Elna Frederik

welcomebackfromthearmy

Elna Frederick specializes in vintage internet art, with dithering algorithms as her signature medium. However, most of all, she is famous as an “obscure” member of the legendary online collective “Computers Club” based in New York. This team of artists and curators established a “creative playground” to draw together. Involvement in this unity the status of exclusivity, making every one of them a celebrity in a world of digital art.

Frederick, moreover, is frequently mentioned as a top-5 contributor to this iconic community. In the social media of their circle, her pieces have been showing much more often than any others, making her highly desirable for art collectors. Not by chance, the works of Elna are owned by the most well-known collectors of NFT Art.

In addition, her art is preserved and exhibited in ArtBase of the American not-for-profit arts organization “Rhizome,” which supports and provides a platform for new media art. This worldwide online archive encompasses a vast range of art engaged with technology, including games, software, and interdisciplinary projects with online elements. However, despite the diversity of accepted tools, it has a rather strict selection of artists who can join the ArtBase—only a little over two thousand people worldwide collected at the “Rhizome” base. And ElnaFrederick is one of them.

She is also familiar with the many professional NFT bases for connoisseurs and amateurs for her regularly updated gif collections. Her set of works, “Standart Deck,” systematically renewable with slides, as a critical work, has made her famous in European countries.

And she has plenty of such collections: Urbanscapes, Seascape, Rainforest & etc. Similar to Decks notable at the leading digital marketplaces, gif-series “Plaques” are assorted plates with varying color opacity, making the figures and objects seem to move.

Also, she makes sets of pictures as animated books, like “Offramps,” where each of its ten pages is a digitally painted view, brought to life using dithering algorithms as their medium of artistry. And even acts as a curator - for instance, in the enchanting world of “Nursery,” the realm of 100 mesmerizing GIF files, where every piece holds a unique and captivating story waiting to be discovered.

Besides that, Elna Frederick participated in participating at exhibitions. She had two pieces at the show “IRL” – the title of which stands for “in real life.” Frederick presented her previous works, pulsing pixelated curvy patterns, one of which “((())) Place” was exposed in two dimensions. Simultaneously shown on a normal-sized screen and projected onto the massive back wall of the space, it spells out the concurrent virtual and physical presence.

Unlike other artworks, information about the date and medium of each item was not provided, nor were any statements and URLs. Of course, this gesture could be read as an approach to the curatorial ideas to cut off objects from the online world. However, the rest of the exhibition participants supplied information about their works. And only “obscure” and mysterious Elna chose not to speak out.

Who and what stands behind the artist's image of a glamorous blonde in a pose from the "Basic Instinct” movie on the main page of the community platform Computersclub.org? Reference to basic – vintage graphics? It could be anybody and everything. In any case, it is always a high quality of creativity.