„The Critic: Risking an Eye“ was not the result of a ungentle clash with art critics. It originated from the way in which the organizers of an art festival, that included a competition, started to change their rules by implementing year by year a catalog of more and more questionable criteria, to be heeded in order to have a chance. This fully digital image seems to be my ironic answer to their trying to squeeze digitally produced art into criteria that demanded “digital art” not only to be “digitally produced, mere application, but also to be critically reflective of the technique itself” Of course this was meant as a value judgment, stipulating that “merely using digital production” technique will basically give conventional, not “innovative” aesthetic results. A “drawn” answer to this meaningless phrase is given with the background of this image: What looks like a fully computer generated structure is pure handwork no computer is able to create this way. A practical antithesis to the fiction an algorithm may produce “art” by itself. But whatever machines do, generating poems or paintings, one inevitable truth shows: Since art without humans that select is a brainless endeavor in a literal sense, art can only be defined by a human selector, risking an eye, making art by selection of even completely machine made results, like a photograph may select a piece of nature, turning it into art. Machines have no doubt the capability to put out beautiful images, for example, fractals in unlimited numbers and if someone wants to call this “machine art” one could only point to the unlimited boredom setting in sooner or later. Concerning the potential of human creativity truth is: software or thought out concepts or natural processes can just deliver the material to work with and as long as androids are science fiction and computers have essentially different capabilities compared with human brains, this holds without any qualification. Creativity can only develop in a conscious handling of computer generated structures, which I am using myself without prejudice: As material to work with as well as a counterpoint to my own human creativity. This way a conscious and thoughtful acting offers indeed a great potential for exploring and combining in a new manner. Playing with generated structures gives an artist a chance to find new elements and to select good ones. But now a days “artist-cyborgs” or “self programming aesthetics” will be unmasked by our computer kids as what they are: “done by sleight of hand”. In addition people who know a bit about shipping may realize something, but since it is of zero importance for the image as a piece of art, I will leave it there. Second prize at the Donnie-Award 2004 of the MOCA/New York