Artist Exploration: Han Hoogerbrugge



Han Hoogerbrugge is a digital artist from the Netherlands. Han had started out as a painter and cartoonist until he found the internet in mid 90’s. From simple gif animations, his work evolved into more complex forms using flash and sound effects. He is the creator of the extremely popular Modern Living Neurotica series, interactive series Hotel as well as his new project called Nails.

Han uses the ancient art of rotoscoping in creating his animations. He film his characters with videocam, grabbing all stills he needs for animations into his computer and carefully manually tracing them by hand on a piece of tracing paper. He then turn these drawings into vector based drawing by using Flash. His work is characterized by sparse visual style and simple animation with subjects mainly featuring himself. His works also make commentaries about modern day living.

"I wanted to show what it is like to be alive today and to visualize the spirit of the time through my character with no language, just images," explained Hoogerbrugge... "All the animations are basically very simple with a small variety of action scripting. Most only have one or two 'to go' actions. I wanted to put just enough in one animation to keep your attention, but at the same time leaving you hungry and wanting to see more."

Han described his comic strip Neurotica as a "ongoing self-portrait" that chronicled his life as an artist. It was mid 90’s that he decided to adapt his Neurotica idea for the internet and began publishing Modern Living Neurotica on his own website, first as animated gif’s and later using Macromedia Flash.

Hotel was created for the Submarine Channel website in 2004. The series has an interactive Flash based story which follows Dr. Doglin as he tries out strange experiments with volunteer subjects. There is also a fake website here which is supposed to be Dr. Doglin's own website which has an ad for volunteers.

Nails is Han's current series of work. It is mainly composed of interactive flash shorts, that are reminiscent of the original Neurotica series, with him featuring prominently as the main character.

Han’s works, mainly prints and drawing have appeared on the wall of famed galleries such as Central Museum Utrecht in Holland, Musea Tamayo in Mexico City and Design Museum in London.

Links:
http://www.hoogerbrugge.com/
http://www.hoogerbrugge.com/ml.htmlhttp://www.hoteloscartangoecholima.com/splash.html