Digital Visual Image Series I #10

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

Darcy Gerbarg

1980

Print

7"x5"

Description

Digital Visual Image Series 1 #10 was created by Darcy Gerbarg using Alvy Ray Smith’s 24-bit paint system at the New York Institute of Technology in 1979, then output to 35mm film and mounted as a slide. This hybrid production process—painting digitally but materializing the image through photographic film—is what gives the work its distinctive surface. Rectilinear, angular forms are built from visible pixels that resemble stippled brushstrokes. Drawing on her background as a painter, Gerbarg exploited the inherent grain of early raster graphics to achieve effects of shading and depth. The layered color fields register both the precision of digital plotting and the optical softness introduced by film output. Over time, slight color shifts toward blue have occurred, a reminder that early digital images depended on unstable analog supports. The work’s current appearance thus records not only Gerbarg’s painterly use of pixels but also the technological conditions of late-1970s digital imaging and its fragile material translation into photographic prints.

Collector Notes

A copy of this piece was exhibited at LACMA's 2024 Digital Witness exhibit. LACMA had to take a photograph of a screen for that exhibit as they didn't know any print copies existed. The color on the LACAM print varies.