Pre-algorist art, monastic period, 1950-1968

Merging No 1: 2009-2010, pen & ink merging algorist plotter & hand, hand-made rag paper. 14.5” by 11.5”

The process of adapting my 1970's drawings for the "Upsidedown Mural" kindled an urge to return to drawing by hand, a practice I had suppressed in my drive to master algorithmic drawing. Sometime around 2008 I began experiments merging algorithmic drawing my machines with my earlier practice of drawing by hand. In the first session the machine, guided with my drawing instructions, initiates a drawing with the ink pen; in the second session I draw with the ink pen in the same drawing field. These two generative procedures challenge my ability to discover formal continuity between mind guiding my machine and guiding my hand. My Mind, Hand and Machine are joined in these mergings in what we might rightly call bio–logical works of art.

I have always viewed the drawing arm of my pen plotter as an extension of my drawing arm. I conceived of it as my “mind arm”, a prosthesis for executing my drawing ideas. By learning how to exploit precision, endurance, and recursive functions, I developed routines rather quickly to a point where plotted drawings exceeded what I could manually execute by hand. While the logic for my drawing algorithms grew from procedures I had followed as an artist in my pre-algorist years, they evolved to a point where qualities of my human hand yielded to qualities of coded machine drawing. This gap widened as my ability to capitalize on algorithmic leverage improved.

These "mergings" strive to fill the gap between my biological drawing arm and the drawing arms of my machines - arms that are tireless in following instruction with precision.

"Mergings" above measure approximately 12" by 16". Papers are rag; the upper right example is a hand-made rag. Dated: 2009.

Note: My mergings with pen-plotted drawings have been interrupted frequently. I also have worked on digital transformations via prints from scans and mixes of scans of earlier and current drawings with pen plotted drawings. For these transformations I have also adapted my code to generate data for digital prints. I am still searching for the merging of past & present. My 2017 Apocalypse for Venice . August 2017.