Joshua Davis: Infinitely Interesting
Vectors and Rose Windows
Flash’s vector-based drawing capabilities are essential to Davis’s work, allowing him to scale his designs to any size without degradation. He can output files at high resolution even in huge formats — for example, a set of stained-glass-like “rose windows” printed on translucent 5’ x 10’ panels, which he displayed recently at TAG in Amsterdam and The Hague, Netherlands.
For that series, entitled “The Brotherhoods Sacred Rose Windows,” Davis used geometric forms and text elements from antique maps, configured in kaleidoscopic patterns in rich, saturated hues.
“All the artwork for the rose windows was made in Illustrator using vectors, dumped into Flash, then output via PostScript,” he explains. “Then I’d reopen the PostScript file in Illustrator and print it on Duratrans, the transparent film you see in lightboxes at malls. I wanted people to walk in and think, ‘Oh, I know what this is. This is stained glass.’ And then walk up closer and go, ‘This is not stained glass.’ But that’s the feeling it gives you.”
Render Unto PostScript
Davis has used Macs in his design work for the past ten years — and these days, he uses them exclusively. “My PC just collects dust,” he says. “I haven’t had it on in maybe two years now.”
And the switch has yielded a key workflow advantage. “PostScript, PostScript, PostScript!” he says. “Finally, my vector-based programs get rendered through PostScript. It’s available within the Mac OS X operating system on a Mac, but not on a PC. It takes six steps to output my work on a Mac. On a PC, it takes 17.”
Davis cites other Mac advantages as well: “The Mac helps me organize my work more efficiently, which is key when working with a process that can generate infinite compositions. Working on a Mac allows me to create in a cohesive, methodical, steady stride. On a PC I often would feel either too rushed, or moving between multiple apps would make the work feel sluggish. I don’t want fast or slow; I want steady and skillful. I want my work to have refined craftsmanship — something working on a Mac provides.”
Despite the complexity of his graphics, Davis finds that Apple’s Mac mini provides ample computing power. “My main desktop is a 23” Cinema HD Display sitting on a Mini,” he says. “I love this thing! It’s a 1.83 GHz, and I maxed it out with the 120 GB drive and 2 GB of RAM. I run everything flawlessly on the Mac mini. It’s really all I need.”
On the road, Davis relies on a MacBook Pro — and, of course, his new iPhone. “I don’t know how I lived without it,” he says. “I have copies of 500 or 600 photos on my iPhone: all my client work, personal work, everything. If I don’t have my laptop with me, I can just pull out my iPhone and say, ‘Here’s the show I had.’ I can zoom in and zoom out on photos. I can look at my calendar and say, ‘Guess what? I’m busy until next year.’ It’s like having a mini-laptop in your pocket!”
Confusing Printers Everywhere
Because of the complexity of his generative compositions, Davis has encountered some unique production challenges when outputting files.
“Print and screen are two totally different monsters,” he says. “If a printer is trying to separate CMYK on a file with thousands of layers, after a while the computer just crashes. So I have to rasterize the Illustrator file and turn it into a 350 dpi TIFF or Photoshop file. Otherwise the vectors won’t print. I’m actually making work that can’t be printed, which is really cool!”
The process is a bit easier for work that will be viewed only onscreen. “The vectors are fairly lightweight, so I don’t have to do any cleanup or pre-process to get stuff onscreen,” Davis says. ‘If I’m running the program in ActionScript, it’s great — Flash likes the web, so I can put it right up on my website. I can rip these programs to video and do broadcast NTSC as well.”
Working in Flash gives Davis plenty of flexibility for final output formats — and enables him to meet seemingly impossible deadlines. “The cool thing is I’m working in one environment with Flash,” he observes. “I’m drawing vectors, writing programs, and then I can output to three different media.” In a campaign Davis designed for Motorola’s Krzr phone, he says, “We did a web piece and an ad in Wired, and then Cingular asked for a DVD they could play in their stores. And I turned it around in half a day.”
Onscreen or in print, Davis aspires to generate visuals that have never existed before. “For me, that’s very exciting. The level of detail and complexity I’m working with is intense. I love being able to surprise people who come to shows and don’t know how this stuff was created. That, and confusing printers everywhere!”
