ARTiculAction Art Review - Special Issuue Aug. 2016 | Page 119

Mark Franz

ICUL CTION
C o n t e m p o r a r y

A r t

R e v i e w

Special Issue

your production, we would suggest to our
readers to visit http://markfranz.org in
order to get a synoptic view of your
multifaceted artistic production: while
walking our readers through your process
and set up, we would like to ask you how
did you develop your style and how do you
conceive your works.

My work is heavily influenced by figures from
animation history like Oskar Fischinger and
Ryan Larkin, and their use of color in
particular. I would say my style is also due to
a fascination with the intersection of art and
design, or fine art and commercial art.
Fischinger participated in the art historical
current of visual music by creating color –
organs, keyboards that played colors instead
of sound, to induce a synesthetic response.
In comparison, the group Single Wing
Turquoise Bird made similar interactive
synesthetic machines to provide visual
elements at concerts for groups like the
Grateful Dead. The audience for these works
was different, the Guggenheim for Fischinger
and the Electric Kool – Aid Acid Tests for
SWTB, but the look and feel of the work
could be considered similar. This kind of
overlap between popular and obscure work,
especially in kinetic or interactive form,
interests me and affects the look of my work.
The content of my work is really influenced
by the sentiment that all people are
connected in a way that makes everyone’s
actions directly relevant to everyone (and
everything) else. This includes violence in
multiple forms. It could be violence in a
traditional human form or violence that has
been levied against an environment through
social institutions. Social constructions are
important in my work in the sense that they
provide a venue for the creation and
destruction of narratives. These narratives in
turn levy violence against communities and
people. This violence can be positive as well,
in that it could help to break down

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