by self-portrait 4
This fourth self-portrait was inspired by Dave Bonta’s ‘engaging in an odd form of egosurfing with typoGenerator, inserting the text “dave” and “bonta” and marveling at the random images the program retrieves from the web.’
I just had to try it out and here’s what typoGenerator did with my name. Interesting, isn’t it? Do you see the map of Finland, and what looks like little bits from my prints? All I had to do was lighten it a bit. It’s like a portrait of my web presence, of my virtual self, in brilliant colour!
It’s a long way from the first self-portrait, from hand-drawn to web-generated! Here are the second and the third portraits.
June 23, 2006 in Being an Artist by Marja-Leena
Wow – you really got lucky! The font, the colors, the images – a great blend.
This is interesting philosophically, too. What makes it a *self*-portrait is nothing more or less than the fact that you have claimed it as such. It is like a visual elaboration of the rather frightening arbitrariness in those quintessential markers of identity, our names.
Yes, Dave, and what also intrigued me was that this generator also found the connection to Finland and prints, or what look like prints. Of course, it may have recognized the name as Finnish, but I wonder if it googles it and finds my blog and images. In a way it IS scary. Yet other attempts were not like this, so maybe it was just luck.
It is very clever, a lovely composition which would make a great cover for a book or a record sleeve. But it doesn’t have the stamp of authenticity that your own drawings and prints have. It belongs in a different sphere, that of “design” and as such it succeeds and is a very intriguing process indeed. Now of course I’ve got to go and try this link and see what it does with my name.
Too true, Natalie! It’s not something I made. Yet it’s an interesting result based on my web identity, another aspect of self, if you like.
I am also one of those enjoying the self portrait marathon. Your result with the Typo Generator is magical. I had great fun playing with it, and sometimes it does manage very interesting compositions.
I hope you don’t mind, I linked to you when I shared my results:
http://www.aztriad.com/dl062306.html#25b
Hi Joan – you got some great results indeed! The self-portrait marathon is fun – have you seen the slide show of everyone’s work? Thanks for writing in and linking.