Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Family Unit Circa 1970


Hello. Here is one of my latest paintings 'Family Unit Circa 1970' which can be found at http://www.robertgirandola.com - One area that I am very interested in is this transition from the analog to digital world - in every area from photography to music to our personal records, the very essence of who we are. I sometimes wonder how much of me is a bit and a byte stored somewhere. I know my childhood seems innocent enough, and of course our parents all the more - simpler times. This might seem like a funny connection to this particular painting but I think a lot about the sod farm I grew up near, out in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. It took 30 minutes just to get to a grocery store. Playing was running out into the field and finding old tractors or a silo to throw rocks inside - hearing the echoing crash. And now, half the field is developed with many houses - and where I once ran and played is now 'digitized' in a way, parceled out in tiny plots across a once great field. With the analog television signal going away for good next year and the move to digital – to me, has the same emotional resonance as seeing the fields around my house ‘developed’. Do you sometimes think technology is moving all too fast?

Simpler Times

There is a lot of amazing things that can be done with a digital signal - vast amounts of information can be distributed across hundreds of channels in HDTV. Thoughts, identities, ideas can be ‘taken’ and redistributed in the blink of an eye. When I worked on Family Unit Circa 1970 I wanted to take one of my generations most recognizable icons and re-present it in a way that plays with the idea of analog and digital – I was really trying to simulate that disturbing energy feeling of a television set on the boarder between static and signal – the Brady Bunch functions as memory for me, of that ‘innocent age.’ As a child watching programming from three stations, I remember having to go up into the attic to spin the antenna to just the right spot so we could get a clear picture - I would call down to my brothers and sister 'Can you see it yet? Can you see it?' Flash forward to the present state, the ‘static’ takes on a metaphor of disparate, digital data packets coursing through time and space carrying with it the ‘identity’ of thoughts across hundreds of channels – I feel both excited by the new but pensive - How have you been affected by analog to digital? I'd love to hear from musicians -

Monday, June 9, 2008

Today's Thought - Jung

What did Jung mean by this?  Do we have it backwards?  When we sleep, and dream - are we really awake?  When we are awake, are we really dreaming?  Hovering around this thought -  When you look into your heart, can you begin to realize the world around you is a construct of your thoughts - and those thoughts, like dreams, can be changed?  Can you change the world around you by changing the way you think about it?   

Today's Thought

'Down deep in the inmost chambers of your soul are untouched stores of energy that properly applied will exalt your personality and illumine your career.  But to find and claim these hidden riches you must persevere.  You must endure.'

     -Warren Hilton