Episode 01: Illustrations and Algorithms
How do Tech and Art relate?
Kristian Jones talks about his interest in our relationship with technology.
Kristian Jones is a freelance artist based in Birmingham, UK, and his work has been featured in magazines, on t-shirts and club night posters. He recently completed a Fine Art Masters at Manchester Metropolitan University, with a focus on use of new technology to create work.
Playing to the algorithm
We live in a world of complete ubiquity of the image. We are getting to a point of being overloaded. People tend to compare themselves to others, and there is also constant pressure for creators to play into the algorithm to gain more traction on social media. Kristian’s advice for artists and creators is to develop a relationship with your surroundings beyond the digital world, go out and interact with things. He also advises creators to stop making work for the algorithm and create work for themselves instead.
Social Commentary
Kristian has a collection of vintage children’s books from the 1920s and before. He alters the narrative by bringing in something from the present. His illustration of a family at the dinner table is called ‘Modern Life is Rubbish’, inspired by Blur’s album.
Software
He borrows the illustrated character’s postures, poses, and relationships with other things and blends something from the present into this narrative by using Photoshop to move the composition around so that the elements it make sense.
“I think about the idea more than I do the final image.”
More from Kristian Jones:
