Anita Cruz-Eberhard - Digital Ikebana No#29

From the series DIGITAL IKEBANAS This series is inspired by the ancient aesthetic discipline of the Ikebana floral arrangement. The following images are of Ikebanas that only exist as prints and digital images. The series is comprised of a variety of images taken from online databases of university biology departments from all over the world. They have been repurposed to investigate the relationship between artifice and nature. I am inspired by the technique of layering digital media and the aspects of appropriation; considering the basic act of making art as the borrowing of images or concepts from the surrounding world and re-interpreting them as art. Found objects, contemporary images, and images from the past have all been appropriated by artists and used in their work before. However, the appropriation of digital images in art is a phenomenon new to the twentieth century. I am interested in this idea while embracing the use of contemporary technologies like the Internet.