Digital Punishment is one of the online project names of Thomas Demuth (German, b. 1965), a 3D digital artist based in Hamburg who works under the alias der Polygonist. In 2002, after training as a 3D designer, he began developing Polygonismus, his own technique for building digital figures and scenes, and has made more than 300 works in this form.
To make a piece, he models figures in 3D software and reduces their geometry through a specific calculation algorithm, producing abstract, near-cubist forms. He then applies textures using what he calls Guerilla Mapping, placing them not for physical accuracy but for their overall compositional effect, and finishes each scene with photorealistic rendered lighting. He describes the result as “a kind of metaphysical hyperrealism”, the collision of an abstract world of forms with light-based realism. Many of his works are digital interpretations of classical paintings. In Das Abendmahl 6, 2009, part of the series Allegoria, he reinterpreted Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper using Polygonismus, showing it repeatedly in Hamburg between 2011 and 2019, including at the Hamburg observatory and during the Altonale festival.
