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The New OUAF – a different direction
The current version of Once Upon A Forest is a change from the past. It is the next evolution in the world of Maruto, and it fits in more with Davis’s current obsession with computer generated randomness. Like Accident Happy, the images on OUAF are generated by the computer, based on a coded system created by Davis. In the page’s source code Davis comments:
"I
conceptually identify with Jackson Pollock…because he always
identified himself as a painter, even though a lot of the time his
brush never hit the canvas. There's something in that disconnect
- not using a brush or tool in traditional methods - that says a
lot about the concept of dynamic abstraction, because in that loss
of control there can be beauty in randomness.
"Pollock might argue that it's the process of abstraction that's dynamic, not the end result, which in his case is a static painting. In my own work, the end result is never static; by making room for as many anomalies as possible, every composition generated by the programs I write is unique to itself. I program the 'brushes,' the 'paints,' the 'strokes,' the rules and the boundaries. However it is the machine that creates the compositions -- the programs draw themselves. I am in a constant state of surprise and discovery, because the program may structure compositions that I may never have thought of to execute or might take me hours to create manually.
"For
me, the art form is not in the few days it takes me to write the
program. The art is the few weeks I will spend living with the work,
waiting for the work to evolve…always waiting to capture that
moment in time - the beautiful accident."
The particular idea behind the current rendition is what Davis calls "residue." The body of work on OUAF is navigated in a linear format. You go from one composition to the next. Each composition has a little memory of the previous compositions; an imprint of the past shows through. So each page creates an interesting play with the previous one. Sometimes the transformation is harmonious, sometimes it creates an alarming juxtaposition between contrasting elements.
As you click from one composition to the next via small forward and backward arrows, the previous composition is wiped away, while the new composition is loaded and smoothly revealed. The image is erased from your view, yet enough of it stays in your memory to see how it is a logical predecessor to the new image. Just locating the similarities and differences within the succession of compositions can pull you into the work, regardless of whether or not the compositions appeal to you in any other way.
The
series of images are created with a changing pallet of elements
and symbols. Davis obviously has a liking for organic shapes: flowers,
circles, curves, paisley, etc. Some of the generated components
look like clouds, some like leaves, plants, ripe fruits or animals,
others more abstract like strings of bacteria or hair, cells, and
eyeballs. At other times the theme seems to be scientific. His love
for charts and maps, which he has carried through since his early
days of Praystation, shows up again here. Symbols like dots, bulls-eyes,
scales, graphs, and grids easily transition to the more curvilinear
shapes. All of these components are used as small repetitious symbols
that come together to create a random looking, yet intelligently
organized composition.
The colors, like the compositions, transition smoothly. Usually the palette is of lighter, pastel colors, but when the composition gets stark, the colors become more bold. This is done so naturally that I look back and I'm amazed at how drastic the change actually is at times. The naturalness of Davis's compositions and transitions is important. For his entire life he has observed things around him, noticing the interesting and sometimes confusing laws of nature that create the beautiful and inspiring phenomenon he sees. This study into the laws on nature, and trying to understand and reproduce them in Flash, seems to be the primary goal of Davis’s experimentation.
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