Pieter Schoolwerth's Shifted Sims and the quality of digital image

During the lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic , inspired by the shift of face-to-face activities onto digital platforms, artist Pieter Schoolwerth created the Shifted Sims series of paintings to illustrate the chaotic murkiness in between reality and digital realm. In Shift Sims, illusionistic ghosting effects often serve as the center impression. Specific characters and objects shown multiple times, usually in transparent silhouettes which overlay and transform the background into familiar yet distinctive tone and texture.

 Shifted Sims #1 (Get Together)

 Shifted Sims #20 

For example in Shifted Sims #20 (YouTuber Career: Impossible Burger Connoisseur), different combinations of such overlays are used for the narrative. From the title and image proportion, we can tell that the girl with burger is the main focus of the painting. Yet ironically, there is not one intact girl, but instead multiple ghost images of a supposingly common character. 

We can see her body in one place with the background passing through, and also another silhouette that shows part of her solid body holding a burger and part of a mysterious pink filling . We can see her face in a rectangular frame, but there exist another ghost image of her face distorted with exaggerating facial expression. 

Adding to more confusion, some of the ghost images are somewhat overlapped together, creating yet another layer of transformation. It seems that the artist is illustrating a girl showing off her burger to the camera (possibly live-streaming to her social media follower), and all these ghosting effects express his scepticism on digital platform being a reliable representation of real world.

By analyzing the making process, we can see that Schoolwerth applied fascinating techniques in the Shift Sims series, some of which are facilitated by the power of  digital imaging. In the beginning of production, Schoolwerth sourced his desired scenarios by screen-capturing The Sims 4 video game. The availability of screen-capturing software make this part as simple and straightforward as a few clicks in the computer. But this does not make the digital artwork less valuable, as finding the appropriate theme and material still requires significant effort. 

Digital imaging has made this part drastically convenient compared to traditional method such as photo processing. Reversible and non-destructive editing are widely available for digital imaging, allowing for bolder and more complexed experiments.  Digital computing also reduces the workload of image transformation and morphing, turning it into a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get(WYSIWYG) process. With these feature, digital painting can often be achieve extra modularity and narrativity. Even though Schoolwerth didn't exactly mentioned his usage of image editing software, it is rather reasonable to speculate that part of his drafting process was assisted by digital image editing.

For the next phrase, the artist created additional physical cutoff canvases according to the silhouettes of specific objects from the screen capture. The cutoff canvas were actually tiny pieces of sculpture themselves, giving each painting an apparently 3D effect when composited together. With canvas components created, the artist proceeded with physical painting. 

In order to presenting the said murkiness of the theme, the artist often reused colors and silhouette of relatable objects in the scene, but then painted them with entirely different textures and layer composition. Apart from this, certain characters are also drawn with distorted faces, so to express the artist's though about the chaotic indulgence within the digital realm.

During the final stage of production, part of the original The Sim 4 screenshots were cut out and digitally composed into the photographed painting, finishing the entire scene. After that, the file was inkjet onto another canvas for the use of exhibition. This was again facilitated by the forementioned digital imaging. Besides, the availability of inkjet printers also adds to another aspect of nowaday digital imaging, where the physical production of digital images is widely available and affordable.

 Sources:

Pieter Schoolwerth on "Shifted Sims" (n.d.). Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/449085263

Pieter Schoolwerth - Shifted Sims - Collect - Petzel Gallery. (n.d.). https://www.petzel.com/collect/pieter-schoolwerth/grid-1-old  

The Sims “Project Rene” - IGN. (n.d.). IGN. https://www.ign.com/games/the-sims-project-rene