Post-vanitas

Digital 3D mundane objects (skull, T.V, cow, knife, light bulb and teapot), google maps API and custom software.

2016-05-01

Artists from the 16th and 17th centuries were often concerned about the meaninglessness of earthly life and the transient nature of all earthly goods and pursuits. Vanitas are symbolic representations of these early existential anxieties. These artworks were visual compositions of objects in dark and closed spaces; typically used as funerary art reminding of the brevity of life and suddenness of death. One could easily refer to these as some kind of mortorious still life paintings.

post_vanitas revives the visual language and ideas implied in this old form of art, rethinking its meaning in a technologized and interconnected world. Using custom software and web technologies, this piece generates digital 3d mundane objects (as in vanitas and still life art) and renders them in an unpredictable space. The software scraps, in real-time, Google Maps engine's images and stitches them together to create 360° panoramas that are then applied as textures to computer generated three-dimensional spaces. The result is a dynamic procedural vanitas jumping in cyberspace; traveling within the parallel visual representation of the world constructed by google.