Artist Entry: Brian Piana

"Ellsworth Kelly Hacked My Twitter"

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Piana, like many other digital artists, is commenting on micro-blogging and specifically the popular site Twitter. What he has done is to take the icons and reduced them to their dominant color, then used code to automatically update the artwork in real time. Much like the work of Ellsworth Kelly that the title references, there is a distinct set of rules to how the squares are placed on the page. The most recent post is in the top left corner, while the oldest is in the top right. And the size is not static, but also based on rules. The margins always stay the same, no matter what the size of the window is, and the number of squares adjusts to obey this rule.

This makes Pina's piece interesting on several levels. The most obvious is the commentary on micro-blogging, and to me it almost seems like the tweets themselves have no material meaning in his work, but that as a collective whole they create something that is truly interesting. Another less immediate commentary to me is the link to Kelly. Much like Ethan Ham's work that I discussed in my last post, the title creates and interesting link to art history and immediately associates the work with rules, order, and minimalism.

Over all I feel that it is a very successful merging of both the social and historical commentary. I feel like this is also a very successful bridge between traditional mediums and digital art as being a legitimate artistic medium. By bringing in a strong historical reference that can't be ignored, this piece distinguishes itself from the one-dimensional digital creations that are ubiquitous around the web today.