What is TechXpressionism?
TechXpressionism is a celebration of digital technology within a real world experience.
Familiar imagery comes out from behind the glass and into your space.
“Last thing I remember, I was Running for the door. I had to find the passage back to the place I was before” - Henley
“… of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth ”
- JFK
(it spoils the fun if you can’t get back)
Digital transformation persists
Far beyond digital exploration, we are in the midst of intense digital transformation of our society and ourselves. Cyberspace is an outdated term. yet we are stuck in it. Digital transformation and disruption continue in various plateaus of stability and chaos. Evolution is messy and uneven. Countless paths take us into cyberspace, without any clear back-out plan or path. Migration is only forward with shoddy risk assessment and abatement at best.
What about return paths? What about the time and means fully digest and to integrate our virtual experiences into our lives and our beings? is simple plug and play? What about digital fatigue? What is that? What about wholeness of mind? Is it like technical debt? Is there a cognitive or an emotional cost in incorporating digital ways of doing things repeatedly? Often apps that we adopt have a very short lifespan, sometimes only a year or two or maybe even just a few months. Are we piling up a mound of digital fatigue and just sweeping it ahead of us as we go? What is digital fatigue anyway and how do you treat it?
What is digital fatigue?
Digital fatigue results from time immersed in the world beyond the glass. Symptoms include cravings for real world experiences such as touching objects, feeling temperature, and getting dirty, . Once thought to be a condition affecting only IT professionals, digital fatigue has become epidemic in the digital age. Treatment includes physical experiences such as gardening, cooking, wilderness expeditions, and techXpressionist art.
idea: art is relief
meeting of the minds
Digital world notions in real space, simple connections of physical and virtual experiences.
we are physical beings and we crave a physical experience.
What is TechXpressionism?
TechXpressionism is a celebration of technology and contemporary digital culture in an earthy real world experience.
There is a risk of art meeting technology
Both art and technology have a history and a tendency of being condescending. Unless a deliberate course is made to counter this tendency There is a significant risk that both of the things will intersect at their most condescending points.
It happens that within technology, in the 80s and 90s a cultural rebellion against the condescending and intimidating aspect of technology. Industrial designers took on the mission to de-mystify technology and make it friendlier.
Steve Jobs and the Apple culture was part o this movement. As he hired design firm, Frog design to design the apple hardware. Intimidating complexity was packaged in minimalist artsy housings that were elegant and friendly.
Demystifying is good, UX better
The net impact was very good, yet it introduced a different condescending element, that is the snobbery of modernism. Elegant simplicity and minimalism is arguably a virtue and sophisticated yet elusiveness and exclusivity is not when it comes to product experience.
So, where the movement of minimalism left off, the practice of usability engineering went much further, going so far as to assert that the quality of the audience experience is the gauge by which the quality of the design is to be measured. This was really different.
So when art and technology meet in the real world, one has to wonder if the point of their intersection is at a visual design element, the common creativity, some cultural theme, or is it just their commonality of arrogant condescension? There must be a million ways that art and technology can intersect. Hopefully the more creative and positive ones will prevail. TechXpressionsim is about those. It is intended to be forthright and friendly, not pretentious and snobby. It is like the truck.
Tech deco
What is tech deco?
Tech deco is a subset of techXpressionsim in which themes are generally techy in nature which most people can appreciate. Themes are drawn from mobile design and computing UX design models most people have experiences since the age of the PC.
Geek deco
What is geek deco?
Geek deco is a subset of techXpressionsim more intensely geeky. It may incorporate digital technology into the art or simply include themes only techy nerds find exciting.
“Yeah, it’s a geek thing.
If nerds say “Wow, this is awesome!” and everyone else scrunches their face and says, ““Huh? I don’t get it. You guys are weird” that’s Geek deco art!
Mech Deco
What is mech deco?
Mech deco is a subset of techXpressionism in which digital ideas are expressed in a twentieth industrial motif. It can be mistaken for steampunk due to the affection for gears and machinery, but the era and intentions are different. Whereas Steampunk typically combines Jules Verne fantasy with Victorian lace with a dash of goth, Mech Deco draws from the real life mid-twentieth century blue collar world. It celebrates the small-town lumber mills and farms in the mountains and valleys of Oregon where the artist is grew up. It speaks positively of the man-machine relationship from that world of tractors and chainsaws to metaphorically describe how the digital world ought to be, with humans driving.