Introduction and history

Digital notes in The Garden

digital art project by Reggie Voigtländer aka 'Digital Gardening' project

Introduction

The 'Digital Gardening' project started in 2018, as an ongoing cycle of intertwining series of digital images, based upon visual content published on social media platform Facebook. The original images are edited by phone using a fixed set of free apps, including their  advertisements. 

One app offers the possibility to place content into well known historical paintings: 'Starry night over the Rhone' by van Gogh, 'A Sunday afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte' by Seurat and, a painting of indigenous people in what's now the USA by 'American landscape' painter Albert Bierstadt, 'Calumny of Apelles' by Botticelli, a Field of Poppies by Monet, 'Children of the sea' by Jozef Israëls (1872) and'The Scream' by Edvard Munch.

Another app transforms the results into attractive, painterly images, graphic drawings or other filters that create an attractive or if you like alienating image.

The third app creates overlapping collages of several images and the possibility to use colours and shapes.

These series generate and exist within an ever changing context. They reflect aspects and values of contemporary life, transformed into an ongoing series of intertwining visual notes, which can be transformed into countless video's of numerous possible scenarios, because of their corresponding character. Their interconnectedness results mostly from using the same paintings and method over and over again. 

Connecting the found content with the images of familiar paintings creates another layer of meaning. Sometimes the two different contents relate directly with each other, sometimes it is solely used as a painterly effect to isolate certain elements in the contemporary content that are to be taken into account from its original setting. It's a way to expose and question societal aspects related to this content. 

What came before...

The 'Digital Gardening' project comes forth out of a series of projects in dialogue with information coming to us through media. In the beginning they were used directly as cut out images and articles, shaped into wall-collages. Later they became integrating in drawings and water-colour paintings, where the information was translated into a new vocabulary. Then image data was formatted into photography and video which were used in installations. Later the information was noted and transformed digitally in a personal diary form using word documents. When the use of social media and smart phones were popular, this became source and platform at the same time. 

'Towerama', mixed media, paper, 1995

Word language

Titles are always significant in work, for there has always been a conceptual aspect involved in all my art works. Migrating to another country at a young age created awareness regarding spoken  language, which is considered the most immediate and revealing form of cultural exchange. For it is directly connected to identity. Even just a name provides information in that matter, although not necessarily directly understood within the right parameters. That's why spoken and written language became important within the overal artistic work. Although there's great importance to images within media communication, it is mostly accompanied by information through spoken and/or written words. So they are naturally integrated within the images of the 'Digital Gardening' project. As are visual user aspects of the apps or the platforms itself, like buttons and 'likes'. It's all information and image at the same time. 

Future development

As for working out this stream of ongoing series, one can imagine installations using various types of media and collaboration with other artists.

'Towerama' in 'The Garden' 2019

This introduction is meant to get an insight in the project. 

Links to series featured in 'The Garden': 

'Plastic Cactus in The Garden'

'Corona Virus in The Garden'