Holger Lippmann: Paintings From A Child Of The Computer Age

From Depth Matrix series

Holger Lippmann's generative paintings are pixelated cascades that come in many forms. Sometimes they are frames to what looks like unquantifiable movement, sometimes they are patterns resembling chromed-out quilts, and often they suggest the graininess and form of natural landscapes even though they are so clearly derived from technology. He makes most of them using Processing, the open-source and very user-friendly software initiated by Casey Reas and Benjamin Fry in 2001.

Lippmann found his way to generative art by jumping into Berlin's electronic music scene in the mid-90s. He came from a more traditional visual arts background but once immersed in electronica, and after some initial exposure to computer-based art, he went full in to making it his working environment. As he notes on his site, "I knew I have to work the same way the music I was listening to was made."

Lippmann began by experimenting with other languages, but by 2007 identified Processing as his primary medium. As an ideological base, the concept Lippmann currently associates with his work is Lumicon, an idea suggesting the mash-up of light and an icon, which is generally understood as a visual representation of another form produced on a surface. Yet in the context of his work, the icon half of the word has a second meaning as the simple graphic symbol that stands for a program or command in a computer's user interface. In mind and execution, technology is deep in the soul of Lippmann's work.

From Iteration Error series

From Engravings series

From Corrosive Landscape series

From Noise Scape series

From E*Pastel series

All images courtesy Holger Lippmann.

@Bobby4Apples