The van Doesburg Dike

Primary colors, indeed
I think you will not be too surprised when I tell you that land-water-agro visionary Wim Kol and I were working on another Dike Temple painting this week. We wanted to do a van Doesburg style rendering this time.

We realized that van Doesburg’s color pallette was extremely limited. Red, yellow and blue. And black and white. So we put the little temple in Adobe photoshop and started pouring with the little bucket. It was surprisingly simple. After a few hours of experimenting – spent mostly in uploading the sketch and finding our way around in Photoshop – we had the painting done.

As Wim pointed out there was true emotional satisfaction in filling the shapes with color.

The treason of technology
But then we ran into what the French philosopher Jaques Lalulle (I think that’s what he’s called, I couldn’t find him on the web…) called the ‘Treason of technology’.

Technology makes things easy. And in using the possibilities it offers, we are often ‘betrayed’ by hidden problems emerging from this easy process. Lalull describes thousands of cars leaving Paris on a beautiful day in the summer, heading for the coast, stuck in traffic. Technology gave Parisians the possibility to travel to the coast faster and more comfortable than ever. And now they are stuck in traffic, breathing exhaust fumes. The treason of technology.

Work
What does that have to do with our Doesburg painting? Well, it was finished surprisingly quickly and easily. But then we discovered little white pixels where the color hadn’t quite reached the black lines.

So now we have to get that solved somehow. Rather than making art – physically – now we are solving computer problems. Thinking of using a different file format, for instance. It’s feeling more and more like work… I don’t mind working. If anything I have to restrain myself from working too much. But not when making art. Even though they are probably called ‘works’ of art for a reason…. I think we’ll want to get back to brushes soon.