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NET-ART OS: An Experiment in Archive Discovery

NET-ART OS: An Experiment in Archive Discovery

6-5-2026

Since 2017, the NET-ART website here on the CUNY Academic Commons has grown into a substantial collection of teaching materials, tutorials, art works, software resources, project ideas, assignments, technology references, collaborations, reflections on digital art, design, and emerging media and more!

Over the years, the archive continued to expand. New content was added regularly, categories evolved, and hundreds of posts accumulated. Like many long-running educational websites, the archive became increasingly valuable, but also increasingly difficult to fully explore.

This led me to a simple question:

How can a large educational archive become more discoverable without changing the archive itself?

That question became the starting point for a new experiment called NET-ART OS.

 

What Is NET-ART OS?

NET-ART OS is an experimental command-line archive discovery system built on top of the public NET-ART archive. Rather than replacing the website, it creates an additional layer that helps explore, search, organize, and better understand the content that already exists.

The goal is not to redesign the archive.

The goal is to make the archive easier to explore, and to curiously see what that potential of that is, in and of itself.

 

How The Project Began

The project began as a conversation about academic archives, discovery, and interdisciplinary learning.

What would happen if a long-running educational website could be ingested, organized locally, and explored through new forms of search and analysis? We have the tools, indeed.

Could patterns emerge that were difficult to see through traditional website navigation?

Could archives become more useful as they grow rather than more difficult to navigate?

To explore these questions, I began building a local prototype called NET-ART OS.

 

Building The First Prototype

The first version of NET-ART OS was developed locally on my MacBook Pro using Claude Code running directly within Terminal.

The goal was to create a lightweight system capable of:

  • Ingesting public NET-ART content
  • Organizing content locally
  • Performing archive-wide searches
  • Generating archive statistics
  • Exploring relationships between topics
  • Creating timeline views of archive activity
  • Exporting archive data for future research and experimentation

The development process involved building, testing, debugging, and validating the system directly against the public NET-ART archive.

 

 

The Technology Stack

NET-ART OS currently uses:

  • Claude Code
  • macOS Terminal
  • Python
  • SQLite
  • Typer CLI Framework
  • HTTPX
  • BeautifulSoup
  • SQLite Full Text Search (FTS5)
  • JSON exports
  • CSV exports

The project architecture also includes a framework for future experimentation with language models and semantic search, although these capabilities are not required for the current functionality.

At its core, NET-ART OS is an archive discovery tool.

 

Initial Results

The first successful ingest of the public NET-ART archive produced:

  • 598 total records
  • 587 posts
  • 11 pages
  • 97,587 words
  • 19 categories
  • 426 tags

The archive currently spans content published between 2017 and 2026.

Once ingested, the archive could be explored as a unified collection rather than a series of individual web pages.

 

Current Features

The prototype currently supports:

*Archive Statistics

*Generate summaries of archive size, content types, categories, tags, and publication dates.

*Archive Search

*Search across the entire archive from a single interface.

*Timeline Exploration

*View archive activity across multiple years.

*Topic Connections

*Explore relationships between categories, tags, and topics.

*Data Export

*Export archive content for future analysis and experimentation.

 

Why This Matters

Many educational websites and academic archives face a similar challenge.

As content grows, discovery becomes more difficult.

Important materials remain available but become harder to locate.

Connections between ideas often remain hidden.

NET-ART OS explores whether a discovery layer can help reveal those connections.

 

For example:

A student interested in accessibility might discover related content involving digital storytelling, virtual reality, interface design, or creative technology.

An educator might identify recurring themes that emerged across multiple years of teaching materials.

A researcher might uncover unexpected relationships between topics that were never intentionally linked together.

The archive remains the same.

The pathways through the archive expand. (insert image of a lightbulb above your head for the idea that you just had, yes?)

 

Looking Forward

NET-ART OS remains an experiment.

The current version is intentionally lightweight and local.

Future directions may include:

  • Semantic search
  • Enhanced relationship mapping
  • Visual exploration interfaces
  • Interdisciplinary discovery tools
  • Archive comparison tools
  • Additional export and research features

The larger question remains open:

How might we help people discover more within the archives they already maintain?

 

Early Discoveries from the Archive

Once the initial prototype was built and the NET-ART archive was successfully ingested, I began testing the system against real course content spanning nearly a decade of teaching, writing, exhibitions, assignments, and creative experiments (images, GIFS,etc).

The results were surprisingly revealing:

“Virtual Reality” is Connected to Teaching, Storytelling, and Exhibition Design

A search and connection analysis around “Virtual Reality” revealed that VR is not an isolated topic within the archive. Instead, it consistently appears alongside:

• AR / VR
• Video Art & New Media
• Teaching Resources
• Digital Storytelling
• Exhibition Design
• Open Educational Resources (OER)

The archive effectively mapped a conceptual journey from early writings about augmented reality and “default reality” in 2017 through public AR projects, educational resources, and ultimately into recent virtual exhibitions and mixed reality studio experiments.

What emerged was not simply a collection of VR posts, but an intellectual thread spanning multiple years of creative and educational practice.

 

“Accessibility” and “Deaf Culture” Form a Core Theme

One of the most compelling discoveries emerged from exploring Deaf culture and accessibility-related content.

The system identified recurring relationships between:

• American Sign Language (ASL)
• Accessibility
• Inclusion
• Communication
• Learning
• Community

Rather than appearing as isolated awareness posts, Deaf culture and accessibility were revealed as recurring themes embedded throughout teaching resources, writing assignments, exhibitions, and digital art projects.

This confirmed something that category counts alone could never reveal: accessibility is not a side topic within the archive. It is one of its foundational values.

 

The Archive Reveals Its Own Evolution

The timeline analysis surfaced an unexpected narrative arc across nearly ten years of content:

  • 2017–2019 were dominated by high-volume experimentation with GIFs, Net Art, and Digital Art.
  • From 2020 onward, the archive shifted toward fewer but significantly longer essays and reflective writing.
  • By 2026, Artificial Intelligence, Teaching Resources, and Creative Technology emerged as dominant themes.

Without any manual tagging or interpretation, the archive revealed a visible progression:

GIF Experiments → Digital Art Essays → AI, Creative Technology, and Teaching

In many ways, the archive became a form of self-documentation, exposing patterns and intellectual trajectories that would have been difficult to identify manually.

 

Why This Matters

The goal of NET-ART OS is not simply to search archives more efficiently.

Its larger purpose is to help educators, artists, students, researchers, and Digital Humanities practitioners discover unexpected relationships hidden within large collections of public knowledge.

Rather than replacing human interpretation, systems like this can help reveal new pathways for inquiry, interdisciplinary learning, curriculum development, and creative research.

The most exciting outcome so far is that the archive is already teaching us something new about itself.

 

An Invitation

If you maintain a teaching archive, research archive, course website, digital humanities project, or long-running collection of public content, I encourage you to consider experimenting with similar approaches.

What patterns might emerge from your archive?

What connections remain hidden?

What new forms of exploration become possible when an archive is treated as a collection of relationships rather than simply a collection of pages?

 

NET-ART OS began as a small experiment built in a single day. (lol)

I am excited to see where it leads next.

NET-ART OS began as an experiment in archive discovery, but it quickly became something else. As the system analyzed nearly a decade of course materials, exhibitions, assignments, and creative research, it revealed patterns that were previously invisible. At the same time, the NET-ART archive itself is evolving into a record of a much larger cultural transition: from digital art and net art toward AI, archives, agents, mixed reality, and new forms of human-machine collaboration. In that sense, the archive is no longer just documenting history. It is documenting the emergence of the future as it happens.

This project was developed entirely through a human–AI collaborative workflow using Claude Code running locally on a personal workstation. The resulting system operates as a local-first archive discovery tool, demonstrating how emerging AI-assisted development practices can support research, teaching, and public scholarship.

 

My AI Agent Bought My Own Digital Product – Here’s What That Actually Means

On March 25, 2026, something quietly historic happened on my website ryanseslow.com

I wanted to share with my CUNY / Commons community. I am both incredibly excited, scared, curious and terrified of AI. That being said, I am also a deaf /hard of hearing person / artist who has relied on ART as my primary language for survival since I am a child. I see AI as both a tool and a medium. Add 50 plus years of life to that making art and the compounding results are very curious…

I asked an AI agent to buy one of my digital products. Not to test a shopping cart. Not to simulate a transaction. To actually do it, discover the product, create an order, send real money, and receive the download. No human in the checkout loop.

It worked.

The infrastructure behind this project is a synthesis of forty years of creative output and a high-speed seven day sprint in technical integration. To bridge the gap between a traditional art archive and the emerging agent economy, I had to weave together a complex ecosystem of blockchain networks, autonomous agent platforms, and custom-built software. This transition was not just about installing a plugin; it was about creating a new kind of digital interface where machines can discover and license work with zero human friction. For those interested in the underlying mechanics, I have provided the complete technical stack, including every platform, custom plugin, and agent-specific account involved, in the appendix at the bottom of this post.

I have an AI agent called AREMES-CLAW-01. It runs on a platform called OpenClaw/MyClaw. Think of it as a digital assistant that can browse the web, read data, and make decisions, but instead of just giving me information, it can take actions.

I set it loose on my own website with one goal: buy the Graphic Asset Mega Pack Vol. 1.

The Evolution of the Transaction

It is important to note that reaching this full autonomy happened in two distinct stages over the course of today. First, we validated the Hybrid Handshake. In that version, AREMES-CLAW-01 did all the heavy lifting of discovery and order creation, but the payment was finalized by a human using a Stripe URL the agent provided. This proved the site could talk to an agent and create a valid order within traditional financial rails.

Once that hybrid bridge was confirmed, we moved to the final milestone described in the seven steps below. In that second, definitive transaction (Order 28229), the Stripe page was eliminated entirely. The agent shifted to the x402 protocol, received a quote, and verified a USDC transfer on the Base blockchain. That is the version where the checkout form and the human disappeared completely, leaving only a direct machine to machine exchange.

Here’s what it did, entirely on its own:

1. Read my product catalog as structured data (not by scraping a webpage)
2. Found the product, confirmed the price ($49 USDC)
3. Created a purchase order tagged with its own agent ID
4. Requested a payment quote
5. Verified that 49 USDC was sent to my wallet on the Base blockchain
6. Received confirmation that the transaction was complete
7. Got the download link

The whole flow took minutes. No shopping cart. No checkout form. No Stripe page. Just a direct, machine-to-machine transaction.. 

What is USDC? What is Base?

USDC is a digital dollar, one USDC equals one US dollar, always. It runs on blockchains instead of through banks.

Base is a blockchain network built by Coinbase. Transactions on Base are fast and the fees are nearly zero. It’s where more and more digital commerce is starting to happen.

Why Does This Matter for Artists and Creators?

Right now, if an AI agent wants to license an image, buy a font, or purchase a digital asset, it has to either ask a human to do it or navigate a checkout page it wasn’t built for. There’s no standard way for agents to transact directly with sellers.

That’s changing. The x402 protocol is an emerging standard that lets AI agents pay for things autonomously, no checkout page, no human middleman. You get a quote, send payment, get your asset. Done.

I built this infrastructure into my website because I believe the next wave of creative licensing won’t come from humans browsing a store. It’ll come from AI agents working on behalf of humans discovering and purchasing creative work programmatically.

My catalog is ready for that. The receipt is on the blockchain.. 

A2A-transactions-myclaw.ai-ryan seslow - agentic commerece receipt

What’s Next?

The one part that still required a human was the wallet, I manually sent the USDC from my Coinbase account. The next step is giving the agent its own funded wallet so it can complete the entire transaction without me touching anything.

That’s Milestone 4 and it is coming soon!!

The On-Chain Receipt

Transaction:
`0xae709d786893a76291a111c4c052d63f02480ba1376f631d6e65a8da104b4bc0`

Verify it yourself on Base:
https://basescan.org/tx/0xae709d786893a76291a111c4c052d63f02480ba1376f631d6e65a8da104b4bc0

Order ID: 28229 | Agent: AREMES-CLAW-01 | Paid: 2026-03-25T14:35 UTC

This is what agent-to-artist commerce looks like in 2026. I’m building it in public and documenting every step, which is fun.

PS -> Technical Implementation Notes for Developers and Creators

The bridge between a creative archive and the agent economy is built on three specific layers that were integrated into this site during this seven day sprint.

Layer 1 – Structured Data Every one of the nine thousand images and one thousand posts in this archive is now wrapped in VisualArtwork and Product schema. This makes the archive a queryable database rather than just a collection of webpages.

Layer 2 – The rsmad v1 API We moved away from traditional browser-based commerce and built a custom REST API namespace. This allows an agent to request a quote, initiate a purchase, and verify a transaction hash programmatically.

Layer 3 – The x402 Protocol By using the x402 standard for payment required headers, the website can communicate financial requirements directly to an agent. This removes the need for a human to navigate a visual checkout UI.

Why I Am Building This as a Service?

Most creative professionals have decades of work sitting in invisible archives. These archives are currently unreadable and untransactable for the AI agents that are increasingly responsible for content discovery and licensing. I am now offering this exact infrastructure as a service for artists, designers, agencies, estates, etc.. I build the technical bridge that makes your life’s work machine-readable, discoverable, and capable of autonomous transaction in the emerging agent economy.

If you have a significant archive and want to make it ready for the next decade of digital commerce, let’s talk!

a Digital illustration of remixed artworks by ryan Seslow - collaborated with the google gemini nano banana enamel pin material.

How to Connect Your Agent to the RSMAD Archive?

If you are a developer or an agent owner, you can now point your agents to the following discovery endpoints to begin interacting with the archive:

Primary Discovery: ryanseslow com/.well-known/ai-plugin.json Agent Instructions: ryanseslow com/llms.txt Machine Catalog: ryanseslow com/wp-json/rsmad/v1/catalog

The infrastructure is live. The interface is open. The agent economy has arrived at the Ryan Seslow Museum of Art and Design.

YES, this was a controlled transaction, but it points to something much larger.

For the first time, a creative archive on this website is not just viewable or searchable. It is actionable by software. That changes the role of a website entirely. Instead of waiting for someone to arrive, browse, and decide, the system can now respond to requests, negotiate terms, and complete transactions programmatically.

That opens the door to a different kind of economy:

  • agents sourcing visual assets for generative systems
  • software licensing design components on demand
  • archives being accessed as structured, transactional datasets

In that context, the work itself becomes part of a live network, not a static destination.

This is still early. Most agents today do not have wallets, budgets, or decision authority. But the infrastructure is beginning to align, and this is what that alignment looks like at a small scale. I am not approaching this as a platform builder or a startup (I think, but hmmm). I am approaching it as an artist with a large, long-term archive who wants that work to remain accessible and relevant in a system where machines increasingly mediate access.

The goal is:

Make the archive readable
Make it discoverable
Make it transactable

Everything else builds from there.

If you are working on agents, archives, or systems that need structured creative input, this is now live and testable. If you are a creator sitting on a large body of work that is currently invisible to this layer of the web, this is solvable. This is not theoretical anymore.

Thank you! 

 

 

NET-ART Rolling Submissions Forever

NET-ART’s Rolling Open Call for Submissions!

It’s that time again — and it’s bigger than ever!

The NET-ART Open Call is now officially live and accepting submissions on a rolling basis. This is your invitation to create, experiment, and share your work with a global audience through our open education platform.

What is NET-ART on the Commons?

NET-ART on the Commons is a living, breathing archive of digital creativity, experimental pedagogy, and collaborative innovation. We celebrate works that explore the possibilities of the internet, emerging technologies, and contemporary digital tools.

We’re seeking submissions in the following categories:

  • Experimental Electronic Media and Pedagogy
  • Animated GIFs and Motion Graphics
  • Digital Art and AI-Assisted Artwork
  • Video Art / Experimental Film / Short Form Storytelling
  • Browser-Based Net Art Projects (interactive websites, web experiences)
  • Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) Art
  • AI-Prompted or AI-Generated Projects
  • Digital and Analog Zines (single artist or group collaborations)
  • Class or Course Collaborative Projects
  • Curatorial Projects (curate and present a group exhibition)
  • Solo Digital Exhibitions
  • Other Interdisciplinary “Otherness” (surprise us!)

Need a spark to get started?

Explore our growing library of Free Digital Tools and Resources that can help you create, publish, and share your work across platforms.

Curious to see what has been done before?
Dive into our Past Projects and Submissions Archive for inspiration.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions are welcome from:

  • CUNY faculty, students (all levels), alumni, and community members
  • CUNY classes and courses (collaborative submissions encouraged)
  • CUNY-affiliated artists collaborating with others beyond the CUNY network

Each submission should include:

  • A clear written description of your project’s vision, context, and meaning
  • Supporting images, links, or media files as needed

Accepted projects will be:

  • Published as feature blog posts
  • Showcased in relevant online galleries
  • Exhibited as individual pages or archives depending on project scope

Participants should be willing to engage with comments, feedback, and public conversations across our platform and social media extensions.

This open call is an opportunity to build a living digital anthology — a shared resource for teaching, learning, reference, and creative exploration across time and communities.

Send your questions, proposals, and submissions to:

📧 [email protected]

Net Art 2.0: Expanding Creativity Through AI and Open Access

Net Art 2.0: Expanding Creativity Through AI and Open Access

If you’ve found your way here, welcome!
You’re stepping into a platform that’s always been about more than just “art.”

When I first created Net-Art as an Open Education Resource for the CUNY Academic Commons, it was with one goal in mind: to offer an accessible, flexible, and creative space for anyone, anywhere, to experiment, express, and connect through digital tools.
We explored early web making, animated GIFs, vaporwave aesthetics, glitch art, augmented reality experiments — all fueled by the same spirit: freedom to create!

For the last year or so, I took a natural pause..
(Artists know — evolution happens in cycles.)
During that time, my creative life expanded in ways I could never have fully predicted: major commissions, deeper explorations into virtual and augmented reality, and a whole new relationship with artificial intelligence as a creative partner.

Today, it’s time to officially evolve Net-Art into its next form:
Net Art 2.0.

What stays the same:
The mission remains, open access, creativity, experimentation, and joyful exploration.

What grows:
We are welcoming AI as a new ally in the creative process!

AI is not here to replace artists, designers, educators or art and design educators..
It’s here to expand our reach, help us prototype faster, spark unexpected ideas, and bridge the gaps between imagination and reality. Just like when we first explored glitching GIFs or remixing early memes, AI is simply another tool to push creative frontiers.

In the coming months, you’ll find:

  • New assignment prompts that integrate traditional net art practices plus AI co-creation
  • Resources on using AI ethically and creatively
  • Explorations of how machine learning intersects with human storytelling
  • Open dialogues about where technology and art-making meet (and clash)
  • Lots of new experiments (because that’s the heart of this place)

This isn’t about abandoning the past.
It’s about taking everything we’ve learned from graphic design, digital art, blogging, storytelling, HTML experiments to animated GIF narratives and adding powerful new dimensions.

Net-Art was always a living, breathing, evolving organism!

Now it’s ready to breathe a little bigger, dream a little wilder, and reach a little further.

Thank you for being here.
Thank you for continuing to explore, question, and create.
The next chapter is going to be even more amazing — and you’re already part of it.

Let’s keep building it, together!

How to Create Paper Cut-Out Art: Tips & Techniques for Beginners

Back again with another lil’ series of 2D wall relief paper cut-out forms. Both of the pieces below follow the same process and technique. Im really happy with the process and outcomes. Im working on animating them as we speak. I’ll add them to this post later, so be sure to check back! My paintings inspire my drawings, and my drawings are inspired by those same forms found in my paintings. It makes sense that every so often I want to make those forms “pop out” and off the surface of a flat plane. Alas, it all starts with a quick sketch. See below, just a series of light loose free flowing lines take the lead, forward ->

Here we have a dude posing for a profile style portrait. Most likely, this is inspired by the NYC B-Boys from the years 1983 – 87ish. Either way, it’s nostalgia for me. Once the sketch feels good, I’ll break out the paper and x-acto knife. I keep telling myself that one day Ill work with another material other than paper for these works, perhaps wood or metal.. It will happen, I can foresee it for sure, hang in there. Im using a white bristol paper for the cut outs, I believe is the vellum type and not the glossy, but either or will work just fine. I love to cut paper and the whole medium of paper art in general.

Paper cut-outs, also known as paper cutting or Kirigami, is a traditional art form that involves cutting shapes and designs out of paper. The history of paper cutting can be traced back to ancient China and Japan, where it was practiced as a folk art. The Chinese and Japanese would create intricate designs, often featuring animals, plants, and mythical creatures, and use them as decorations for festivals and special occasions.

Using the sketch above, I apply the “map” of the shapes and forms that I see. Sometimes I redraw those forms on the paper that I will cut out, and sometimes I just “draw” with the x-acto knife to recreate the forms. Sometimes, it’s a combination of both of those techniques. There is also a series of “out-take / byproduct” cut outs that do not make the final piece, those can be saved and used for the next piece, obviously!

More history, for context – the art of paper cutting spread to other parts of Asia, including Korea, where it evolved into unique styles and techniques. In Japan, for example, paper cutting was used to create delicate and intricate designs for paper lanterns and screens. In Europe, paper cutting was popularized during the Renaissance and was often used to create elaborate decorative patterns for books and other printed materials. Check the bottom of this post for a list of other artists that work with the medium.

I layer the forms on top of each other to compose the arrangement as a whole, its fun to watch it all come together, in the next phase, you will need some kind of durable tape or you can make little paper forms that can be pasted to both sides of the forms as they stack, this will create the gauge and depth of the piece once it is placed onto the wall.

This is the final composition above, I love it! I used a roll of duct tape to make small cylinder forms that connect the pieces together, the piece as a whole comes “off of the surface of the wall” by about 1.5 – 2″ inches – you can play with this a bit but keep in mind, the tape makes the piece heavier and it will want to comply with gravity 🙂

I hung the piece (also temporarily adhered via the same duct tape) for the photoshoot and to also get a good look at how it will function on the wall. I have an old painted fire place in my studio that is a great surface for hanging things, I love the contrast of textures between the bricks and the paper, as you know, the shadows will be super cool to see too.

Once I had the whole piece constructed I took a few pictures of it. I immediately wanted a clean vector line drawing of the whole character. I brought the photo into adobe Fresco and used a vector brush to draw this lovely variation. This is how my brain works, I switch paths because I know they are really pipelines to the “next thing” that I will push this to, so forward we go. I can see this potentially becoming a new logo for an aspect of my design biz, or at least a new t-shirt in the classic newyawk series

Then, it was light source and photo shoot time. Im not really happy with these picture as traditional “photographs” as I know I can do a much better job, but, as a series of “sketches” for a planned photo shoot, these will really help to make those plans a reality. I love neon colored lights. I have a bunch of them from various places and spaces that I found on the internet. Amazon has a great selection of flashlights with various colored light options. Get a few and play around with how the light can effect your work and the shadows that it creates. This is where the depth and gauge of your pieces play a role. The photos below are also a part of the same session, which all took place over a few days. What do you think? Shall I make more?

In the 20th century, paper cutting experienced a resurgence in popularity as an art form in its own right. Notable artists who have contributed to the art of paper cutting include:

  1. Béatrice Coron: A French artist who has created intricate and expansive paper cut-out installations for public spaces and galleries around the world.
  2. Yoo Hyun-mi: A South Korean artist who creates paper cut-outs that explore themes of identity and cultural heritage.
  3. Hina Aoyama: A Japanese artist known for her intricate paper cut-outs of animals and natural landscapes.
  4. Elsa Mora: A Cuban-American artist who creates whimsical paper cut-outs that often feature fantastical creatures and characters.
  5. Hunt Slonem: An American artist known for his large-scale paper cut-outs of birds and butterflies.
  6. Xiyadie: A Chinese artist who creates intricate paper cut-outs of traditional Chinese motifs and landscapes.
  7. Hari and Deepti: An Indian artist duo who create mesmerizing paper cut-out scenes using layers of intricately cut paper.
  8. Karen Bit Vejle: A Danish artist known for her intricate paper cut-outs that often feature patterns inspired by nature.
  9. Nikki McClure: An American artist who creates minimalist paper cut-outs that often explore themes of motherhood and nature.
  10. Wu Jian’an: A Chinese artist who creates paper cut-outs inspired by traditional Chinese art and mythology.

 

Welp, if you got this far, many thanks! Much more to come!

Cut-N-Paste-Analog-N-Electronic-Ness

A new post on process reflection through blogging.

The best teacher I have ever known is the “inner-one” that allows a time for reflection as it wiggles through its narrative from the inside outward.

Here is my take and example.

 

December, late 2021

Back at it. The saga continues. I want to make images, always.. Which is really saying I want to communicate better, or just more, or in new ways. Sometimes the communication is purely fictional. Sometimes the communication is out of frustration because I cant find the words at the moment. Or, sometimes it’s an other worldliness that is using me as a “tool” to make itself known. Either way, it’s a practice and methodology of my expression of “the-self”. My feeling towards art making has always been: “make something and then further extend what has been generated”. I always want to see how that “something” can be taken further. If I make a drawing, I will eventually want to make a painting based on the drawing (sometimes it’s with paint and sometimes the paint is with pixels). After I make the painting it may become the background for the original drawing I made, but the drawing has now been scanned and digitally manipulated. That digital image will get tweaked and revised and also expand. I will then print it, I love old school ink-jet printers and the aesthetic they can produce. Im a “cut-N-paste” lover too, so making collage based works is a must. 

Above, this is a pretty regular perspective I find myself gazing at. Many pieces, parts, fragments and clips awaiting their deployment. I like to see things both on screen and off screen. Printed matter still holds my attention. Its a form of nostalgia and a time-machine into my childhood where art making was always a part of my world. It never stopped and Im sure it wont as long as Im on the planet. Im sure it will continue even when Im off of the planet too, haha.

I suppose, Im always seeking to communicate some form of a “situation or circumstance” in my work. As if “something” was occurring at the moment and the viewer was able to peek in and hit the pause button to freeze the frame of that “something”. I do make quite a bit of animation work too, but that was the natural progression over time as a medium. Plus the tools are so much more accessible today. I never forgot the basics of what I have learned from two-dimensional design in high school. Figure / ground. Foreground, middle-ground and background.. I placed a border around this piece above, perhaps that clean boarder makes the image as a whole seem a bit more important.. or it just emphasizes the moment. The fragments above were not yet glued down, I lay them out and look at them for a while before I make them seemingly permanent. I always take a digital image.. always!

Im really happy with this piece above. The perfect tension between the subjective and the representational. A moment of passing memories, elusive and most likely not even accurate. A portal out of reality and into the imagination. I like to linger there. The image is made from a series of digital photographs and hand drawn illustrations that were manipulated digitally and the full cut-n-paste treatment at its best.. This piece is currently still untitled, for now.. I will surely scan it and bring it back into the digital arena again.

(this piece above is available as a 3/3 edition here – https://hicetnunc.art/objkt/375773 (or click the image)

Ah ha, well, the image above this one was derived from this one! A combination of a manipulated data bent images layered with several glitch renderings. Cut, layered, pasted and cut and pasted again. What works for me the most is the hand cut lines that are visible by their contours. You can see that this was printed and then cut out with a pair of scissors. The lines are not straight, we can only get that perfect line from a ruler and an x-acto knife.. I have no need for making anything “perfect” in such an imperfect world. 

Format change. A horizontal layout variation to switch it up a bit. This piece uses the same process as stated above. It has not yet been glued down and made permanent.. but is that even necessary with digital tools like photoshop? A good question to ponder and what does that mean in the future?

And then, oh yes, the ink-jet bleeding experiments! Did you know about it? Well well well, look at who’s attention just focused in! If you print on matte paper with an ink-jet printer you can use a soft brush and water and create some very cool looking bleeding aesthetics! Im a big fan of this piece! This is surely a subjective and abstract art work, but it still followed the same steps and process as I shared from the beginning. Im going to print some larger scale variations of this, and perhaps have one framed.

I decided to get a bit more formal here in my presentation and laid down a few of these pieces. Sometimes it helps to get the gallery perspective and see one’s work “up on the wall”. The vertical perspective is helpful. Of course these pieces would look better in a more traditional frame, and its this exact exercise that helps me make those decisions. Below, are a few close up versions of each piece. Obviously there is more to come. Thanks for reading!

A Metaphor, A Reminder, An Assignment..

"A Metaphor, A Reminder", 2021, a Digital Illustration by ryan Seslow - A Metaphor, A Reminder is a new digital illustration that brings together an array of peculiar imagery. Most of which is very subjective - shapes, colors and forms layer over each other to display creative suchness.

“A Metaphor, A Reminder”, 2021, Digital Illustration

A Metaphor, A Reminder is a new digital illustration that brings together an array of peculiar imagery. Does it not?

What do you experience?

Are they logos? Icons? Glyphs? Pictograms? Symbols? A sheep in wolf’s clothing? 

Everyday is an opportunity to bring new shapes, forms and color combinations together. For what purpose, you may ask?Well, this might be an exercise, about the expressive power to evolve and transcend a something.. a metamorphoses..

Even if, some, or all of the new forms may be 100% subjective at first, they come from a “somewhere” and can be applied to a “here” and also to a “now”. We can fuse the whole process with emotion, creative energy, memories and positive vibrations. If we look and don’t create what will happen?

If we make and design and practice that everyday what will or may happen?

What can, only if, and or may, happen?

This world has made us all creators by default but we do know it?

What will you do next?

Design Projects – Promotional Fun with Vintage Design

Promotional Fun with Vintage Design

This post is an adaptation from my personal website, however, it fits in here perfectly if you are looking to explore some new design projects with your class(es) or even for yourself. I used myself as the example, haha, what fun!

<enter Ryan>

I love to learn new things. I love this aspect of life because this experience on earth always has something new to teach us each and everyday. Especially if you are looking for it. I’m always looking for it! I’m a big fan of Skillshare.com and perhaps one day will submit a course of my own! (Would you take my class?) As an artist and graphic designer it is important for us to keep our marketing and promotional materials fresh! I love this aspect of the business! We get the repeat opportunity to communicate who we are and what we can do to help others solve problems. OK, there is more to it than that, but in a nutshell using visual forms of promotional communication help give others a chance to resonate with what we can do.

As much as I love learning on skillshare, I’m an even bigger fan of graphic designer Aaron Draplin, the DDC! You can check out his work here. Draplin has a series of great courses on skillshare. I have taken them all and learned a ton! And no, they are not paying me to promote them or Draplin. I share this because there is a tremendous amount of value and experience for all up for the taking. I have been pretty sick this summer and have been slowly recovering. I took advantage of this time to watch, pause, watch some more and learn from a series of great courses. Here is the information for the course below, as well as a few of my outcomes.

The course is titled “Getting Dirty with the DDC” and it puts an emphasis on techniques creating crusty, vintage and manipulated design imagery in the form of an advertisement and promotion (and so much more, this is a fast description). Draplin works it using adobe photoshop, illustrator and a series of his handmade tricks and analog techniques. He references a lot of great vintage design from the brilliant era of print production. He always shares a variety of great stuff from the 1960’s – 1990’s (and beyond). Draplin and I are in the same age group so I resonate with everything that he shares and its nothing short of nostalgic! I directly applied my studies and project to some self promotion and marketing for my own business and services offered here at RSA&D LLC! As you know, I love making promotional stuff, and adding humor and fun into it, it helps me share my personality and overall lightheartedness. Does that come through in my outcomes below?

Here is the direct link to the class  <–

My outcomes from the class (Mr. Draplin, if you see this, how did I do?)

1. The Original. This is the 1st iteration and layout with very little manipulation aside from converting everything to black and white. I pre-prepared the assets, graphics and images using both photoshop and illustrator, most of which are all my own hand drawn illustrations. It was fun to use the illustrations in this context and show some of those skills. I used adobe illustrator for the layout, adding and manipulating the type and saving the file (.ai – vector format – which is great should that vector format be needed in the future). Then I brought the file into photoshop and got to manipulating. This was really fun and definitely plan to do a project like this with my design students as well!

2. The Photo-copy Machine Simulation – this is the 2nd iteration following the techniques in the course. I have always loved copy machines and have over-taken them at every location I have worked where I had access. I love the degenerated look and how we can make things look older and grittier. I really enjoyed the process and continue to tinker with this. 

3. Color Overlay Fun – I had to try a series of colorful backgrounds! This is what takes me back to late the 1980s and 1990s. So much print media was reproduced this way. Especially for events like concerts, meet ups, gatherings, etc.. it was a relatively cheap way to make print reproductions and spread them around. Of course, sky is the limit here, not only with the colors, but with adding more textured papers and backgrounds for more impact.

4. Further Iterations – there are so many free resources on the web for old paper and textures, this is just one idea below.. Im excited to push on this and iterate more, many thanks to Mr. Draplin for the energy and inspiration!

<exit Ryan>

<snip> :))

Linear Expansions, A Continuum of Line & Form

“Linear Expansions, A Continuum of Line & Form”, 2021, Work in Progress, A Cut Paper Wall Relief.

Im excited to share the progress and process of this new series of paper cut-outs. The forms are arranged directly onto the brick wall in my studio and live there as the piece builds a little more each day. 

Everything starts out as a drawing in my world.. mostly. I suppose thats because its where I got started with art making. Above, we see just a series of smooth and gestural intuitive lines. Im always both surprised and excited by the infinite outcome of what the lines will do. I never draw the exact same character twice. There is always another iteration to explore and become surprised by. The paper cut out at the top of this post is in progress and has thoroughly been inspired by this series of drawings created last week. I cut them out and arranged them on my wall to create a “narrative”. This also serves as an example for my Illustration & Design students this semester. I hope they like it!

 

The drawings above are a result of this process in the video above. I finally started sharing some of these videos on social media… These kinds of drawings happen in immediacy. Fast, intuitive lines that form each character. They are all different yet unified by their stylized lines. But why stop there, I began to think about process and creating gauge and layers. What happens if I cut some of these forms out? And so it went..

It all starts out like this. Start to extract the drawing by flattening it into fragments. Im using a think bristol paper as my paper source. (Strathmore) the surface is smooth a durable. But alas, it is paper and paper is temperature sensitive, so over time it does buckle and curl. I find that this actually helps though, see the process below

(Sorry for the blurry pict above -Ill reshoot this!) I then lay out a flat variation of my cut out forms in layers, very much as one would use layers when using adobe photoshop or illustrator. This is the analog version, and it is a lot of fun to do. The application onto a flat surface is next. Im working kind of large on this piece to see how the scale holds up, I will make a few small pieces too. 

Here is the first character that was applied to the wall. The forms are adhered to the wall using several loops of thick gorilla brand duct tape. The duct tape works well because it can be “stacked” and it is strong enough to hold the weight of the paper as I layer it. Keep this in mind as the further that your pieces layer and come off of the surface of the wall, they may begin to show the effects of gravity :)) – the process continues!

Process – Here is the progress with the second character created and applied to the wall.

Here you can see the beginning of the third character as well as the reference drawings before they were moved to make room for the next characters.

I work a little bit each day. I enjoy the process so much so I tend to work slow to savor the journey. I also enjoy sitting back and looking at the piece as it grows as it gives me a lot of new ideas. Of course, the next adventure will be to make the characters free standing and able to support themselves in the round. 3D is inevitable both as a physical sculpture and a 3D model in a digital space. 

As of today, 2/17/21 this is where Im at in terms of progress. Should I add more smaller pieces and fragments as scale contrasting details? What am I missing? Lets hear some feedback!

Note – YES, I plan to work in this style with other more permanent materials. I would love to see a series of these placed into public space, would be sweet to see a series inside the nyc subway stations 🙂

Paper, Light, Shadow & Storytelling Part 3

Welcome back! Part 3!

Lets make a “free-standing” variation of this project that works “in the round”. 

This post is part 3 of 5 parts from the Paper, Light & Storytelling Project.

*Be sure to read Part 1 first – go HERE

*and don’t miss Part 2 – go Here

*then jump to Part 5 (trust me!) – go HERE

The short video below is a series of snippets taken from various aspects of the project that will help you technically.

 

Let cut out some pieces, parts, shapes and fragments to compose with. Yes, they are “planes” again, but rather than working on the wall in a relief format, lets create a free standing composition that functions on table surface. As you can see in the video above, leave space at the base of each form so that you can bend and curl it over to create a right angle. This angle will allow for the piece(s) to free stand as you glue them down.

 

If you follow my examples above and below, notice that “spacial distance” plays a role in how the pieces create entrance ways for light and shadow to play a role. Working with forms that are cut in various heights and widths will also play a role in the overall visual aesthetic.

 

Below, you can see an example of how you can create “an environment” for your piece to exist in. Perhaps this give a bit more context to the design itself? In this case, I have simply created a gallery simulation by adhering 2 pieces of thick paper together and placing an additional piece on the table surface.

 

A thicker type of paper works best for this, Im using bristol paper above (11″ x 14″ inches) The nice part about this idea is that you can now use the viewfinder of your capturing device to “crop” the forms into the “gallery” as you take photos of the piece as a whole. See below.

 

Here is the composition of vertical forms glued down onto the surface of the table, and placed into the gallery simulation. The image directly below is a bird’s eye perspective with the natural light in the room hitting the piece. My ambition is to share the space and spaces between each free standing form.

 

In this example Im using the same light sources from the previous 3 tutorials (links above). Im a big fan of using light sources to create shadows, effects, filters and moods. These flashlight light sources can also layer over each other and create secondary colors. 

 

a series of colorful flashlights with their lights turned on

The next series of images below are a mixture of my light source set up, process and final outcomes. Please share your feedback and work via URL in the comments section below! Feel free to hack and remix this assignment and its guidelines.