David Em
David Em, Transjovian Pipeline, 1979, Digital Image
Born	1952 Los Angeles, California
Nationality	American
Field	Digital Art
Training	Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. American Film Institute.

David Em (born 1952) is an American computer artist.

Contents 1 Life and work 2 Scope of Work 3 Notes 4 Bibliography 5 External links

[edit] Life and work

David Em is one of the first artists to make art with pixels.^[1] He was born in Los Angeles and grew up in South America. He studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and film directing at the American Film Institute.

Em created digital paintings at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC) in 1975 with SuperPaint, "the first complete digital paint system".^[1] In 1976, he made an articulated digital insect at Information International, Inc. (III) that could jump and fly, the first such 3D character created by an artist.^[2] Em produced his first navigable virtual worlds in 1977, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where he was Artist in Residence from 1977 to 1984.^[3] He also created artwork at the California Institute of Technology (1985 – 1988), and Apple Computer (1991).^[4] Em has worked independently since the early nineties.

His art has been exhibited in museums, including the Centre Pompidou, the Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art, the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and the Seibu Museum in Tokyo. His work is in the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Everson Museum as well as private collections.

[edit] Scope of Work

David Em, Glacier, 1998, Digital Image.

Em's digital art spans multiple media, including printmaking, filmmaking, photography, and all-electronic virtual worlds. He has also worked with live performance and theater ^[5]

Em's work has connections to surrealist and abstract painting and film. There are also strong landscape and architectural elements, and some pieces feature extremely geometric components.

Many of his early works done at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the 1970s have deep space-related themes. In the 1980s he incorporated light effects reminiscent of the French Impressionists,^[6] and in the 1990s he introduced otherworldly creatures into his work. After 2001, an apocalyptic element appears in his imagery.

He says he sculpts with “memory instead of space” and makes pictures with “light instead of paint.” ^[7]. He also evolves images so that they “grow into and out of each other” ^[8]

His artwork has appeared in popular media, including the covers of Herbie Hancock's Future Shock, Sound-System, and Perfect Machine albums and one of the electronic versions of William Gibson’s Neuromancer.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} Perry, T. & Wallich, P.:"Inside the PARC: The Information Architects", Pages 68-69, "IEEE Spectrum", October 1985
2. ^ Sorensen, P. "Computer Pictures", "David Em Modern Master" May 1988
3. ^ Nelson, Ted "Creative Computing", "Report on Siggraph '81", March 1982
4. ^ Haggerty, M. "IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications" page 4 "Computer Painting in a Different Light." Nov. 1992
5. ^ Michie, Donald and Rory Johnston. “The Creative Computer”, Viking, 1984, pp. 139-140
6. ^ Trachtman, P. "Smithsonian Magazine" "Impressionist with a Computer" 1988.
7. ^ Deken, Joseph “Computer Images: State of the Art,” , Stewart, Tabori, and Chang, 1983, page 133
8. ^ Wands, Bruce. “Art of the Digital Age”, Thames and Hudson, 2006, page 48

[edit] Bibliography

• Zelanski, Paul and Mary Pat Fisher. The Art of Seeing. 7th Ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ. Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007.
• Kleiner, Fred S. and Christin J. Mamiya. Gardner's Art Through the Ages. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.12th Ed., March 2004.
• Ross, David. The Art of David Em. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988.
• Bradbury, Ray. “Em Squared”. David Em at OCCA. Orange County Center for Contemporary Art exhibition catalogue,1984.

[edit] External links

• David Em's Website
• Computer Art & Technoculture Interview, February, 2009
• Digital Art Museum (DAM) Profile
• Siggraph Artist Profile