ROTHKO

"**ROTHKO**" is a project by American rapper Lupe Fiasco. There are three audio formats: "Yet for Computers," "Then for Cyborgs," and "At Last for Humans," which he advertised for €2.1 million through his company, Wolf Studio. In addition were three paintings, a music video, and a live performance. The purchaser would have the only copy made available, not distributed anywhere else with the exception of "Yet for Computers," meant for the public. Fiasco described it as "consists of sonic and visual representations and interpretations of the late abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko."

Mark Rothko was a Russian-born American abstract painter, best known for color field artwork. Through WAV format, Fiasco imitated them to that of Rothko paintings. He eventually donated the project to Massachusetts Institute of Technology's ICE Lab.

## "Yet for Computers" Artist Statement

"The idea behind this piece was to abstractly present Mark Rothko in an entirely new format and for an entirely new audience. The format most fitting I think is hip-hop you know like Rothko as a hip-hop song (laughs) you know, like when has that ever been done? But flipping the expected cliche of the intended audience being human and instead constructing the song in such a way that only computers would be able to translate the final record. Its like imagining yourself as a computer which means you'd have to completely rethink all your senses and the way things are received by them and then create things to be received by these new senses. You know like how would a painting look to a computer? Or you in this case how would a song sound to a computer? Or how would a song need to sound to be enjoyed by a computer? I thought that would [be] a very interesting concept to pursue. To human senses the "Yet for Computers" is just two glitchy blips in a field of soft noise but to a computers senses I imagine it would sound like a lush melancholy song about one of the greats in painting. The painting is actually the wave forms of the song but compressed to match what I imagine to be the immense processing speed of a supercomputers "mind" and "senses". The visual relationship between the wave form paintings and some of Rothko's work is kind of like an unexpected byproduct of creating the song and compressing it in such the fashion that we did. Its super cool how the song about him actually ending up resembling one of his paintings. A new form of abstract expressionism using an abstract expressionist to abstractly express it. Yeah that is like super fresh to me."

Wasalu Jaco p.k.a. 'Lupe F,' as interviewed by WOLF Studio in December of 2012

## Background

On February 24, 2013, he tweeted out before deleting: "LF X WOLF Studio collaboration "ROTHKO" (Yet For Computers)" will be released to the public tomorrow, Feb. 25th. Thank you." On February 25, 2013, he tweeted a six-second sound bite of this audio before deleting it. According to a fan who slowed down the audio, they heard the words "Lupe" and "Tetsuo."

## References

1. ↑ "Lupe Fiasco (@LupeFiasco)". *Twitter*. October 24, 2016.
2. ↑ Howard, Ty (February 24, 2013). "Cover Art: Lupe Fiasco – ROTHKO (Yet for Computers)". *Fake Shore Drive*.