Rafael Puyana
Non Commercial Portfolio 2004-2010
This the printed version of my digital, animated and interactive work. For getting the full experience, please check the DVD at the end of this book or visit www.rafaelpuyana.com.
Rafael Puyana
Non Commercial Portfolio 2004-2010 --www.rafaelpuyana.com rfpuyana@gmail.com --Bogotรก, D.C., Colombia 2010
I explore the empty space that remains in graphic design when, by conviction, all the commercial ingredients are removed. As a graphic designer this has been a ten year of continuous removing procedures, sometimes taking away big layers of marketing fat or doing precise tumor removal of messages, briefs, targets and client relations. The result is always a set of static, interactive or animated visual pieces that at first glance look like contemporary graphic design, but in a detailed view there is always a sarcastic interpretation of the world, full of black humor leaving the taste of something that was supposed to be advertising but is not. My technique is always linked to Interactive Arts and Visual Design. My output is digital wether static, in motion or interactive. My work always swings from opposite sides; from static to dynamic / high tech to low tech / Net Art to Graphic Design / Drawing to Programming or Banal to Social Criticism. I spend most of my time in front of a computer, designing, programming, pushing pixels away or just tweeting how silly is tweeting, I was grown with the digital world and with what used to be called the new media, that now looks so nostalgically old. The main motivations of my work are: 1) A sarcastic personal view of what surrounds me 2) My private life events and memories. 3) The search for surprise and amusement in the viewer. This last one is what still links me to design; so is not the isolated process of creation but the excitement of the unpredictable reaction and interpretation of the viewer, with it’s multiple interpretations. Sometimes going from total underestimation to complete misunderstanding. What is now in my way is the search of what the “Post Digital World� means. Looking backwards to what we left behind in the light speed race of the digital age and taking the best of what we found during this time for embracing the real world again with a digital mind.
animation
TV OVERDOSE
2004>373kb>80 sec This animation was part of the second edition of the French project Fiction33. Developed under the concept of TV Overdose, tells the story of a teenager addicted to TV. It portraits a biographical point of view of my relation with television.
[g.i.F]
2006-2010 [g.i.F.] is not photography nor video. Is a short moment of life captured in a couple of frames. Is almost storytelling but is not. [g.i.F.] has been proposed as a rescue of the Animated GIF format like a way of digital hand crafting; joining pictures together and searching for the balance among frames per second, number of frames, Kilobytes and restricted colors.
image
Baby Polis 2006
Police force, a kid and a mutilated leg identify a moment in time when the armed actors of the Colombian conflict get confused between victims and victimizers and in the middle of that confusion any intention for create signs becomes an absurd effort, almost innocent and open to free interpretation. Simply useless iconography.
Possible People 2006-2010
Possible People is a self portrait built around the image of others in front myself. It’s a personal search of the Latin-American Big Family concept and how when a real family is not present these roles are replaced with other social relations.
Other Work
Ubshaigen® 2006-2010
Ubshaigen® is an empty brand; meaningless and without any special purpose. We don’t have a message to give or a product to offer. We don’t have enough stuff to show. We don’t take cool pictures or write nice posts. We’re not the project of a designer in a pair of jeans, Adidas shoes and a cool and unique t-shirt. Ubshaigen® is written in English for no reason, just to make you think we’re cool or stupid. It is up to you. This can be the first and the last time you hear about us. We only exist when you read this, when you see the image in the opposite page and when you check the skull logo and think: ‘..this people should be printing t-shirts..”.
interactive
Play With Me 2004
I am the deformations that appear when we cross our paths, when you sub-estimate me, idealize me and drag me. I know this because I also manipulate you for being sure that you are something and believe that I know you. Go ahead! PLAY WITH ME, is what you do all the time. Yo soy las deformaciones que haces cuando me cruzas, me subestimas, me idealizas o me arrastras. Lo se porque yo tambiĂŠn te manipulo para pensar que eres algo y creer que te conozco. Go ahead: PLAY WITH ME, es lo que haces todo el tiempo.
www.rafaelpuyana.com