ABOUT THE WORK
Participation at the Exhibition ARCHITECTURE | LANDSCAPE (2012)

“cs_0, cs_01”
In the cs_0, cs_01 series, artificial digital conditions not occurring in nature are produced as abstracted reality. The production of digital nature occurs through the manipulation of predetermined parameters of a previously defined selection of software tools. It is part of the essence of the digital picture that, in utilizing the computer, it creates more than reality, but is still based on reality. The digital picture contains the possibilities of painting (subjectivity, freedom, unreality) and photography (objectivity, mechanics, reality); reproduction and imagination are combined in the digital picture. cs_0, cs_01 is created with software tools, the selection and parameters of which are defined as well as generated by several computer programs. The visualization of the data pack occurs through rendering. Rendering is the optical revaluation of a three-dimensional model or two-dimensional pixel image via computer-supported processes/algorithms. The analog photo series cs_0, cs_01 consists of artificial, digitally generated pictures without real origins, the basis of which is number – such as numerical codes. The image created uses neither concrete models, nor photographs or scans, nor is it generated from a real copy. The result is conceived by concrete, previously defined, calculation options.

In analogy to nature. The subject.
Similar to cinematic wide screen, the data pack is visualized (rendered) in a 16/9 proportional format that optimally stages illusion and fictive space. cs_0, cs_01 behaves like film stills from an animation and, in its dynamic sequence of subjects such as sky, clouds and watery consistency, suggests movement within the construction and creates a time delay in both pictorial directions – a forward as well as backward process. The surface structure of the computer screen replaces the function of the window, connoting the opening onto an outside. In terms of color, the window motif cs_0, cs_01 is determined by the basic tint of sepia, similar to how it has emerged as such in the traditions of photography and film. An actual correspondence to reality is not present. Rather, the subject presents itself as a hallucinatory “memory” of real processes.

TEXT ABOUT JULIE MONACO by ELISABETH PRIEDL:

For years Julie Monaco has worked with constructions. Analytical considerations regarding analog and digital models are the basis for her work. Fascinating pictures are the result of this research. Initially they presented landscapes with a classical appearance, and they became increasingly abstract only by way of repeated interventions. This is where the deconstruction of the constructions sets in. Let us begin with her constructions: When looking at the surface, Julie Monaco seems to compose works.

Landscape pictures, especially views of the sea that could not be anymore classical, with low-lying horizons, suggest an endless expanse. Sometimes the sea is leaden and motionless; sometimes the onlooker sees stormy and lashing waves, with brilliant cloud formations building up against the sky. The onlooker’s viewpoint is in different places – sometimes very high, sometimes deep below, so that you can almost smell the water. Dutch landscape painters of the 17th century, such as Van Goyen or Ruisdael, had a deep impact on this theme, the stretched, cinemascope-like format that Julie Monaco uses mainly reinforces this impression. Altogether, a gloomy, eerie atmosphere prevails. In spite of the perfect make-believe, certain doubts linger – something about these powerful sea views is undefined and unique. The lighting is unrealistic; light and dark are arranged in such an extraordinary fashion, as nature would never be able to achieve. The line on the horizon is too sharp, the clouds are too low, the waves have a suspicious glitter, … At first sight, the sepia color of the pictures is a reference to photography - of the kind that we no longer know today – a reference therefore to things long gone by, but if we search the repertories of our minds, this does not take us any further. These are rather visionary images that may perhaps give a foreboding of things to come. The suggestion – the construction – is too perfect.
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ABOUT THE ARTIST