Exploring The Beauty Of A Work In Progress

When it comes to digital artworks, we’re used to seeing the final product staring back at us in a gallery space or online, where we get to interact with it and enjoy it as the artist meant us to. But behind the piece lies months of toil, planning, and development—and the work that goes into a project can hold its own beauty and fascination, giving us insight into an artist’s working practices, allowing us to glimpse the constructs and complexities that make up the piece.

It’s this peek behind the virtual scenes that the Debug View Art tumblr from Elliot Woods—one half of art collective Kimchi and Chips—gives us. The project started with the Twitter hashtag #DebugViewArt and a call for entries with Woods then collating the best examples on the tumblr. If you want to submit your own screenshots or check out other submissions you can by following #DebugViewArt.

The images posted on the site and to the hashtag show various works in progress, providing screenshots from media arts systems, capturing the development of the bespoke software the artists create in order to implement their final installation. The project aims to demonstrate “the thinking and techniques behind finished works” while offering a “private view into the acts behind the art.”

Below is a selection of some of the screenshots from the Tumblr.

You can submit your own examples by tweeting @elliotwoods with the hashtag #DebugViewArt.

Work in progress from Red Paper Heart

Work in progress from Ekene Ijeoma

Work in progress from Kyle McDonald

Work in progress from AntiVJ’s Joanie Lemercier

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