davidkremers: Wonder / Controversy - an experimental book, 2003
davidkremers is an artist ‘visiting us from the future’1. as someone once said. Being part of the Apollo-generation (It’s a small step for man, but a giant leap for mankind) he changed his name and stopped using capitals since email isn’t case sensitive. He saw the rise of the virtual age before it was considered as reality and cloned living bacterial paintings before the Human Genome Project was completed.
As ‘caltech conceptual artist’ at Caltech, Pasadena, USA, he collaborates with scientists, helping them to find ways of visualising large, complex datasets, which are often generated by modern measuring techniques. As part of his creative work he often writes an accompanying text, an ‘abstract’, indicating the issue and the challenge he poses for himself in producing the work of art 2. These texts always follow a fixed pseudo-scientific pattern:
given [......................
......................
.
. ]
method [....................
.....................
.
. ]
qed [.................. ]
Quod erat demonstrandum (qed) means: which was to be proved. The above can also be seen as an ‘instruction set’ or algorithm. This is the abstract basis for the work of art itself and its implementation. Running the algorithm under different circumstances can lead to a slightly different result, or ‘output’, without changing the essence of the work of art. This ‘natural variation’ or uncertainty completely suits davidkremers’ work since he is particularly interested in involving living nature in his art.