The British Pop-art pioneer Peter Blake has permitted his imagery to be used for a new app called Dazzle It, despite admitting that he is a “luddite.”
The app enables users to embellish their photos with dazzle art to create new images. Dazzle art was originally used to camouflage military vessels in World War I to confuse enemy combatants.
Blake was previously commissioned to recreate his own interpretation of the unique camouflage on a ferry operating in Liverpool, England, which was revealed in April.
Peter Blake designed the dazzle art of this Liverpool ferry.
Photo: Liverpool Echo
Speaking to the BBC the 83-year-old artist said that he doesn’t feel pressure to conform to the digital age, but rather that his motivations behind allowing others to appropriate his work is to expose more people to art.
“I’m still a painter so I don’t use [technology] but I admire someone like David Hockney and Richard Hamilton, when he was alive, for their interest in it.”
The app allows users to create pop art on their mobile device.
Photo: Wired Magazine
He then confessed, “I’m a complete luddite, I don’t have a watch, I don’t have a phone, I work on the computer but with other people.”
However, Sir Blake said, “[technology] is no more important than a pencil,” and should be “an additional tool for making a picture,” warning that the extinction of traditional artists materials would be “a bad thing.”
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