Mark Napier: Four
February 2004
Mark Napier: Four
Mark Napier’s Gate Page presents four works from the artist’s series of studies using a physics simulator to generate movement of visual forms. In each piece, the shapes attract and repel one another by simulating gravitational forces, springs, masses, momentum, and friction. In the first piece, the movement shifts based on user input. The remaining three studies rely on gravitational and spring forces to create systems that continually aim for stability, resulting in continuous motion. By drawing a parallel between the brushstroke in painting and the algorithm in software art, Napier highlights an essential characteristic of the digital medium: the algorithm as a set of instructions that describes and at the same time is a record of potential actions. Encoded in the work is the potential for orbiting, bouncing, rotation, and fast and slow motion, playing out as action over time.
Mark Napier (b. 1961), a painter turned digital artist, packed up his paints in 1995 and began to create artwork exclusively for the Web. He has produced a wide range of Internet projects, including The Shredder (1998), an alternative browser that dematerializes the Web; Digital Landfill (1998), an endless archive of digital debris; and ¨Bots (2000), a tool for building unique pop-culture icons from parts. Napier is noted for his innovative use of the Web as an art medium and for his open-ended evolving projects.
He has created commissioned projects for the Guggenheim Museum; the exhibition 010101 (2001) at SFMOMA; and Data Dynamics (2001) at the Whitney Museum. His browser Riot was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial. He has been shown at ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and received an honorable mention by Ars Electronica ‘99, Linz, Austria.
Gate Pages
Every month from March 2001 to February 2006, the Whitney invited an artist or collective to present their work in the form of a “Gate Page” on artport. Each page was meant to function as a portal to the artist’s own sites and projects. The Gate Pages comprise a range of artistic approaches to the format—while some of them are designed as entry points to the respective artist’s website or promote a recently launched work, others take the form of a more complex stand-alone project.
Wherever necessary and possible, these works are made functional through emulation and reconstructions from the Internet Archive. Not all of them have been restored to their original state and their conservation is ongoing. You can also view the original Gate Pages archive to see how they were presented at the time of their creation.
artport
View more on artport, the Whitney Museum's portal to Internet and new media art.