Miguel Chevalier
Miguel Chevalier is one of these artists that I have discovered rather late in life even though I was aware of his name and vaguely of his work all the time. He’s an artist which is about 15 years older than I am and pretty much everything he was able to accomplish in life have always been milestones to me as well. Milestones I probably will never achieve, but nonetheless these were milestones to me. Chevalier is one of the most famous and probably one of the earliest real digital artists even before the word „digital artist“ or even the word „digital“ was a thing.
1/60 s, f/1.78, ISO 200, 48 mm, iPhone 17 Pro Max
He is born in Mexico in 1959, was staying in Madrid for a while with his parents but began his studies in Paris in 1978. Back then computers were big investments, both in space and money and only a feasible endeavor for universities and big institutions. Nothing you could put on a desk in front of you. But that was changing right at the time Miguel Chevalier was still young and hungry enough to accept the challenges of new frontiers. In 1985 he got his first personal computer, a Commodore Amiga 1000 which wasn’t too different from the Amiga 500 I was proud to own during those years. This computer and its revolutionary graphic capabilities allowed him to experiment with and work on all his visual and interdisciplinary ideas right from his desk at home without the need asking for rendering time at night at one of the powerful but already clunky data centers of his university.
1/50 s, f/1.78, ISO 400, 24 mm, iPhone 17 Pro Max
Over the course of his life he started experimenting with everything a computer can do. He started 3D printing and laser cutting certain objects, often objects that reflect some principles nature already offers in great variety. Plants, flowers, snow crystals, fractals, islamic ornaments, kaleidoscopes. Many of his works are ephemeral large scale projections on multiple screens. Often these projections are equipped with additional sensors, so they become interactive and react on the movements of the visitors. And this honestly is such a fascinating experience. I guess it’s important to emphasize the difference to other projections that are more or less just static movies like in a cinema. Miguel Chevalier’s projections are all scripted, they are pure code. They become a reality that is different every time you see it, every time the conditions change, every time the movements alter. They are in the best sense of the world live. They are present. There seems to be someone there behind the curtain saying hello while you are passing by. And this is an experience which isn’t creepy at all but just magically fascinating. The magic of the computer, the magic of the digital becomes tangible here.
1/60 s, f/2.2, ISO 500, 14 mm, iPhone 17 Pro Max
As digital creations have become more and more widespread and normal, we are more used to the aesthetics and principles of computer graphics. Today we are playing video games or are watching movies like the „Avatar“ franchise almost daily. And many scenes from the digital jungle on planet Pandora actually reminded me of creations by Miguel Chevalier.
1/50 s, f/1.78, ISO 800, 24 mm, iPhone 17 Pro Max
I was lucky to be able to visit Miguel Chevalier’s current exhibition „Digital by Nature“ in the Kunsthalle Munich and I can only highly recommend it for everyone to visit it. Many of his works here are exclusively tailored to this exhibition space or are even new works first seen in this context. For example there’s an online „Flower maker“ where you can create your own colorful flowers that instantly become part of the real world exhibition. In Munich the exhibition is ending as soon as this week but „Digital by Nature“ is on tour through Europe, next stop are the Netherlands. Miguel Chevalier’s works are best seen and experienced live and on site. The fascination of these moving patterns, shapes, triangles, waves, crystals and dots is hard to put in words or in pictures. I hope you have the chance to see his creations somewhere around the globe and become as enthusiastic about the digital roam as I did visiting this exhibition.