“Hack” by Ian Haig

Image from ianhaig.net

Title:

Hack

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Exhibiting Artist(s):

Ian Haig

Symposium:

TISEA: Third International Symposium on Electronic Art

Artist Statement:

This piece involves an interactive graphics display linked to a touch-sensitive screen, controlled by an Amiga 2000 computer with a 20 MB hard drive and using Amiga Vision, Deluxe Paint IV and DigiView 4.0 The screen displays a top and bottom section of a computer generated face, which the viewer can use to create their own customised computer generated head by using the touch sensitive screen. The features of the face change once the nose, eyes, mouth, hair and so on is touched. The display includes many variables, so that each time the display is used a different configuration of the face becomes possible. The display is never the same twice.

Consisting of over 180 digitised and computer generated heads whose design follows similar lines to my computer graphics work in general: crazy wacky characters, garish colours, and funky design. The work also puts to use other elements such as computer synthesised speech, animation, sound effects and music. Hack presents computer graphics in an interactive context, to demystify computer generated graph-ics in general and to bring the user into a new sphere of the interactive-creative process. Rather than simply being presented with a finished work, the user/audience is an integral part of the project’s realisation. The project takes the idea of the Frankenstein monster as one of its central themes.