I was invited to a press conference to meet Joshua Davis, the guy behind the “digital kaleidoscope art” which he uses in most of his works. Joshua was shipped over to the Philippines by Motorola to talk in Graphika Manila.
Joshua (quite a fun guy!) is a 100% digital artist who is a programmer, artist and critic all in one. His art form revolves around programs that render digital art based on sets of rules which he has put together. He then randomizes his art work and chooses the BEST among the thousands of random renderings the computer does. This is where his role as critic comes in. Some people may wonder if this is really art — pushing the space bar button while saying nah … nah … nah … oh I like this one (save!) … nah … but then you have to realize that the random effects are all based on the rules and palletes he has preprogrammed into the system, which all came from him. This allows him to churn out such detailed work in a relatively smaller amount of time than “having to draw the whole thing on Illustrator which will take ages.”
A quick tip that he shares with us is that he only shows black and white proofs to clients and only colors them AFTER he gets their signature for the final art. After receiving a signature, he gives back the same abstract work but in several color variations. Clients often get distracted by the color schemes of proofs when in fact this is actually very easy to change. What should matter, firstly, is the concept.
Other small facts:
He is also a Mac user. See? See? Okay, I won’t get into the whole PC vs. Mac war again …
And lastly, if you look closer (click!), he wears Crocs!
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