Because every now and then, something really needs an undo.
Fine art print on watercolor paper, 160×40 cm available in the shop
Blog
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Fast Forward
One of my favorite prints, “Fast Forward” is added to the portfolio and is available for purchase. It’s a large 150x80cm fine art print of 50 vibrant color blocks with old style fast forward buttons. Each of the 150 colors is unique and is full of life and energy. This piece is such a joy to look at. Every time I come across it, my brain does a little jump for joy. That is essentially every night, as we’ve given it a place on a wall next to our bed.
“Fast Forward” – Fine art print on watercolor paper 150×80 cm A zest for life
The concept for “Fast Forward” emerged from a conversation with my wife during the beginning of the pandemic lockdown. There is one thing about her that I absolutely adore: her boundless resilience. She is my ultimate positron, a particle that refuses to go negative, which is a funny way of saying how much I love her. So “Fast Foward” to me is a celebration of a lust for life, and a testament to her vitality.
The digital version of “Fast Forward” Love for color
The colors in the fine art print version of ‘Fast Forward’ turned out more vibrant and powerful than I had hoped for designing it. I hand-picked each of the 150 colors, looking for agitation. I love the energy of color, of it’s fotons, and how they resonate our retinas. When I look at the pigmented inks that saturated the woolly fibers of the watercolor paper, and how light reflects off both, well, that’s just magic to me.
Interested? You can purchase “Fast Forward” here.
Cheers!
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The shop is live!
Hi, just small but exciting update. I opened a Ko-Fi shop for my artprints. It just went live!
What is Ko-Fi?
Ko-fi is a platform that allows fans to make small (or large) donations to creatives around the world. The idea is very simple. Anyone can make one-off or recurring donations to artists they like and want to support. It’s basically a digital tip jar, with messages, a blog and a shop attached to it.
How do Ko-Fi donations work?
The support or tip function is incredibly simple. On some of my pages you will see a “Support me” button. You can use it to “buy me a coffee” or, if you feel generous, increase the amount of your donation to whatever you want. The cool thing about Ko-Fi is that it has a 0% fee policy on coffee tips. So 100% of your money goes directly to the artist you support.
The Ko-Fi shop
In addition to the support page, Ko-Fi offers a very simple to use shop for artists. Here, you can buy both digital as well as physical items directly from your favorite creator.
Examples of the Fine Art Prints available in the shop I’ve opened a store offering Fine Art Prints. You will find links to product pages on the Ko-Fi shop throughout my website. You can also visit the shop here.
As always, thank you for supporting my art!
Cheers, Ingmar
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My Portfolio
It’s been quite a busy week and I’m pleased to see that the website is making good progress. The main focus this week has been the portfolio.
Prints
My main body of work are prints, so I have created a “Prints” section first. In it are fine art prints, dye sublimation prints and inkjet prints on acrylic and vinyl. Images that I hand coded, have a link to the code version of the piece for those interested.
Print queue
I’ve also set up the “Print Queue” to show you designs that are finished but not yet printed. This is mainly due to cost. Professional printing can be quite expensive, so I am thinking of ways to make these designs into prints through crowdfunding. I am doing some more research on that subject.
Code
I’m pleased with how the “Code” section turned out. I was expecting it to be a bit of a struggle, but the images I code by hand fit nicely into a WordPress site. These images are not pictures I uploaded to the server, but pieces of code embedded in the page. If there is a printed version available, a link which will take you to there. I’m still amazed when I see a few lines of code end up on an aluminium platen bursting with color.
Shop
I am working on a shop, or two. Though you will be pleased to hear that all prints are available for purchase. If you are interested, please contact me at ingmar[at]bzzrt.com.
Anyway, thanks for visiting. Your support means the world to me.
Cheers, Ingmar
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Scalable vector graphics
This is “IM – Denkmal für die inoffiziellen Mitarbeiter”. It is a scalable vector graphic printed on an 80×80 cm aluminium plate using dye sublimation printing. In this process, heat and pressure force dye into a gaseous state that chemically bonds with the coating applied to an aluminium plate. The result is a crisp and solid color image that is sealed by a high gloss coating. But it all starts with a bit of code.
IM in office hallway – Dye Sublimation print on aluminium 80 x 80 cm 
IM – Denkmal für die inoffiziellen Mitarbeiter A bit of code
“IM” is a Scalable Vector Graphic or SVG. It is an image created in vector graphics format and stored in a text file using Extensible Markup Language (XML). Vector graphics use geometry in a coordinate system to describe shapes and colours.
What are vector graphics?
Vector graphics is a form of computer graphics in which geometric primitives such as points, lines, curves and polygons are drawn using points called vertices. In SVG, these vertices are coordinates (x,y) on a 2D plane. For example, a line can be defined by a start point and an end point. A computer can then interpolate between them to create a straight line. Using vectors we can draw a curved line between the two points.
I’ve included the code that makes up “IM”. Don’t be put off by how it looks, I just want to show you how little is needed to create the image.
<!-- Author: BZZRT_ --> <svg x="0px" y="0px"> <g id="background"> <rect x="0" y="0" width="1920" height="1920" fill="rgb(255,230,0)"/> </g> <g id="im"> <polygon fill="rgb(0,0,0)" points="0,0 450,0 644,1920 0,1920"/> <polygon fill="rgb(255,230,0)" points="0,240 520,240 520,640 0,640"/> <path fill="rgb(255,0,0)" d="M644,1920 L905,0 L1260,0 1345,640 L1430,0 L1920,0 L1920,1920 L1625,1920 L1580,1450 L1545,1920 L1125,1920 L1130,1450 L1062,1920 Z"/> </g> </svg>That’s it! That is all it takes to describe this red, black and yellow artwork. The code defines an origin at coordinates (0,0) on a 2D plane of size 1920 by 1920, which acts as a canvas. It then describes some shapes and colours. In ‘IM’ there is a rectangle and three polygons.
What are polygons?
Polygons are geometric shapes such as squares and circles. A polygon is an irregular shape made up of several connected points or vertices. An ordered set of connected vertices is called a polyline. In “IM”, the red polygon has 13 vertices. The start and end points of the set of vertices overlap, closing this polyline into a shape. So all I have to do to create shapes like this is to create a list of coordinates and make sure the start and end point are in the same location.
These shapes are not limited to rectangles and straight lines. As I mentioned earlier, it is also possible to create curved shapes like this using vectors.
Portrait one – fine art print 30 x 30 cm Scalability
One of the great things about vector graphics is its scalability. As you may have noticed in the code above, I use 1920 x 1920 to define the canvas, without using “mm” or “px” (pixel units). Interestingly, vector files only need values, not units. This means they can be scaled to any size without breaking. This allows me to use the designs equally well on different media.
Of course, there is a bit more to getting from this simple piece of code to a printed artwork using sophisticated machinery. I might talk about this in a future blog post.
Check out the Portfolio for more code art.
Thanks for visiting. Cheers!
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Bluesky
Social media isn’t really my thing. I used Facebook a lot up to 2012 but lost interest when it commercialized the newsfeed and aimed at dominating the Web 2.0 landscape. Since business accounts on Facebook are tied to personal accounts, I kept mine much longer than I wanted. Eventually, I decided to drop Facebook completely once I realized it wasn’t generating any value any more. This event triggered a larger cleanup operation, one that I’m still working on. In 2024, I decided to remove myself from all social apps I had tried over the past decade. Almost none of them stuck anyway.
Why I switched
Online social spaces are in large part shaped by commercial algorithms. I am not a fan. They create marketplaces and trigger addictive behavior instead of cultivating social hangouts. I don’t have a very socially-oriented personality to begin with, and the use of commercial algorithms makes social apps vile places for me to be around. I constantly feel on high alert. I hate it. So, over the course of the last three years, I deleted my accounts.
But I do crave some sort of online interaction. So, I’m on Bluesky now, admittedly somewhat reluctantly. Bluesky gained popularity last year after the-platform-formerly-known-as-Twitter experienced an exodus. I’ve never shown any interest in Twitter myself, as I am easily triggered and would probably spend too much time bickering with complete idiots making me that exact same idiot. Among the social platforms today, I’m told Bluesky is like Twitter in its early days, but more focused on self-moderation at the user level. I like that.
So, how is it?
I like Bluesky so far. I’m socialising with complete strangers, as no one I know in real life is on the platform, apart from my wife. I’ve met some interesting people and I’ve never seen so many cats, birds, mushrooms, flowers, insects and beautiful landscapes in one place as I have on Bluesky. But last January I almost uninstalled the app. I have set up an ignore list to hide posts containing words specifically related to Russian, American and Dutch politics, which works pretty well. Until a flood of shitposts hit the proverbial fan around the inauguration and the days after. Some people on Bluesky are posting screenshots with minimal to no comment and no hashtags. As a result, I ended up blocking 80 people in 2 days. Which is just silly. I’ve since unblocked most of those people and started ignoring specific accounts instead, which feels a lot more constructive.
Starter packs
What really helped broaden my horizons on Bluesky was when I discovered a starter pack dedicated to artists who live or work in the Netherlands. Starter packs are curated lists of people to follow. Anyone can create and share these lists. This particular one was created and shared by a guy called Henk, who happened to pop up in my discovery feed. I followed everyone in the pack with a single click and asked if I could be on it. Apparently I could.
My understanding is that Bluesky takes a slightly different approach to feed content. In addition to having a feed that only shows posts from people you follow, the ‘discovery’ feed is influenced more by personal signals and actions, and less by virality or popularity. This suits me much better. I have a deep distrust of anything hysterically popular. I’ve even had a few really nice conversations with fellow artists.
So. Could I interest you in joining us there?
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No cookies for you
So, WordPress it is. I’ve decided to build a new website on this platform that’s been online since 2004, I think. I’ve published websites since 1995 but only built one WordPress website before, so it’ll be a bit of a discovery. While thinking about the layout and content for the site, I am also looking at a few plugins.
The plugins I am checking out are about website security and statistics. I may cover the security side in a future blog post, but for now the statistics are not only of interest to me, but to you as well—because you are here, visiting my page. And just like every webpage or application currently in use, you are being tracked. So, what I install to help me collect user data is definitely relevant to you.
The Burst Statistics plugin
Since I’ve become a little Googallergic, I’ve installed Burst statistics for WordPress. It is a data collection plugin that has some very interesting options that I didn’t realise exist. Firstly, it is self hosted. This means that all the collected data is stored on the server this website is hosted on. It is only available to me, the website owner, and you, the cookie monster.
Do not track
Second, it allows me to honor ‘do not track’ requests. This is a privacy feature built into most browsers that lets you send a request to websites to stop collecting and sharing data. The catch is that websites can choose to honor this request or not. If they don’t, they can just track you like they do everyone else. Although its use has been ‘discouraged’ by advertising companies and their cronies, it might still be worth setting it up in your browser and improving your privacy, even if it’s a little bit. Here is an article on how to set it up on most browsers.
Cookieless tracking
In addition, Burst has a feature called cookieless tracking. Cookies have become increasingly risky, leading to security breaches through data leakage and conflicts with current data regulations and privacy legislation. The industry has been looking at new types of tracking to limit these risks. One of those technologies is cookieless tracking. It aims to (still) collect information about your visit through small pieces of code, just as cookies do. However, these snippets are only available to the visitor and the website owner. So, when cookieless tracking is enabled, no data is shared with other parties such as advertisers, search engines, affiliates and so on. This technology is server-side, which means you don’t have to do anything to make it work. I do.
Cheers!
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Welcome
Hi, I am Ingmar, a dutch creative.
The World Wide Web has changed since I first layed eyes on it back in the 90’s. Like most people, I moved from a personal website to social media. The last decade though, that enviroment has been heavily reshaped by commercial algorithms. I am not a fan. So I’ve deleted all my assets and relocated to a small personal space on the internet.
About this website
This website has a blog (this one), some portfolios, an online shop, and a section dedicated to online projects. The blog is a place for me to talk about random stuff like updates, artwork, running projects and shop offers. The portfolio is a place to show you my most recent work like Fine Art Prints, sublimation prints and large inktjet prints. It has a print queue section with artwork that has not been printed yet, but will be in the near future, hopefully with your help. I’ll explain in a later blog post.
The first shop I am think about setting up will offer 3D printed gifts that can be personalised to order. I design and manufacture these items myself. I have plans for a second store which will offer fine art prints and dye sublimation prints. For now, if you are interested in puchasing a fine art print, please contact me via email ingmar[at]bzzrt.com (replace [at] with @) or let me know in the comments.
I am also launching “Life Beyond the Algorithm”, a blog section where I talk about my online footprint and why I am making an effort to change my approach to the internet. More on that in a later update.
I have two other online art projects planned. The first is a series of webpages that run scalable vector graphic code images. The second project features an online automated language generator. More on those two later as well.
Updates and contact
I’ll post regular updates here, but I am also present on Bluesky, MastoArt and Pixelfed. Join and follow me there if you can. My contact email is ingmar[at]bzzrt.com. You are also more then welcome to drop me a line in the comments.
Thanks for visiting! Talk to you soon.
Ingmar