I’m pleased to announce that Downgrade has been added to the Man@Machine page. This update was so simple and obvious that it should have happened sooner. I’ve been meaning to update the machine to use a flat screen monitor, and it was a chance to restore the basic, “iconic” nature of the original (known by some as the “iHorn” :).

When I first made these graphics nine years ago, the idea was to create a model that could be infinitely expanded upon to create a kind of graphical “language”. Also, I’m lazy, so I figured I could come up with a system that would let me produce new stuff without having to actually think.

I was partly inspired by Ebon Fisher’s Bionic Codes, though his stuff is obviously more sophisticated. With the ‘Codes, Fisher created the basis for a media “organism” –an entity that he hoped would take on a life of its own as people created their own codes and combined existing ones to communicate original thoughts. Likewise, I’d hoped that people would use the Man@Machine images to communicate ideas, and to a small extent that is finally happening (I’ve seen the images pop up here and there in message board postings). The “person at a computer” setting seemed like a nice neutral ground to explore a wide range of emotions and activities, and man’s relationship with machines is a topic of interest to me. I also wanted to capture that whole “street sign” look–like “Men at Work”, except it’s “Man at Machine”!

In any event, somewhere along the line I lost sight of the original idea, and instead of expanding the language, all I did was make increasingly complex images. The “iHorn” definitely needed improvement, but Upgrade went too far in adding detail to the machine element. Uberpunk went even further, and while I think it looks cool, it’s not what Man@Machine is all about. It’s too detailed and it’s not really expandable (that machine is only appropriate for that particular man).

Well I’m back on track and I plan to crank these things out. First, though, I need to create a new version of Dead, which for some reason is the most popular, and Automate, which was always one of my personal favorites.

Well, I hope you like the new image. Stay tuned!

-Matt

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 30th, 2006 at 3:33 pm and is filed under Workshop. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.