The Natural Story of Art Randomisation — Manifesto
The Artist as humble being collaborating with bigger than Humanity — The Nature and Emerging Giga tech — avenues to embrace randomisation.
It has been a while I was meant to write an essay about my work approach to randomisation and the interaction with Nature and Childhood in my artworks. I would like to create a Manifesto based on Experiences — to feel the love.
As you may know, most of my work is based on the Automated process — Very popular early XXth Century — I have written a full article you can find here https://medium.com/@lapinmignon/anatomie-the-art-on-automated-mode-the-automatism-9f0ebd9fa19f
Being a control freaked myself, Art helps me to venture in areas where I can let it go. And then I got fascinated by Generated Art and Code led randomness — I played with coders to create codes generated project like The CryptoMignon Generated with CryptoKage https://www.lapinmignon.co.uk/mignongenerator
https://opensea.io/collection/mignongenerated
Where I created 100s of watercolour layers (on paper), and we created a code that randomly combined the layers, and combined the element part of the story that, puts together created the most absurd but fun… and in a way rational story :) — I had much fun creating it. I invite you to discover them on the Opensea collection, and read few descriptions in their Metadata https://opensea.io/collection/mignongenerated
Then in 2022 and early 2023, with Tagachi, on the on-going MIgnonverse Project, we have the project to explore further the randomisation with the element of Artificial Intelligence (AI) — It is still a hude work in progress that I am hoping, one day, will see the daylight.
And while enjoying experimenting coding and new techs, I was exploring further my watercolour with natural elements, like the rain and the sea. In October 2022, during a trip to Porquerolles, a french island in the Meditarenean Sea, I got inspired by the sun, the eucalyptus and wild flower, the boat trip and the sea splashes to access the island, and it inspired me “L’Ecrin Sauvage” — You can find here the full creation process https://medium.com/@lapinmignon/l%C3%A9crin-sauvage-ae1f07b81564
A dynamic Art on AsyncArt that evolves between day and night — https://async.market/art/master/0xb6dae651468e9593e4581705a09c10a76ac1e0c8-10430
And it got me thinking that there is a string parallel between the Art created with the Edges of techs (generating Code, AI, etc.) and the collaboration with Nature — it invites the randomisation to the Art, where I loose control and take it back, where I invite a collaboration with an element bigger than Humanity itself — The emerging giga tech and Nature — It reminds me how humble we should be, grateful and careful. That it is okay to let it go, to pass the power, to accept to lose control, and embrace the new directions and the collaborations.
Adding to that, my children — Since Arthur can draw and colour, I love inviting him to take part to my work, there is a high potential of creating something completely different to thee original intent. But I guess, this is part of the Art Journey. And in all honesty, I have very little idea where I will go when I start an Artwork. so creating together is bringing this dose of unknown and shaking the conventions… because children have no conventions… and we are back to my basics why I do Art — and I am sorry to say that I am not doing this for the Art (probably one reason I do not enjoy visiting museum or Gallery, because the fun of Art is not the Art) — The truth is, the fun of Art is the Making, the WIP, the creative journey from the white paper, splashing, staining, colouring, twirling, testing, to a state where I feel happy with what happened… fron A to Z. This is the joy that brings you closer to the state of childhood — enjoying the moment, and feel the moment, the creation, the blessing of having a blooming imagination bubbling in every corner of my soul — and bringing on board the ones I love — and it was natural to have my children arting with me — they always bring me back to the essential.
And one day in July, it was pouring rain outside, while the rest of the world was roasting under unprecedent fatal heatwaves, the british summer was at is quintessence — and the flood of rain never stopped for days. Usually I would dry my watercolour outside.. and I got an idea. and once my watercolour base completed… I left it outside too… but under the pouring rain for a couple of hours. There was a point when I even wondered if my 300msg paper would survive the excess of rain. But whatever — The watercolour started to bleed and it went very messy. When we came back, we found the tiniest slug possible dancing a ballet fo joy on the painting, enjoying the rain. That was a show in itself, the children got excited and we took photo — Arthur even asked if we can keep it as a pet ;-)
I draw then slugs on the triptych, taking back controls and creating a sense of order in the apparent mess.
Arthur took the freedom to create his own slugs — and I went back on it with the ink to create some sense of uniformity, still respecting his little beings. I spent them a huge time working on the colours, creating again a uniformisation between the 3 part of the artwork — that was difficult, because everyday, the mood, the light was different, and my joy was leading me in every type of direction — that was impossible for me to dully follow any form of precepts.
And Leon, 3yo, came and suggested that he wanted also to take part in the jolly capharnaum. It took me weeks to find the right medium for a toddler to take part in the almost finished artwork… And then, I remembered some craft he came back with from Nursery few month ago… Foam painting — what a beautiful way to create some slime light effect — I let him blow the bubbles and apply it to the final artworks — and Arthur took part as well of the fun.
This Manifesto, like the Art it inspires, is a living monument, and a lot will happen, and a lot will the added there… and surely will never been truly finished.
Article WIP
