Richard van Hoesel


	Richard van Hoesel Melbourne, VIC, Australia
		Listen to this artist. (AU 80K)
		E-mail this artist at vanhoeselr@mail.medoto.unimelb.edu.au.

My use of computers in visual art started about six years ago. I've always had a strong interest in synthetic algorithms and machines to manipulate both image and sound. At the same time, I'm rarely happier than when I'm absorbing nature a round me; 'just being' in a dry silent desert or high in an icy, snow-drenched mountain landscape for days on end, or even just wafting through the local alley ways looking for rusty doors. The two seemingly opposite existances - the 'synthetic' and the 'organic' often meet in my digital photographs. I try to resolve what seems to

be a multi faceted mode of existing in my work. There appears to be a perpetual struggle between chaos and order, between life and death, between the now and the eternal, and between the known and the unknowable. Eastern philosophies, perhaps, would consi der that the opposites are illusions, and that the struggle is without meaning - but that it is well that we struggle, for it is our fate.

Often, I try to embrace uncertainty as part of the process. Knowledge, somehow just seems like a simplistic sketch of the living process that enables us to survive - a kind of lifeboat in a sea of doubt. In my work, this kind of uncertainty is sometimes portrayed by unrecognizable objects and textures. The balance between the opposites is determined by my personal view of the subject matter of the image, which in itself can at times be unclear during the creative process. The balance is portrayed in either form or texture, or both. I try to use a lot of 'organic' textures which, to me, evoke richer sent iments than synthetic ones. At least half of my (analog) photography these days is concerned with complex textures. These textures are used to either enhance or contrast the images. Looking at, for example, "Past, Presence, Future; Indifferent Structures, " an image concerned with the unavoidable permanence of time, textures of decay are heavily employed - symbolic of the finite, of death and extinction. Found objects are often scanned directly and included into photo-scenes at unrecognizable or unusual sc ales. They often become part of new objects or are broken down into multiple objects. The 'light' throughout the image is then used to tie it all together.