Art, Information Security, Elegance, Life

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Art and Information Security?

The American Heritage Dictionary has a couple of interesting definitions of elegance (neither of which are as pretentious as the common use of the word):

1. Restraint and grace of style.
2. Scientific exactness and precision.

When we talk about art, I tend to think the pieces that work “best” are the most elegant. They’re the ones where the artist has done no more or less than he or she needed to. The artist, in other words, has shown “restraint of grace and style”.

Information Security, on the other hand, depends on technology doing, as with the artist’s art, no more or less than it has to. Secure systems are built with “scientific exactness and precision”. Without the precision, loopholes are left for bad things to happen.

I find this connection between the two fascinating.

I…

make art.

manipulate and shape information.

am an expressive portrait artist, an occasional photographer, a creative security architect, and someone who can’t always tell the difference between real and imagined.

have spent 20 years online and some of my most important human experiences growing up occurred in bits and bytes.

like the idea of merging new and old media in art.

A More Concise Picture of Me

“Information Security”

My Enterprise Information Architecture Resume

Bait and Switch Honeypot (Open Source IDS Extension I wrote ages ago that got semi-popular)

Security Blog Posts by me Here

Older Security Related Bits from Me Caught by the Web (as jofny)

“Art and Technology”

Washington City Paper Article on my Second Life Work

The Mosaic Creator I wrote in Python : TAMOGEN

Security Visualization Talk/Paper I’ve written/given

My Old IDS Visualization Screenshots

“Art”

Drawings and Paper Art of mine from the past 17 years

Art Installations

Photography

“Video”

Second Life Gallery Video: A video tour of the SintixErr Gallery for DC artists in Second Life (now defunct). A list of the artists who participated in the project can be found HERE

Ofrenda Art Installation Video: Created out of a series of still photographs (digital and film) taken by Jack Whitsitt, Paivi Salonen, and Angela Kleis. Stills were edited into a looping video which was projected onto tissue paper framed (raised above the backing) and hung on the wall as part of a Day of the Dead art exhibit in Arlington, VA