We’re pleased to announce a last-minute addition to our panel on visual art: Dan Lynch of Negativland. In addition to producing artwork for the pioneering audio collage band, Lynch has distinguished himself as a visual artist whose works blur the lines between digital reappropriation and analog creation. At World’s Fair Use Day we’ll be showing Dan’s latest piece, “The Volcano Society,” which uses images culled from Google Image Search to produce four large collages that masquerade as paintings.
Dan began to take art seriously in 1970 when he won second place the American Automobile Association’s traffic safety poster contest in second grade. Upon winning a $75 savings bond, he knew that he wanted to pursue art.
Dan studied architectural design at the California College of Arts and Crafts. Thereafter, he worked in architecture and became immersed in the arcane computer graphics programs of the 1980s that were used within the profession. He eventually put architecture aside and has been an art director since 1991.
Dan is an avid photographer, but sees it as a means to an end. Before digital image editing, he would manipulate his photos any way he could. His work consists of digital montages and paintings that are printed on canvas, which are further painted to completion.
Dan believes that creative work is taken from borrowings that are changed—whether they spring out of one’s mind with brush in hand, are captured behind the lens, or come from Google Image Search. He believes it is the rearrangement and presentation of the world as we find it that creates new art.
Dan has been a satellite member of Negativland since 1993. He has collaborated with them on the visual side of their work, including book cover art, package design, illustration, photography and creative brainstorming.
