Game Art: Justin Cooper's "The Gaming Effect" (2012)
Australian artist Justin Cooper (b. 1975) discusses the concept and process behind his latest show ‘The Gaming Effect’ on at A-M Gallery in Newtown, Australia until 4 August 2012.
"The gaming effect emerged after devoting an inordinate amount of time and attention to the activity of gaming. Playing each game separately for 24 hours straight, no sleep, next-to-no food, pissing in a milk bottle, and then responding to each individual experience by creating an artwork. The games began to overshadow my thoughts of the real world, mental images and dreams. Playing for such a prolonged time, I found myself thinking about ways different shapes in the real world can fit together to create an imagined world, such as the cereal boxes on a supermarket shelf or the local brothel at the end of the street. In this sense, the gaming effect became a form of nightmarish habit. I would dream about strange landscapes and mutated animals when drifting off to sleep or see images of falling specks of colour at the edges of my visual field or when I closed my eyes. The gaming effect was now a form of hallucination or hypnagogic imagery. After becoming decreasingly interested in the accuracy, intensity, and frequency of the real world around me, I began building my own utopian environment by the means of algorithms and fractals. I suggested to my sensory memories to lie down and return to a world of social interaction, with boundaries, that limit the flat screen." (Justin Cooper)
Here is a selection of his latest paintings (source: Justin Cooper and AM Gallery)
Submitted by Matteo Bittanti