Compose two styles
Rather than blending two styles into a middle, this assigns them roles: one carries the structure, the other appears as an accent. Where the two fight, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Cyberfeminism: Punch a circle in the middle and pack the text into it. Fill the border with a repeated motif and leave no white space. Hold no fixed format, so one sheet serves as poster and as billboard alike.
- Type
- Set in Cyberfeminism's manner (Set heavy sans and change the size line by line. Warp the lines over a sphere and abandon alignment as a goal.), and let Net.art's lettering (Use default browser fonts and leave underlined links undecorated) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Cyberfeminism's material (Hold to two colors, pale pink and black. Draw the imagery with organic lines that suggest bodily organs, set deliberately against the circuits and grids of machine imagery.); bring in exactly one thing from Net.art (HTML, GIF, error screens and slow loading treated as material).
- Colour
- Build on #EAD3EA, #FFFFFF, #000000 and admit one accent from #ffffff, #0000ee, #111111.
Where they fight
- Both belong to Digital Art, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Cyberfeminism Borrow the imagery but soften the words and the hostility that is the actual content drains out, leaving nothing but retro decoration.
- Net.art Reproducing the early web look as a flat image leaves nothing that links, transmits or invites participation, and the network that was the site of the work disappears.
Image prompt
An original image that takes its structure from Cyberfeminism (Aesthetic, 1991–2000s) and its accent from Net.art (Style, 1990s–). Structural cues: Heavy sans lines warped over a spherical bulge, each line set at a different size; A two color sheet, black on pale pink, with a white circle punched through the middle; A tiled border of eye like organic forms fringed with radiating hairs; The group's name embedded as one line of the text rather than signed at the bottom. Accent cues, used sparingly: Link structures; Browser UI; Errors; Participation and transmission. Composition: Punch a circle in the middle and pack the text into it. Fill the border with a repeated motif and leave no white space. Hold no fixed format, so one sheet serves as poster and as billboard alike.. Type and lettering: Set heavy sans and change the size line by line. Warp the lines over a sphere and abandon alignment as a goal.. Let one material quality come from the second style: HTML, GIF, error screens and slow loading treated as material. Mood: Rebellion, Play, Technology. Color: build on #EAD3EA, #FFFFFF, #000000 with a single accent drawn from #ffffff, #0000ee, #111111. Constraints: do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. Produce an original composition in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Cyberfeminism 1991–2000s / Aesthetic / Digital Art
A movement the Australian collective VNS Matrix claimed for itself in 1991, and which the theorist Sadie Plant named independently in Britain at the same moment. Its manifesto travelled by fax, by mail, as a wheatpaste poster, as a billboard, and as an online post. Against a computer culture that wanted to leave the body behind, it put slime and sex back at the centre.
- Net.art 1990s– / Style / Digital Art
Treats the browser, the link, the transmission error and the network itself as both the material and the site of the work.
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