R is for RED. G is for GREEN. B is for BLUE.
Beginnings: The RGB Chronicles
A Digital Art Journey
The first time I programmed some computer graphics was on a Commodore 64. My intention wasn’t to make art but to make a game.
It never got as far as becoming a working game.
My first attempt at pure image generation was with the Atari 1040ST. It had an RF connector on the back which I could plug into a television. This gave me a spectacular palette of four colours. Black. White. Red. Green.
I didn’t achieve much more than a few circles and squares on a red background. This was the late 80s and the idea of affordable colour printing did not exist. I used to take photos of the screen with my SLR, often onto slide film.
Up next was DOS, with a breathtaking pallete of 256 colours. The image at the top of the page was one of my very first generative images.
It was a time when the JPG file was only just beginning to appear. The only available audiovisual projection, unless you were a gazillionaire, was a slide projector. It’s something I made the most, projecting these images as a backdrop to my friend’s band.
Here is the no budget film clip I made for them at the time.
For the wannabe digital artist without much money, these were improvisational times. Super 8 movies, slide projectors, UV paint, weird mechanical devices and lofi video cameras.
Slowly things began to improve. Formative consumer-level software was emerging. Autodesk’s Animator Pro and early 3D software like Imagine were affordable. These packages were woefully underpowered by today’s standards, but they take an important place on the timeline of digital art’s evolution.
At the stage, everything looked decidely synthetic. That magically ingredients, realism, was yet to arrive.
Synthetic Music, Synthetic Images
What happened next with synthetic images in many ways paralleled the evolution of synthesizers and synthetic music.
From the outset of electronic music, the goal, at least in the more commercial spheres, was for the synthesizer to emulate the sounds of real musical instruments. Trumpets, violins and most of all, the piano.
By the early 80s, manufacturers such as Sequential Circuits with their Prophet, Oberheim with their OB-8 and Roland’s Jupiter had taken analogue synthesis to new heights. Yet, the emulation of real instruments was about to be decimated by digital synthesis and sampling.
This, however, was not the end of analogue synthesis, but a whole new beginning, as dance music from acid house to techno exploded with a new palette of synthetic sounds.
AI Art is to Art what Sampling is to Music
In many ways, AI Art is today’s image making equivalent of the Fairlight CMI which arrived in the early 80s. Like the Fairlight, packages like Midjourney offer realism at the flick of a switch.
Yet the old realism, for all its compelling immediacy and sense of technological advancement, reinforces, rather than breaks, the old patterns rather than synthesizing new ones.
The Realism Revolution
By the end of the 20th Century, the realism revolution was underway. At the top end, movies were utilising computer graphics as an integral part of the process and by the time we got to Lord of the Rings, it looked as real as any of us might imagine it.
Fast forward to today and for the price of a computer with moderate specs, we can access Blender, Midjourney and any number of free video editing softwares. Enough to made a movie.
Like the many trends I’ve seen over the past forty years, I expect these developments will also devolve to the lowest common denominator.
The Future Has Come
As my digital art journey progressed there was one development truly felt like the future had come, where the set from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey had finally transplanted itself into my lounge room. That development was the arrival of the iPad. A synthesis of the sketch pad and the digital realm was now a reality.
Thus my iPad app rgbDesigner was born.
So welcome to my new publication, The RGB Chronicles. This slim overview is intended to set the scope of what I’ll be touching on:
- rgbDesigner, the app. What is does and how to use it.
- My personal journey and the stories of digital art that are about more than just the pixels.
- The technical side of digital and generative art. I’ll be discussing colour theory, coding concepts and example projects that will be safe for you to try at home.
- Analysis and criticism of the state of digital art.
If these things are of interest to you, please give the publication a follow. While I’d appreciate a personal follow, if doggy romance, 60s and 70s rock music, political satire and strange, surreal stories aren’t your thing, the publication is a safer bet!
rgbDesigner is currently available on the App Store with the lowest tier monthly subscription. That’s $1.49 per month if you live in Australia.
While we’d love to hear what you think, don’t feel the need to jump in immediately. We love the feedback, some of which has been:
“Where is the free trial and were’s the Youtube user guide?”
We’re working on that as we speak and hopefully I’ll be able to update you soon.
Thanks for reading.
