Alex ExcelArt is the only digital artist in the world to draw 3D arts using the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet editor. Alex works with concepts of the digital age and the posthuman future. His work is a whimsical mix of digital painting, video performance and text.
Alex is the author of his own unique ExcelArt method. He created a technique with which he creates 3D images without the use of specialized graphics software. Rethinking the use of the functionality of the office spreadsheet editor MS Excel made it possible to obtain vivid original works that imitate classic 3D, but have their own distinctive style. Alex documents the process of creating artwork, filming it and making it part of the final art.
The artist’s works is not just another meaningless digital painting. Alex plays boldly on the field of conceptualism. Each picture or even whole series is devoted to individual problems of human interaction with new technologies. The artist’s works touch upon such socially important topics as:
— the transition of Mankind to the era of total simulation, leaving Existence and moving to Virtuality;
— Humanity’s loss of its human appearance, destruction of the Personality and its replacement by many digital twins;
— loss of Meaning and a number of other problems of the digital age.
The ExcelArt Manifest was written by Alex about the relationship of the ExcelArt method with the ideas of transition to a posthuman future. The Manifest reveals in detail the author’s views on the problems of the digital evolution of Mankind, as well as why the author uses the ExcelArt method for artistic research of this problem.
The style of work is very bright, dynamic, deliberately simplified. One gets the feeling that the characters seem to consist of a children’s construction set. Here is what the artist himself writes about his style of work: “As for this very form, it is also not accidental. In conditions of loss of meaning, when playful entertainment becomes the head of all human activities, it is so important to be able to speak in simple language. It is important to choose catchy, intelligible images. Paradoxical metaphors work perfectly here, catching the eye and easily referring us to the main idea. ExcelArt visual reference is a poster, constructor or instruction for the game”. Experimenting with formats: video, images, text; and techniques: sarcasm, criticism, provocative comparisons – the author tries to immerse the viewer into the problematic as much as possible. We can say that text and video are becoming important elements of Alex’s artistic language.
It is better to start acquaintance with the author’s work with the “Gadgefication” triptych. The triptych is dedicated to gadgets as the main technical means that mediate a human’s perception of culture. The work raises the problem of the devaluation of the world by gadgets and the distortion of the essence of the person.
Mail
alexey@shelkovnikov.pro