
Previously Unknown Warhol Works Discovered on Floppy Disks from 1985 (2014) - ForHackernews
http://studioforcreativeinquiry.org/events/warhol-discovery
======
baldfat
I define myself as a former Amiga owner. That computer was so defining and the
community so strong sad that Jack Tramiel went out to kill the Amiga with the
Atari ST. These Andy Warhol pictures were a claim to fame for many Amiga
owners and it was awesome to know that they were found right next to the
bouncing red and white ball.

It must have taken around 6 or 7 years for the Macintosh and "IBM PC"
computers to catch up. The graphic art capacity was head and shoulders about
anything else outside of Silicone Graphics. Not to mention that VIM was
developed on the Amiga.

I had a audio port so I could record through RCA cables and remix things. My
church had the Video Toaster which was in use from 1987 to 2004. This actually
led to me doing a lot of audio and video work that I still do today.

In the future I think the hardware architecture will resemble more of the
Amiga as we hit the limits of computer chips. There will be more dedicated
chips and cores for more specific things.

~~~
megaman22
I'm not sure. Heterogeneous architectures were a huge mess with the PS3, for a
recent example, and abandoned in the subsequent PS4 for relatively standard
x86 kit. Taking advantage of specialized hardware is not without its costs.

~~~
ashleyn
It depends on the API implementation, really. The criticism back in the day
was that Cell was difficult to program for. I would imagine this was because
its functions were at a lower level, which buys you power at increased
development cost. Think the difference between Vulkan and OpenGL. Sony didn't
seem to value development value over capability, which led to the PS3 earning
the reputation of being an underutilised console:
[https://www.cnet.com/news/sony-ps3-is-hard-to-develop-for-
on...](https://www.cnet.com/news/sony-ps3-is-hard-to-develop-for-on-purpose/)

Apple's heterogenous computing functions on iOS are higher-level and much
easier to use. Instead of manually writing code to do FaceID on iOS, possibly
involving graduate-degree levels of theory, you simply create a biometry type
which abstracts much of the details, many of which developers aren't
particularly interested in fine-tuning. This is how someone on a budget like
Bank XYZ can use FaceID to unlock your bank app.

~~~
RodgerTheGreat
Another angle worth considering is the economics of porting titles. If you
take full advantage of specialized hardware like the PS3 had, it could have a
strong influence on the implementation of games- possibly even pushing down to
choices in aesthetics and game mechanics. As a result it may be very difficult
to get a comparable experience on another console.

If a game is designed and written to more-or-less cater to a common
denominator it is more straightforward to later port the game to other
consoles or PCs- including platforms that might not exist at the time the
original game was created- and mop up sales from those other userbases.

~~~
Narishma
I'm not sure I agree. It was much easier to develop your game around the PS3's
heterogeneous architecture, then port it to a more conventional architecture
like the Xbox 360 or PC and get good performance than doing it the other way
around.

~~~
RodgerTheGreat
In very broad strokes, compared to the other consoles of its generation, the
PS3 offered a large compute capacity via SPEs and was starved for RAM and
memory bandwidth. I think you're conflating the technical impact of a
heterogenous architecture with other differences in specs.

If you tailored a game to work within the memory footprint of a PS3 and did
not take advantage of SPEs, a port is easy- you've aimed at a lowest common
denominator. If you designed your game with the expectation that you'd have
more RAM, you'll have to make some painful decisions to cut the game down to
size. If you designed your game to actually take advantage of SPEs, there
wouldn't necessarily be a comparable compute resource on the platform to which
you would like to port.

~~~
vvanders
Just a small nit that the PS3 and X360 had the same amount of RAM, it was just
split on the PS3. X360 had a unified memory model which was a lot easier(PS3's
is closer to a PC and X360 your mobile phone).

We still did clever things like putting music in GPU memory and then streaming
it back to system memory since the bandwidth wasn't large and read patterns
were very predictable.

------
bwldrbst
I've got a few Amigas and my 6 year old son loves messing about in Deluxe
Paint. Some of his creations are starting to approach Warhol's level... I
think...

------
MrJagil
>Reviewing the disks’ directory listings, the team’s initial excitement on
seeing promising filenames like “campbells.pic” and “marilyn1.pic” quickly
turned to dismay, when it emerged that the files were stored in a completely
unknown file format,

I wonder what format it was...

~~~
ealexhudson
They don't really say very much. The Venus bitmap was a demo picture that
shipped with Deluxe Paint (and the one they've published seems to be blank
where the header/toolbox would be), and although they credited it to Warhol it
doesn't appear he's done much than cut/paste a third eye in.

If these were system disks from a prototype Amiga, then it makes sense that
these pictures came from an early version of Deluxe Paint, and that .pic was
some intermediate / temporary / memory-dump type format before they adopted
the .iff system.

Given the Amiga was quite different display-wise, a description of the file
format would probably be quite instructive in terms of whether it was an
Amiga-native data structure or something already existent somehow.

~~~
toyg
_> it doesn't appear he's done much than cut/paste a third eye in._

To be fair, that third eye changes the picture in a very significant way, in
artistic terms. Art is not about quantity of effort.

~~~
acct1771
I mean, it can be. Just might not be tangible effort. Thought, planning is
effort. Banksy, for a beaten to death example.

------
Dirlewanger
Really crazy. The first one gives off a strong vaporwave vibe. Really weird
how that works out.

~~~
brandonmenc
Art made in 1985 looks like art made today that is made to look like it was
made in 1985 - shocking.

------
mwexler
The PDF report gives some fascinating technical detail, linked in the article
and at
[http://studioforcreativeinquiry.org/public/warhol_amiga_repo...](http://studioforcreativeinquiry.org/public/warhol_amiga_report_v10.pdf)

------
yann-gael
This is silly: lots of Amiga computers are still around, the Amiga community
knew about these images for years. They didn't do due diligence and studied
previous/related/existing works.

~~~
yarrel
The artist who "rediscovered" them is a notorious self-promoter.

------
whywhywhywhy
The Venus image was one of the ones bundled with Deluxe Paint, Just seems he's
duplicated the eye. Feels we might be attributing a mistake as a conscious
piece of art.

~~~
supergreg
So it's a remix. What was that about good artists steal?

~~~
vidarh
It's a remix with a single cut and paste.

~~~
pjc50
This is an artist who signed soup cans. I'm sure he'd tell you something like
there is no difference between accident and art when done by an artist.

~~~
fsloth
This is one way to view artist - not as a craftman, but as a brand like Walt
Disney (or Merceded Benz). The artist then functions as a curator for all the
data that passes through him and signs those articles he considers worthy of
the brand. This is a totally fine way to look at it - just as long as he/she
does not tread on someones copyright.

~~~
toyg
_> not as a craftman, but as a brand_

That's reductionist. Warhol's craft was in recognising and willfully
exploiting brand culture. He described the celebrity culture we now live with,
and made a job out of being the one who understood how it worked. He wasn't
just signing "worthy" stuff; he was showing people how the _mechanisms_ of
brand-building and celebrity culture actually work: by repetition and
labelling/signing/appropriating. He branded the brands like brands branded the
world, and he did it over and over with minor variations, exactly like they
do.

He was not without his flaws, but he wasn't just some sort of "gatekeeper of
cool". He obviously didn't think an artist exists to validate this or that
brand; the validation was a side-effect of his artistic craft. This is why
trying to "play Warhol" today, using different brands or imagery, is just
stupid, in artistic terms: he's done it already, it's all there already and
there is nothing else to say on that particular subject.

~~~
staplers
Refreshing to see enlightened critical theory on HN. I don't agree that there
is "nothing else to say" about it however. The world is constantly changing
and often presents old ideas in new and interesting contexts.

~~~
toyg
I agree, I was a bit flippant there, sorry.

------
indescions_2018
Part of CMOA's wonderful Invisible Photo doc:

[http://www.nowseethis.org/invisiblephoto](http://www.nowseethis.org/invisiblephoto)

Amiga games are so important to the history of game development and design.
Could the brand could be resurrected if willing investors were to arise?

Amiga Documents:

[https://sites.google.com/site/amigadocuments/](https://sites.google.com/site/amigadocuments/)

~~~
asciimo
Here's a direct link to Part 2 on Vimeo, featuring the Warhol story:
[https://vimeo.com/92583299](https://vimeo.com/92583299)

------
LocalH
I wish they'd just release the raw disk images themselves. It's said Warhol
used a prototype Amiga, and thus a prototype version of pre-1.0 Kickstart
(earlier than rev 27.5, which is publicly floating around and which has no
Workbench).

------
nathell
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7638904](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7638904)

------
VectorLock
I wonder what the "plan for reading the disks with a cart of exotic gear"
actually entailed...

------
hamilyon2
So where is my sceptical top hacker news comment saying something negative
about theese images?

------
_pmf_
I sense fraud.

~~~
vidoc
I'm not sure actually, i have my own doubts but I have to admit the entire
absence of artistic talent makes suspect it might actually be legit!

