Modern Living
Han Hoogerbrugge
Han Hoogerbrugge's impressive Modern living/Neurotica series is a series of mildly interactive animated self-portraits seamlessly linked by his signature visual style and subversive humour.
The animated representation of the artist inhabits a variety of short scenarios designed to illustrate a microcosm of universal human experiences primarly through sound and image. Hoogerbrugge's boundless imagination runs riot with his witty and often macabre reflections on his own dreams, expectations, conflicts, experiences, hopes, defeats, fears, demons, questions, laughter, and lust.
The piece is presented as a list of five thumbnail images vertically lined up alongside a central screen, inviting the viewer to torment and interact with the animated protagonist in increasingly creative ways. Whether it is by causing a spiky rash to sprout from his face by rolling over it with the cursor, making him dance, or repeatedly knocking him off his feet, each experience serves to highlight an aspect of the bizarre that can be extracted from the banal things encountered in everyday living.
Modern Living originated as a static comic strip, but gradually evolved into moving images as a result of Hoogerbrugge's interest in gif animation. The original looping gif images were eventually superseded by interactive Flash animations after he was invited to design the interactive piece Flow for a Dutch television company. Modern Living was also included in the 'nET affEcTS' exhibition of net.art in Amsterdam in May 2000.
Modern Living was completed in 2001, and Hoogerbrugge has since moved on to other projects, but it remains a significant piece of web art. It is well worth taking time out to play with it.
-Rachel Nagy
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