Week 9 Research - Reagan Franzoni

The artist I chose for week 9 from the Museum of Computer Art is Kees Roobol. He is a Dutch surreal digital artist and research scientist from Belgium. He experiments with art techniques using oil paints and pastels, charcoal, pencil drawings, and photography. Roobol comes up with his ideas in his head and drafts his ideas using a software called Poser. He uses photographs for textures in the canvas and renders the final image with real human actors and friends posing at historical reconstructions or museums to set the scene of the collage. Some other software tools that Roobol works with to create his pieces are Bryce, Painter, Adobe Photoshop and Daydream. He uses Photoshop to edit his photographic scenes and photos of his human models and builds and renders the entire scene in Bryce. His last tool is Painter where he goes in and touches up the final image. 

The image that I chose from Kees Roobol’s portfolio is called “The Harbour of Oblivion” and it is an image of an earlier century city port looking out at a falling building. Roobol photographs all his images and textures of the background in Belgium and France and the characters are actors that he sets up to fill the scene. I chose this piece because I like the suspense that leaves you wondering what is the reasoning for the falling buildings. I like the use of dark colors to create more of a surreal and anxious experience. I think this piece is about people being unaware of how their actions are making the world come down around them. Their minds are unconscious and are unaware of what could be the outcome of the destruction humans are making. This image shows the beginning of the “harbour” where those who are oblivious begin to see the world falling down. This reminds me of the show “Umbrella Academy” where the world becomes a black hole because of what the members of the Umbrella Academy are doing to cause the world to come to an end. The oblivion world is the only port for them to realize and see what they are doing that is destroying the world. 

https://www.pinterest.com/keesroobol/_created