artkukulogo2mumia3a.jpg - 156714 Bytes WHAT <font face="jokerman let">KOU KOU</font> STANDS FOR

WHAT KOU KOU STANDS FOR


The essence of Art KOU KOU is the facile selective re-fractalization of reality to represent its alternative planes. To achieve this re-fractalization without effort and under precise artistic control, Art KOU KOU draws upon a new technological hybrid of traditional painting, photography, a full gamut of mathematically-based digital image manipulation technologies, and xerography. It is an art form appropriate to these times when the real and the virtual increasingly blend into each other. It is an art form that has become practical only in the last few years, an art form still largely unexplored and unknown to most traditional artists.

Purple Flower.jpg - 300629 Bytes

The first KOU is for Kaleidoscopic Objectivity Unmasking - the process of unmasking the seemingly monolithic solid nature of what is thought to be objective and instead re-fractalizing it into kaleidoscopic patterns that represent its alternative planes of reality.

K is for Kaleidoscope. A see-through kaleidoscope uses mirrors in a tube to generate variegated perceptions of a scene to which it is pointed. Actually, it is a traditional optical fractal-processing device, used to transform images into alternative representations. As the kaleidoscope is rotated, the representations shift; new patterns appear, old ones fade away. Reality is re-fractalized. The kaleidoscope has been with us for hundred of years. Now, the kaleidoscopic degrees of freedom expressible in a computer using fractal algorithms vastly exceed those of any optical mirror device. And computer-as-kaleidoscope is vastly more subtle and controllable, involving many other dimensions of image constitution besides geometric patterning. The computer and fractal algorithms supersede the optical kaleidoscope.

O is for Objectivity. The Objective is what is presumed to be real or reality, what is thought to be out-there in the real world, what is the basis of science and engineering, the common-sense notion of something existing independently of how it is perceived. Photographs are sometimes thought to be objective in that they show what is there and nothing more.

U is for Unmasking. Unmasking is revealing the true nature of, exposing, removing illusion through explicit re-fractalization of reality to represent certain of its alternative planes. What was thought to be simple and objective is revealed to be only one truth in only one of a manifold of parallel universes; there are actually many truths to the image. The super-kaleidoscopic power of technology is harnessed by the KOU KOU artist to move among those parallel universes and reveal their individual truths.

garabed3.jpg - 347185 Bytes

The second KOU is for Knowing, Orgiastic, and Unbridled, that is applying knowledge. skill and craft to orgiastically liberate the art and artist alike from the constraints of traditional image media.

K is for Knowing, that is, proceeding from possessing knowledge, skill and craft. Mastery of the tools of Art KOU KOU offer control to the artist and precision of what is created not realizable via traditional media.

O is for Orgiastic, characterized by extreme emotion, passion, beyond the intellect, both an individual and shared characteristic. Why not full passionate celebration of life and existence? Creating Art KOU KOU is fun; it is a form of play.

U is for Unbridled, set loose, liberated, free from restraint, outside the traditional box. Even more than the word processor has done for writing, the tools of Art KOU KOU free the artist from mechanical and physical constraints to focus completely on the creative process. The KOU KOU artist can readily travel among alternative image universes, collapsing what would be months and years of effort into hours.

ART KOU KOU AND SOCIETY

soldierboy.jpg - 158740 Bytes

Art KOU KOU serves to encourage pluralism in the interpretation of reality, and therefore it works in the interest of democracy. The message of Art KOU KOU is that there are multiple realities to something so simple as an image. There is a manifold of related realities that the KOU KOU artist can choose to emphasize. The viewer is encouraged to accept the different reality variations as possibilities, each for what they offer, each “true” in its own parallel universe, but none as the one-and-only ABSOLUTE TRUTH. The choice of whether to like or accept a variation of reality is up to the viewer.

Democracy requires a similar acceptance of parallel-universe viewpoints. The effective operation of democracy requires pluralistic acceptance of multiple kinds of people, multiple political constituencies, multiple approaches to a problem, multiple viewpoints, even multiple approaches to what is and what is not a problem. Democracy cannot work when there is a pre-judgment of black-and-white, one acceptable interpretation to a complex situation, one right way to approach a problem with all the other approaches wrong. Democracy can work when a citizen or politician can say to another “I respect you and your viewpoint of the situation, though my viewpoint has been different. And, because I know that viewpoint is a matter of choice, I will consider yours as well as the one I have had."

Art KOU KOU is liberation art.

3d2dthumb.jpg - 33479 Bytes

Art and alternative perceptions of reality

Art and Re-fractalization of reality

KOU KOU in the History of Art

Art KOU KOU Manifesto

KOU KOU Artists

Art KOU KOU home page

Please write us about your reactions to Art KOU KOU at vegiuliano@comcast.net

This site is best viewed using Internet Explorer with screen resolution set to 600 by 800.