Electric Boogie Woogie

Electric Boogie Woogie (2009) is a piece by Rafael Ronzendaal.

Electric Boogie Woogie screenshot

Summary

Rafael Rozendaal's 2009 work Electric Boogie Woogie is essentially an animated version of Piet Mondrian's Broadway Boogie Woogie, which was painted in 1942 and Mondrian's last completed work

Rozendaal's piece consists of a mostly yellow framework in the shape of a square, with smaller and smaller rectangles placed inside the main square. Smaller sections of the framework are blue or red, and on the entirety of the frame, small squares or rectangles of the same yellow, red and blue move in different paths and alternate between moments of motion and stillness. The blocks also change colour before and after these movements. This is similar to what an aerial view of city traffic would look like, as traffic lights would start and stop the flow of cars.

Broadway Boogie Woogie

Relationship to Mondrian's Broadway Boogie Woogie

In order to understand Rozendaal's piece, it is important to understand the background of the original Mondrian piece he borrowed from.

Between 1935 and 1940, different parts of Europe were slowing falling victim to the Second World War. Piet Mondrian had already left London for Paris in 1938, but by 1940 Paris was also involved and Mondrian left for New York. It was here that he discovered and revelled in the architecture, music and aesthetic of the city

In the pieces he created while living in America, Mondrian changes the colour of his grids from black (which is arguably one of the most identifiable factors in his most famous paintings) to yellow, as seen in New York I. One can attribute this change in colour to Mondrian's new home, which offered him a more hopeful and joyful lifestyle. The artist's work changed from dark, moody black and static blocks of colour to a brighter palette. Boradway Boogie Woogie uses overlapping lines and smaller sections of colour to invoke the idea of movement into the painting., clearly referencing the flashing lights Mondrian would have seen on the famous street signs, but also the movement of city traffic, and even the feel of the jazz music and dancing he was so fond of.

While the frameworks of the two pieces are nearly identical, there are several differences between Mondrian's painting and Rozendaal's online piece. The names themselves offer the first difference, as Broadway Boogie Woogie is clearly referencing the aesthetic of Broadway theatre and street in New York during the 1940's, while Electric Boogie Woogie is referring to the modern world of the electrical and the digital. This difference is also evident in the use of colour and the varying types of form between the two paintings. Mondrian's piece uses the colours blue, yellow, red and white, and he places these colours very close together and almost overlapping, thereby creating the look of lights. Rozandaal's piece consists of only yellow, red and blue, while the white of the internet page forms the background and lets the colours pop.The colours are in hues very similar to early Flash games, such as Pacman, and Rozandal leaves much more open space on the framework, allowing the blocks of colour more room to move and the entire piece to have a much more fluid feel. Since Rozendaal's piece has the ability to move, it does not need the overcrowding and overlapping that Mondrian used in his piece to help portray the feeling of moving and flashing lights.

Critical Analysis of the Work

Upon first viewing Rozendaal's piece, it is almost instantly recognizable as originating from a Mondrian work as it contains the familiar square form, grid pattern and use of primary colours. What makes Rozendaal's piece work successful on its own, despite its attachment to the Mondrian peice, is its animation, and the way the art is presented.

The animated quality of Rozendaals work is what really allows the work to take on it's own separate meaning apart from Mondrian's work. As mentioned, Mondrian's work attempts to imitate both the flashing lights of Broadway and the joy he felt when hearing the music of the area. Rozendaal's work can also be seen as sort of celebration, but this time the subject is the electrical and digital world. Many of Rozendaal's works utilize the Flash program, and the artist himself notes how much more comfortable he feels communicating in that medium:

"It’s strange to convert my thoughts into words. I am very uncomfortable with text, it feels very limited. Ironically, the only way to tell you this is by doing just that. How can I communicate the problems of language using words? Feelings and thoughts and ideas are so fluid, and words feel like a bad xerox of them. Flash animations are a better way of materializing my ideas, for now." - Rafael Rozendaal

The use of the Flash animation and colours of the piece bring to mind the early online world of video games and the early forms of animation that is easily accessible to a wide variety of people. It is easy to see the parallels between Mondrian's work and Rozendaal's. Mondrian work recalls Broadway lights, while Rozendaal references video games. Mondrian was trying to capture the jazz music he was experiencing at the time, while when looking at Rozendaal's work, one can almost hear an 8-bit soundtrack playing with it. Mondrian was rejoicing in a new world of light, colour, music and opportunity in New York, while Rozendaal is rejoicing in the exact same thing, only as it is situated in the online world.

The piece's presence online also allows the work to be very successful. The "pixel" of the screen lends itself perfectly to the Mondrian cubes and boxes that are so familiar, while it's own online presence only helps Rozendaal's work, as it is the very technologies that he is praising within the work that allowed to actually create the piece.

Electric Boogie Woogie is a celebration of the digital world of art, by both a referencing familiar, historical work of art and by itself being a animated work of art, presented online.