The different layers of the digital image by Arthur Schmidt, which looks like a painting, merge into one another. The smooth structure of the surface is characteristic for "computer paintings".

I came to computing after dealing with experimental projects as a painter over several years. These projects were about interlacing painting, photography, printing techniques and other non-traditional working methods and materials. The computer gave me new artistic perspectives on how to integrate my work and experiments of previous years, into the pictures I make currently. The openness of this working system is the basis for reassessing experiences and discoveries I made, in order to render them visible. Images do not present themselves as materially tangible obstacles, but as a host of neatly organised neutral data that can be changed at any time and in any place, without having to safeguard against losing what has been done before, or having to finish it.

Therefore, the pictures always remain there and yet are open to new changes. A different kind of emotional experience and a new idea of values is created when I work on my pictures. This new working rhythm very much corresponds to my own idea of life and time. I create my images directly on the computer with the help of a graphic table and a pressure sensitive pen. The images are stored and transferred to photographic material if desired.

The final size of my images is determined by the format of the information stored, and by the file size available (1. 5 - 20 MB). The hard copies of the pictures can be sized up to 185 by260 cm. The abstract images B 242, B 460, and B768 which I entered for Prix Ars Electronica, have a final original size of 125 by 180 cm.