Algorithmic Paintings

By Miao Xiaochun

Translated by Hao Yanjing

The new series of Algorithmic Paintings is a result of combination of the digital and the manual work. I use a cutting plotter to carve the vector file created with 3D softwares, then transpost it onto canvas to assist the manual painting. Evidently, such an assistance plays an important role in the formation of the final painting style.

I would like to use digital technology to explore a new way of expression: human brain and the computer thinking together; hand and mouse working together. I found that virtual images developed by using 3D software has some sort of a new character: we can create portraits and images that have all kinds of relationships with the objective world; we can also freely edit those virtual objects made of 0s and 1s; we can even create people and objects purely with our imagination that have never existed in reality. We can almost form a virtual world that is in parallel with the real objective world relying on computer's powerful calculating capabilities and software's seemingly limitless variations. By taking static or kinetic images with virtual cameras that can be only found in 3D software, and by editing and treating those images continuously, a new kind of artistic language will be gradually and finally formed.