Week 9 – Digital Curation

Digital galleries

I had to exhibit my work in a digital space this time. I chose to make a minecraft resource pack.

RESEARCH

I had to learn through youtube tutorials how to make minecraft texture packs.

In terms of inspiration, I realised that anything can be a canvas within Minecraft, including its’ life. I have found the use of real animals and animal parts in physical artwork interesting although I don’t think I could ever do that myself with real animals. Some of my concepts originate from this piece of art I saw on the Tate website when I was 16.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hirst-away-from-the-flock-ar00499

‘Away from the flock’ by Damien Hurst, 1994

‘Although obviously dead and pickled in formaldehyde, the sheep in Hirst’s work looks oblivious to its fate and seems to be prancing with life.’
Quote taken from online display caption.

How can something so dead seem so alive? Likewise, digital animals are not living, but perhaps I can use their coded movements to make my own work seem more alive than it actually is.

PROCESS

In the .minecraft directory, I copied the .jar file for this version and copied and pasted it to /resourcepacks, where I then edited the PNG assets within them. I used Krita to layer my artwork on top of the texures. I chose to edit a few paintings and change them to be my work, and exhibit those in a traditional gallery sense, putting my art on some pre-built walls. However, unlike in a traditional gallery, I decided to fit multiple paintings on each wall in a slightly random composition as I believe it complements the messy nature of my artwork, as well as making colourful and dark pieces contrast with eachother, complimenting both of them.

Then, I chose some more colourful pieces and placed them over various mobs, including docile (cows, pigs, goats) and hostile (zombies and skeletons). For the docile mobs, I picked two mobs that had a larger surface area and that could breed together, to create interesting interactions with my own pieces. Cows and goats can be shown wheat in order to follow the player, and can be fed it in order to activate ‘love mode.’