. Shown above, of course, is Charlie Brown, painted by Tim O’Brien. He submitted this work as part of a show called MONSTER? with Travis Louie. O’Brien says of the end result:

“It’s freaky.  Maybe not a monster but not normal.”

In general these “untooned” versions make a very rough transition into the world of 3D realism. Part of the problem may be related to the uncanny valley; we can only accept something as cute so long as it doesn’t look too human. Cross some invisible line and we no longer see a cartoons as a simplified caricature, but as an actual human being. The result can be startling, though it isn’t always.

Shown above is Jessica Rabbit, who made a relatively graceful transition into the third dimension thanks to Pixeloo.

Homer Simpson made a much more startling real-world transition in the hands of Pixeloo.

Photoshop wizard mateloneBR capably recreated Bevis and Peter Griffin as actual humans.

Deviant artist mateloneRJ brings Simpson’s character Hans Moleman into TRW.

Though I haven’t done a statistical analysis, I think it’s clear that Simpson’s characters are much more likely to be untooned than any other cartoon. Above of course is Mr. Burns, also done by mateloneRJ.

Such is the state of video game graphics that the real-world version of Grand Theft Auto’s Niko Bellic, created by the aforementioned Pixeloo, looks not much different from his Rockstar Games counterpart, shown below.

One final real-world version by Pixeloo — the frighteningly bulbous-nosed Mario — really should have accompanied my Sacred Heart of Mario post.

In recent years, a number of fine arts photographers have begun to work more in front of a computer than behind a lens. Unfortunately, the vast majority of their creations are unexceptional pieces that are scarcely more impressive than what you can find at a Photoshopping contest websites, except that, perhaps in attempt to distinguish their serious art from the dabbling hordes, their images tend to be utterly lacking in humor or nuance. Dominic Rouse’s black-and-white photo collages, often depicting ancient beauty in decay along with a cluttered assortment of generic symbols, are no exceptions.

Brian Mccarty photographs toys. This photo was taken for Laughing Squid. In his compositions the toys are integrated with the real world, not set apart.