Abstract art for your desktop
can now be in 3D. Now you can walk around abstract shapes
which are arranged as immersive 3D wallpapers or
journey through abstract 3D worlds as part of 3D screensavers.
qu: How is this possible?
ans: Through a graphics engine called ROOMS (Windows meets DOOM ~ish)
qu: Are there ready made abstract spaces and objects for ROOMS?
ans: Yes, both free and pay-for-content
qu: Can I create and use my own abstract artworks in and for ROOMS?
ans: Yes. Yes. Yes.
The free to download world below (called baffled) is only available from this site.
Artistically it is (I am convinced) a rival to the Turner Prize.
Now while that may be conceptual art, because it doesn't really exist.
This is abstract because it does exist - if only virtually.
Click on the links below to download the world
- you do also need ROOMS to run it as your desktop or your screensaver.
Download ROOMS now [7.2 Mb zip]
Download baffled now [202 Kb zip]
then unzip into rooms\worlds folder.
And seriously, what do I think abstract art is?
To abstract is to select one particular
feature of a thing (like a tree has leaves) or a stuff (like butter is edible). Once selected you can
contemplate whether the selected feature is characteristic of all the things
and stuffs in the same class and whether the feature is characteristic of more things
and stuffs than the original intended class (more than trees have leaves, more than butter is
edible). So merely making the abstraction invites the question "Is the abstraction
definitive of a class of things?"
As for abstract art. The artist selects features (sometimes guided by less than
conscious, judgemental or rational process) from the world (including his/her own mind)
and presents these features - writ large - to the world for the world to interpret.
You disagree? Ho hum, you disagree.
And what has this to do with 3D shapes and space?
Shapes can be abstracted too. Can you visualise one of those artists manikins -
you know the small wooden dolls with all the correct human joints to allow you
to swivel arms and legs into natural (if uncomfortable) arrangements? In these
dolls the human shape has been abstracted to a series of balls and cylinders.
And space can receive a similar treatment. A room can become a collection of
empty (space) cubes carved in a solid brickdom - in fact that is a key idea behind
ROOMS 3D Desktops - you carve empty space out of solidity rather place solidity into
empty space.
Lateral thinking? No. Just reverse engineering.
In fact, take the idea one step further. Look at how historically early
psychologists and biologists thought about animal behaviour. They thought in
terms of stimulus and response (reflex actions). Once again ROOMS borrows from
this tradition and where behaviour is required in objects in its worlds,
that behaviour is understood in terms of Events-which-cause-Actions (what is
referred to as EVAC).
So, can behaviour count as abstract art? Hmmm...
Find out more:
Visit ROOMS 3D Desktops for abstract 3D "drive-in" wallpaper
Visit 1-Above-3D screensavers of abstract 3D worlds
Visit 1stAnnex: Idea and Theory, Art and Science
for opinions on art and science and the abstractions they have in common.
