the scannography blog

Jaime Ruas is a spanish graphic designer and painter.
We added a page in the technic part of our site where Jaime explains his very special technic of painting.

Jaime has build a special box in which he can mix, paint, add liquids while scanning. He explains : "This box allows many different techniques to paint in it, without damaging the normal operation of the scanner. The different techniques used in this box are over thirty. Amongst them, you can make collages with damp paper, pencils, watercolors, acrylic paints, wax, adhesive tapes, inks, fabrics, wood, metal, and can paint with brushes, sponges, or even with bare hands, the possibilities of artistic creation is endless."

I hope that his revealing of a special method will give others the idea to try and find new directions to develop this artform. Thank you Jaime…

Sergey Sorokin is a diverse artist touching all kind of medias.

His scannographys are abstract and geometrical. Far from the standards we slowly create by being a community of artists. But that's also what makes him interesting. He uses the scanner in a non-conventional way. Colorfull, presenting very repetitive motives, using often printed papers as ground material for his images, he doesn't fit completely in what we now call scannography.
Sergey takes the scanner lens out of the scanner and rambles it on the objects or things he want to interpretate. This approach is very new, I think, and certainly allows a lot of new images to appear. My regret is he stayed a bit too classic in what he showed. I suppose he will try out lots of things in the next future (why not body parts, screens, animals…). For those who are ready to try this technic I'm sure this will open new areas of creation. So, thank you Sergey, for presenting us these images and a good continuation to you.

Patri presents a new site full of new scanns, technics and informations.
Patri's site remains one of the most important sites for what concerns scannography. She still has links to DigitalArt gallery, where she gives classes.

Here are some of Patri's new scanns :

I hope you will all take a look and give her your impressions.

Here are some recent news from Josie :
"The pumpkins have been carved, the seeds roasted, we are deep into November and starting to think about sweet potatoes and cranberries.  A recent meander through the conceptually and materially impeccable sculptures of Martin Puryear at SFMOMA was as peaceful and awe striking as my wander on the beach a couple of days later. Thousands of sand dollars sat whole at the tides edge, their five-fold etched petaloids staring up from the sand.  Form, in both instances, at a wondrous apex.  A few events are coming up to celebrate the books, and to provide a sneak preview of the next project: a book of beach treasure. I look forward to seeing many of you.   Saturday, December 6 10am - 6pm:    Kitchen Table Studio's Holiday Fair    St.Teresa's, 19th & Connecticut,  Potrero Hill, SF.  A fun, seasonal and neighborly group of artists selling their wares and sharing sumptuous snacks.  I will be selling all four books and will have prints for sale.  Please stop by. Heart Stones makes a great stocking stuffer and bring one of the other books to every holiday party! Wednesday, December 10, 12:30 pm:  California Academy of Sciences Talk and book signing with Sandy Carlson and scientists from the museum. Come celebrate the Seashells collaboration with the Academy at the new location in Golden Gate Park.  Forthcoming information will be up on their site. Visuals Unlimited, a stock photo agency specializing in science, has many of the images from my books. Please let any textbook editors or magazine photo directors know. Their new website will be up in December."
You can find more informations on Josie's own site.

Patri Feher just reviewed the list of Master Directory of Scanography.

I added the list to download on the scannography site (on the left of the page, under the buttons). It is a very complete list of artists Patri has compiled through the years. Not only has she searched for most artists using this technic but she also listed Flick'r groups, forums, tutorials and more…

So if you searched for infos about scannography, this is a must-have !!

The new artist on our site, John Greschak, has a very particular approach to scannography.
For him this is a technique to approach the invisible. Here is a part of his explanation from his own site :
When I look at close-up scans that I have taken of glass marbles, I see beings. Some are human-like; others are not. Sometimes they are alone. In other cases, they are in groups within a scene like one would see in a photograph. Occasionally, I see isolated inanimate objects as well (e.g. a bottle or an automobile). Some beings and scenes appear to be from the past; others are futuristic. These beings and objects are of various sizes. Usually, they are overlapping and transparent. Images that I have cropped from these scans admit different interpretations, like an optical illusion. They can be extremely complex. I enjoy looking at these images. I find them to be very interesting; fascinating.

These things that I see within images of glass marbles are inconspicuous, especially under normal viewing conditions. In order to see them more clearly, I use special techniques. My primary objective in writing this article is to describe my methods so you might derive as much pleasure from these images as I do. At the same time, I would like to provide detailed information for investigators who seek to explain the nature of the phenomenon considered here.

I let everyone judge his visions and Art. For my part I just see here a complete and coherent universe. It's not each image alone that is interesting, it's the whole concept that has to be taken in consideration. Nothing to do with what John sees (or thinks he sees) in his glass marble, you believe it or not (I don't, this is, for me, like the Rorschach's tests : everyone sees in them what he needs or wants to see), but you can't stay untouched by the coherence and strange strength that comes out of the whole.

I hope this very special artist will make you react and leave some comments here…

Janet Dwyer has won some important prices (In 2007 the world’s most prestigious photography competition, the Pilsner Urquell International Photography Awards). Her attention to details and moods gives strenght to her images as well as a kind of poetry not missing some humor ! She doesnt hesitate to add other elements to the flowers and compose them so our imagination can play and see much more then the flowers she has scanned…
Take a look at the main site as well as on her own site.


flying dream


tango

A young talented artist from Mississipi joined us : Rosalynn Stovall.

You can discover her on her own blog and see that she is already an accomplished and versatile artist touching collage, drawing, scannography and writing.
A wonderfull eye, superb and nervous pencil touch, great imagination, she is touching every possible fields and seems to have no limits to express herself. I wish her a lot of success.


Organic-Shadow-Play


Pills

A third french scannographer, Simon Gris appears today on the scannography site. His portraits tend to prove that, yes, scannography can be done with humor !
Here are two examples of his Art :

You can also discover lots of Simon self-portraits, that he classsifies in strange categories, on his own website.. But even if Simon proves a lot of humor in his images this goes with a great sense of composing, contrasts and quality…

…but is this still what we call scannography ?

Somewhere between medical imagery and artistic research, Rodolphe Gombergh proposed 2006 an exhibition called "transparent women" (festival @rt outsiders). Sophisticated technology allows him to show us the inside of human bodies without having to introduce camera in them. The radiologist uses medical scanners to obtain these images…



This is Art for sure, medical maybe but is it scannography ? What do you think ?

And to have an animated view of Rodolphe's Art go to this page. It can seem deranging, strange, weird but there is beauty here and also an other way to see ourselves !!!