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Modern, generative art installation displayed across multiple screens arranged side by side to form a single, large canvas.


The Made in NY Media Center’s latest exhibit, “Frame Null Abyss – A Decade of A N F,” celebrates a significant milestone in the career of Andreas Nicolas Fischer, a visionary in the realm of media artwork. Over the past decade, Fischer has meticulously carved out a unique niche within the digital arts experience landscape, transitioning from abstract explorations to crafting deeply narrative and experiential works that challenge and expand our understanding of technology, society, and human existence. This retrospective not only showcases Fischer’s evolution as an artist but also invites viewers to immerse themselves in a thought-provoking journey through the digital zeitgeist of our era.

Modern, generative art installation displayed across multiple screens arranged side by side to form a single, large canvas.
Modern, generative art installation displayed across multiple screens arranged side by side to form a single, large canvas.
Modern, generative art installation displayed across multiple screens arranged side by side to form a single, large canvas.

Over the last ten years, Fischer’s work has evolved from a place of abstraction into more pointed, guided experiential work with an emphasis on narrative. Early works, such as the Drone series, are overflowing with color and seem to be primarily concerned with technique. Fluid dynamics simulations and particle systems combine to form abstract worlds that coalesce and disperse in response to both sound and the whims of the artist.

Fischer’s artistic trajectory is marked by a profound transformation. His early endeavors, exemplified by the “Drone” series, are vibrant tapestries of color and motion, where technique takes center stage. These pieces leverage sophisticated fluid dynamics simulations and particle systems to create ephemeral, abstract worlds. They are immersive experiences, responding dynamically to sound and the artist’s interventions, offering viewers a glimpse into the boundless possibilities of digital creation.

Modern, generative art installation displayed across multiple screens arranged side by side to form a single, large canvas. Mountain range.

As his work progressed, however, Studio ANF‘s Fischer began to infuse his digital arts experience with more substantive thematic concerns. The shift is palpable, moving from the abstract to the pointedly existential, where fears and fascinations regarding our entanglement with technology and its societal implications come to the forefront. This phase of Fischer’s oeuvre is not just an exploration of new visual forms but a profound inquiry into the nature of humanity in the age of digital ubiquity. Through innovative visual languages and structural approaches, Fischer engages with themes that are at once universal and intimately personal, reflecting broader cultural anxieties about technology’s role in shaping human destiny.

digital arts experience

Later works, however, begin to incorporate fears about our relationship with technology, the workings of society, and our increasing unhappiness. While many creative technologists are contemplating and exploring similar themes, Fischer brings innovative visual and structural sensibilities to this familiar discourse. The result is at once visually arresting and philosophically thought-provoking, with horrifying implications.

digital arts experience and media design

His Computer Visions series begins ominously with a quote from Karl Marx rendered as white text on a gray background before shifting to a familiar particle system. But that familiarity is quickly discarded as the imagery transforms into lines of expressionless automatons and the text takes on a more subjective, narrative tone, contemplating the nature of what it means to be human and what it means to evolve, before eventually positing that our eventual obsolescence might not be a bad thing.

The second installment of Computer Visions continues to see the artist growing not only his technique but his structural and philosophical leanings, as well. An onyx carcass on a beach gives way to a walk through a desecrated landscape with imagery on disembodied screens as a voice plays psychiatrist and questions the moral and ethical ramifications of fame, wealth, pharmaceuticals, and even our very existence before closing by saying, remember, I’ll always love you.

Throughout this creative evolution, Fischer has maintained a sense of visual playfulness that contrasts nicely with the deep and often dark philosophical questioning that underpins his work. Bright colors and whimsical physics simulations serve to usher the unsuspecting viewer into Fischer’s worlds, lulling them into a state of complacency before turning those worlds upside down and inside out with philosophical inquiries and existential dread. But these are not depressing works – they force viewers to confront the most difficult questions human beings have to contemplate and one is left with a sense of advancement, of being changed for the better after having faced our own mortality.

Fischer’s media art studio work, however, is not merely a catalogue of dystopian visions. There is a playful, almost whimsical quality to his use of color and simulation, a testament to the artist’s ability to balance the gravitas of his thematic concerns with a visually engaging approach. This duality serves to draw the viewer in, offering an accessible entry point into complex philosophical debates about existence, ethics, and the future of humanity.

“Frame Null Abyss” is more than a retrospective; it’s an immersive experience that culminates in a new, site-specific generative work designed for the Media Center’s 360-degree projection. This piece, like much of Fischer’s recent work, is not just to be viewed but experienced, enveloping the audience in a multidimensional exploration of digital consciousness.

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