Bottega

 
 
 Fred Truck

fjt@netins.net

My dreams contain repeating images. Over the years, I have isolated these images and made a language of them. The art I made during this period of time embodies some or all of these images, but in much different ways.

In 1993, I began a summing-up phase, aiming for a work that would directly contain or that would refer to everything I had made from 1973 to 1993. The metaphor I chose for this work was "the artist's workshop," or Bottega, an Italian word.

As presently realized, Bottega is a three-dimensional interactive environment [1]. In it, a number of past works reappear in my workshop -- among them the da Vinci Flying Machine, a virtual-reality environment based on Leonardo's flying machine that I did at Carnegie Mellon University's Studio for Creative Inquiry; and Analog Engine. Analog Engine is a visual analog for my ArtEngine software (1987--1991). Analog Engine, like its predecessor, makes a third, new image from any two images it has been given. Among the images the user can synthesize are Fete Champetre by Titian or Giorgione and my own LoopS! (1978). The user can also explore and operate the Flying Machine and Analog Engine and learn how they relate to my basic language of images and my creative process.

Bottega is also an exploration of my state of mind. The intended notion here is that, over a period of time, the room the artist works in becomes a metaphor for the many works made there. The specific object in Bottega that relates to my state of mind is the "Floating Desk," the place I prepare work for Analog Engine. Above the desk are the "Six Electronic Persimmons," a quote from Six Persimmons by Mu Ch'i, and a reference to an ink wash I did in 1976 called Six Cherry Bombs. From the Floating Desk, the user can access "The Memory Device," a giant, analog-switching machine that feeds selected vectors of my language of images to Analog Engine for image synthesis.

The purpose of Bottega is not only to allow the user to explore my creative process, but to encourage users to explore their own processes. In addition to the Bottega application, the HyperCard source code for Bottega is included. I hope users will take this code and modify it, supplying their own Bottegas with images of their choice, replacing whole parts of my work with works of their own. I am interested in seeing the workshops of other artists.

Note

1. Bottega is a CD-ROM for a Macintosh running System 7.1 or later. Eight MB of RAM are required for the application as well as a 640-x-480-x-256 color monitor.