Brent Watanabe
“In my work, programming computer applications has bridged the gap between my interests in drawing, audio and video. It allows me to create general rules and systems which organize drawings, videos and sounds in logically structured, but not predetermined compositions.
For example, I’ve created a Random Drawing Generator that functions as a drawing and soundtrack synthesizer. Visually, it creates random unique compositions from a series of pencil drawn objects, layering, flipping and mirroring the objects according to the underlying code. These visual compositions are complimented by audio recordings, which the generator arranges into dense, randomly generated soundscapes.
The Random Drawing Generator was one component of a recent installation controlled by four networked computers, with each piece interdependent on the other pieces: an animated landscape projection communicated with a crying holographic dog, which communicated with the random drawing generator, which communicated with the soundscape.
I work primarily in video and animation, often incorporating found home videotapes, high school yearbooks, and drawings, and I continue to explore how drawn images can dynamically co-exist with video and audio.”
- Brent Watanabe