Bill Woodard has created the image "Having encountered Eve the second time, Adam begins to speak" out of multiple layers. Even the torso is based upon a three dimensional computer generated image.

In one respect, the images that I create with the computer trace a path of compromises that exist between my own changing emotional and intellectual dispositions, and the de posited, externalised, self- perpetuating structures inherent to the technology itself It is through this process, or struggle, to maintain a balance between these conditions, in terms of the artwork that is being developed, that I have become engaged with artistic explorations of expression and meaning on the computer.

The use of the computer establishes an interesting working relationship in that, as an artist, I feel my control has shifted to the margins of my work. Instead of making direct changes to the images that I am working on, I use the quasi-conceptual processing grids of imaging software, to help me sift through and organise the multiple layers of visual material that are being generated. When certain areas of the composition begin to interest me, I look through the various images that I have used, to see if I can find ways to tease out those areas and build on them.

The image "Having encountered Eve the second time, Adam begins to speak" grew out of such a process. The image is almost wholly built upon a computer generated three-dimensionally defined female torso. Using five instances of this armless torso, I texture- mapped and bump- mapped them until I had colourful, clean, shiny, but bumpy "barbie-like" torsos, that I subsequently used as a starting point for numerous related and unrelated image explorations. The texture maps and bump maps were originally drawn from photographic images, but later generations ofdevelopment would use the earlier generations themselves as such maps. "Having encountered Eve ..." is an example of one of these layered explorations. One interesting aspect of using the computer in this capacity is that as I systematically destroy one type of reality (for example, the shiny, plastic reality of torsos, or the photographic texture maps), I am also systematically and simultaneously creating another reality that transcends or supplements or undermines its original. This is not to suggest that I consider my work rational or scientific, however, for even as I use applications drawn from rational determinants, their selected and combined application is driven by the spontaneous discoveries of my own desires and intuitions.
(Bill Woodard)

Technical background:

Hw: Sun Work Station, Frame Buffers, Visualisation Lab Ohio
Sw: In House, Chalk, Post, Artist's

Bill Woodard (USA) has a ten year background in computer arts and technology; he taught animation, paint, and desktop publishing at the University of California in Los Angeles Extension, and animation at Long Beach City College in Long Beach, California; he is currently teaching an undergraduate course in paint and animation at Ohio State University (OSU) and is writer, director, and producer for a number of in-house promotional tapes. He worked as a computer animator for Cranston/Csuri Productions in Columbus, Ohio, and held a research position as a digital imaging specialist and systems analyst for the J. Paul Getty Art History Information Programme in Santa Monica, California. His background in art includes drawing, painting, photography, video, cinema, glass blowing, computer graphics and animation.