Computer art today is still widely determined by its limitation to a mere aesthetics of information. On one hand this leads to aesthetically very successful images, as this kind of art is definitely intrinsic to the media as such, but quite often, too — the Historism of the 20th century —, it results in mere imitations or copies of works originating in, say, Op Art or Minimal Art. On the other hand, any technical or even artistic shortcomings are defined as “deliberate” or, worse, as a “must”.
But aestheticism, even if not pushed to an extreme, does not necessarily have to be consequence of using the computer as a tool for artistic purposes. With the major part of my images I try to achieve a passage from a merely aesthetical definition of images to a semantic issue within them; others again deal with some kind of “abstract realism” that — other than abstract painting — does not replace the imitating representation of reality by pure shapes and colors, but does realistically reproduce abstract three-dimensional objects.
“Die Ausgangstür führt hinein BGR” tries to visualize a tale by the American author Philip K. Dick. The landscape was reconstructed from contour lines with the REPROS program. The tree was made with the WAXI program. (Achim Stößer)

Technical background:

Die Ausgangstür führ hinein, 1989
Hw: Sun Workstation
Sw: Vera-Raytracer; Waxi; Repros; Wegwerf-Pascalprogramme

Achim Stößer was born in Durmersheim near Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1963. In 1983, he started studying informatics in Karlsruhe. Since 1986, he is dealing with computer graphics at the Institute for Operating and Dialogue Systems of Karlsruhe University, and contributes to the development of graphics software. He won several awards, among them a Second Prize at CGI in Geneva, 1988, a Distinction at Prix Ars Electronica 1988 and a First Prize at the Computer Graphics Forum Competition 1989.