Artist Statement

The Museum of Contemporary Art. Prologue (1993), Legend I,III,IV,V,VII,X,XI,XII,XIII,XIV,XV (1992-94)
Iris prints 30.5x46 cm

The series LEGEND includes the computer generated images processed by a variation of the ray tracing algorithm. Un-normalized shading system provided rather complicated features of the surfaces of hyperbolic paraboloid in the Cartesian coordinates. For me, the most interesting aspect of the creative work with computer is the ability of the formula driven image generation. Manipulating the parameters of quadratics and the definitions, such as lighting, surface attributes, location and colors, provides rarely attractive and often boring results. Three years of experience in this series will not make me a master of image control; trial-and-error is the sequence of my way. The yield rate is very low. However, I believe I can find many more good scenes in the mine. The computer is not a tool to process existing images, but a colleague to create images with.

• Yoshiyuki Abe studied photographic engineering at Chiba University, Japan. After freelance activities in photography and film making, his computer graphics project, in both hardware and software, started in 1983. Exhibitions: SISEA (ISEA90), TISEA (ISEA92) FISEA’93 (ISEA93), SIGGRAPH’91, ComputerKunst ’92, ’94 etc. Awards: Prix Ars Electronica’90,’91,’92, Eurographics’91.