Art's In The Head, Not The Hand: A Digital Retrospective - Paperback

by Ken Stange (Author)

Ken Stange, the prize-winning author of eighteen books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, has also devoted substantial effort to the creation of visual art. He attributes the opportunity to satisfy his desire to create with images as well as words to scientific advances and the resulting technology-specifically the personal computer. So all his artworks are digital images. This book is a retrospective 'hard copy' of the complete first one hundred digital art series in full colour, with notes on the all the works appended. An introductory essay explains the philosophy behind the work: a self-described "klutz" in terms of traditional artistic ability, he and others lacking the formerly required skills associated with creating visual art have been empowered by science and technology. The computer is Stange's creative tool, not the brush or pencil. Science has provided not only the means but also the inspiration for many of his artworks: ideas and images from physics, cosmology and other sciences are central to some of the works.

Author Biography

Ken Stange's diverse interests are reflected in the range of his publications: 18 books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction; essays and reviews; a newspaper column; scientific reports; and a weekly blog themed about interesting ideas. He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Nipissing University, where for many years he taught a course on the psychology of creativity and the arts. Because of his long-standing interest in visual art-and envy of those who could create it-he was immediately fascinated by the personal computer's ability to empower anyone to create it. Soon he was combining the written word with image in the artworks he calls 'constructions'. Two of his previous books combine image and the written word. A Smoother Pebble, A Prettier Shell (Penumbra Press, 1996) was a collection of his early constructions integrated with poems and an extended essay on the relationship of science to visual art. Embracing The Moon (Two Cultures Press, 2013) consisted of 25 pairs of spherical images and poems conforming to the Japanese tanka verse form, as well as an essay about the nature of the tanka and explicatory notes on the poems. He lives in North Bay, Ontario with his beloved wife, Ursula, who has been the inspiration behind all of his creative work, as well as his editor and advisor.