Why Philippe Herzog

Genesis

1960: As a child I like to draw. Later on, in high school and then at university, I make a lot of pencil sketches in exercise books.

1975: I discover modern art, then later Kandinsky at the Pompidou Center (Beaubourg).

1985: I receive as a gift a poster paint box. I draw some large gouaches, a bit disorganized. Too long, too dirty, I give up in early 1990.

1990: I start to use a microprocessor, a Macintosh SE30 with its black and white 9 inch screen. I soon begin to draw using this computer and the ones after, using ClarisWorks integrated software and its vectorial drawing tool.

1993: I begin to keep and record my works, letting them evolve over the years. Until 2006 my production is sparse and quite irregular, in some years without a single piece of work.

2005: My job in advertising, marketing and fund raising comes to an end. One door closes. Another opens. I decide to go for it!

2006: I become aware that I want to be fully involved in my art and that my work could be of interest for others. I organize my production so as to present it.

Concept

I have stuck to the tools I used in the beginning. I still work on a Macintosh (a friendly ...and catholic computer, as mentioned by Umberto Eco* in 1994) and with ClarisWorks software, and later its new version, AppleWorks.

What seemed revolutionary in early 1990 (Nicolas Schöffer, pioneer of the cybernetic art called "interactive", had achieved "Ordigraphics" using the same tool a short while earlier, as I learned in 2005) became obsolete later on.

But the initial principle remains: create multimedia art works with very simple software by modifying the functions so as to release the full visual and sound effects. And all of that with a minimum of means: the files of these works are very small, usually from 8 KB to 200 KB max. "Small is beautiful."

Today this software is not developed anymore and it is a challenge to save my works and keep them visible in all display formats including the PC.

Because those "paintings on the computer" are made to be visualized on a screen or retroprojection device. Some can be reproduced using other media: paper, canvas or aluminium foil. Most of them acquire their full dimensions by scrolling through successive screens.

Scarcity: It is not by chance that rare or obsolete software is used to create and visualize numeric art works which, in essence are simple to duplicate.
It is with an understood mutual interest that amateurs and author agree formally to protect this scarcity, for circulating both editions and multiples.

Series: After the abstractions and geometric figures made in the beginning, I introduced little by little themes and materials related to my areas of interest - travel, aviation, society...
I also insert into my works snapshots and videos, personal or not, as well as sounds and music that seem to me related to them.

Inspiration

My major references are Vassili Kandinsky and the Bauhaus, the geometry, the basic figures, their spatial arrangement, the palette of colors. And also architecture and design.

My cinematographic and musical cultures also have an influence.

I position myself as a partisan of simplicity, with a kind of minimalism in the style of Francois Morellet, of experimentation and empiricism.

I do not like bla-bla, sweet talk and theories created afterwards to justify the works. So I feel myself close to Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, popes of Net Art who do not explain anything but "denounce" through humor and extremely well-constructed speech and distance from their art (see references to critics and to Duchamp).

Other similarities within this universe of new technologies: The static status of those works... even if they are animated. Nothing interactive - you have to just launch them; then they play in loops. It is "user-friendly", there is no decision to take, it is concise, and I hope, as captivating as a real show.

Because we arrived in an era of the permanent display and at the dictate of images through the Internet culture as a gold mine and a universal source of various media. Those, revisited by a humor of the nth degree, can serve as inspiration for new creations.
At last, thanks to the World Wide Web, one can dream of reaching an audience directly and of broadcasting one's work!

*The Holy War : Mac vs. DOS
The following excerpts are from an English translation of Umberto Eco's back-page column, La bustina di Minerva, in the Italian news weekly Espresso, September 30, 1994.

How to recognize the religion of a computer

....Insufficient consideration has been given to the new underground religious war which is modifying the modern world. It's an old idea of mine, but I find that whenever I tell people about it they immediately agree with me.

The fact is that the world is divided between users of the Macintosh computer and users of MS-DOS compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counter-reformist and has been influenced by the ratio studiorum of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory; it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach -- if not the kingdom of Heaven -- the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: The essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation.

DOS is Protestant, or even Calvinistic. It allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can achieve salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: Far away from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment.

You may object that, with the passage to Windows, the DOS universe has come to resemble more closely the counter-reformist tolerance of the Macintosh. It's true: Windows represents an Anglican-style schism, big ceremonies in the cathedral, but there is always the possibility of a return to DOS to change things in accordance with bizarre decisions: When it comes down to it, you can decide to ordain women and gays if you want to.1

Naturally, the Catholicism and Protestantism of the two systems have nothing to do with the cultural and religious positions of their users. One may wonder whether, as time goes by, the use of one system rather than another leads to profound inner changes. Can you use DOS and be a Vande supporter? And more: Would Celine have written using Word, WordPerfect, or Wordstar? Would Descartes have programmed in Pascal?

And machine code, which lies beneath and decides the destiny of both systems (or environments, if you prefer)? Ah, that belongs to the Old Testament, and is talmudic and cabalistic. The Jewish lobby, as always....

(1994) © Umberto Eco

1- Obviously, Windows 95, resolutely Anglo-Catholic, complicates this theological panorama today.