From Flatland to Spaceland. Discovering Usability (I)

When I entered the Faculty of Fine Arts my desire was to paint and draw, to perfect my technique and continue learning and developing my talent. Many of us had in our heads some great master of painting as a reference, in my case I always looked up to Dalí…

However, as the years, the courses and the studies went passing by, I first discovered the engraving, which allowed me to produce series of my drawings, the wonders of photography and the infinity possibilities of video… the installations, the performances…

I was able to play with time, with the music, with the sense of touch, to interpret my own body… to take the viewer into a space…

Finally - as it was only logical - I did not file for the Speciality in Painting as I had first envisioned, but for video and photography instead, together with the creation of installations in which I made people interact with my creations and/or drawings.

Art always expresses, communicates, tells a story, several!, first the one of the creator of the work and thereafter all those that are written and imagined by those who see it. But I wanted to go one step beyond and make the viewer a part of the work, interact with me… engage in an ongoing one-on-one conversation.

The best part of this stage - an incredible luck - was certainly that I learned everything in analogical mode… the cameras, the film rolls, the photo development, the video recording, the editing of video creations… The possibilities were there, not only could I create a drawing or a painting in the white page or blank canvas, I could imbue people with a complete experience in which all their senses gain meaning and speak to them.

Irretrievably came the digitization of all these processes and the learning, discovering even further opportunities beyond what I had previously imagined as it allowed me to create from scratch everything I wanted, upload it to the web and share it worldwide: Flash, Photoshop, Premier, 3Ds Max, it was a wonder…

It was 1999 and I did not understand… why the webs were only text and links?

To be continued…

Greetings and affection,

Silvia Barroso

Text&Wood engraving: Silvia Barroso

Translation: I?aki del Barrio

Spanish version: https://simplementesilvia.com/post/144824191118/planilandia-a-espaciolandia-descubriendo-la-usabilidad