Jim Campbell, Primal Graphics 2002
February 20, 2002 - October 2002

Flashing light bulbs, streaming videos, LED displays and digital projections — this cacophony of commercialism is the million-watt hallmark of 21st century urban environments. From Times Square to Tokyo, pedestrians have grown accustomed to seeing the 24-hour light show that has rapidly replaced last year's stationary billboards and theater marquees. It is not surprising that artists too have noticed this hi tech invasion of the contemporary landscape — who could not notice? — but few have incorporated these innovations in image presentation into their work with the subtlety and fluency of Jim Campbell in his project, Primal Graphics 2002 .

The term "primal" conjures images of visceral emotions — a baby screaming in the middle of night, cathartic eruptions in a psychiatrist's office, shrieks emanating from a house of horrors — moments filled with pre-verbal fear and pre-historic terror far from the secure logic of computers and technology. For Primal Graphics 2002 , Campbell brings those primary, even primitive, concerns back into the realm of digital art, infusing his work with poignancy and humanity. The piece is illusive and evocative, providing far less information, yet far more emotion, than the specificity of detail and flashy pseudo-realism celebrated by commercial digital displays.

In Primal Graphics 2002, a shadowy figure runs across an empty field. Up close, it is apparent that the lifelike movement is the result of pulsating lights, the screen is actually a 10 x 13 foot grid composed of 192 light bulbs. To create this work, Campbell recorded his subject in digital video, a medium that converts live action to millions of pixels; he artist then reduced the number of pixels until the image reached the verge of perceptibility, leaving just enough data to retain the outlines of reality. This is pointillism for the 21st century, and like his predecessor, the Impressionist painter Georges Seurat, Campbell is equally concerned with the science of optics and the methods by which society evaluates "truth." Trained as an engineer and mathematician as well as an art-maker, Campbell is adept at computer programming but chooses to examine the implications, rather than the applications, of digital technology. In an age when technology can track our identities — through databases and DNA, from FBI files and credit reports — Campbell reasserts the need for a more personalized version of human experience. At a time when special effects and animatronics have completely infiltrated Hollywood films, he reclaims the value of the personal touch by exposing the limits of digital image making.

So a shadowy figure runs across an empty field. We don't know who the man is or what he is running from but it is impossible to erase the image from our memory banks. Fuzzy and indistinct, the work recalls the scratchy videotapes that are offered as proof of the existence of Big Foot or the Loch Ness monster. It also references more real terrors — shadows on the streets of Hiroshima, the bodies of the victims evaporated in the atomic blast. Or, for that matter, the hundreds who fled the streets of Lower Manhattan as the Twin Towers toppled on September 11th. Campbell designed this piece for this specific site prior to the World Trade Center attacks, before we all watched hundreds of hours of videotape footage showing crowds running from the scene. It is testament to this prescient work that it retains its poignancy and power, growing even more resonant against the backdrop of recent events.

Barbara Pollack