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Cyberflower Duet, Red & Green, 29" by 23" each (73.7 cm by 58.4 cm), 2002.
Pen and ink plotted drawings on paper. Click on images for larger view.Artist's notes: rationale & technique
Gardens of form. Fifteen years ago an artist colleague, seeing my algorithmic pen drawings for the first time, spontaneously exclaimed "Computer flowers!" Since then algorist artists have shown us cyber-form worlds with many faces. I believe we have entered an immense garden with countless pathways leading to marvelous worlds of form to be explored and enjoyed in the 21st Century. Cyber-flower Duet shows two technically superior works from a family of forms evolving in my work at the turn of the century.
Procedure. The procedure follows a carefully outlined step by step set of instructions that are under continuous development. These detailed instructions, written in a software format, contain "form generating routines" or algorithms that are similar, in many ways, to the score a composer creates for executing musical form. For these drawings the coded instruction guides a pen plotter driving ink pens along precisely defined pathways. Using permanent acrylic inks on rag paper, the ink pens slowly draw hundreds of lines following precise pathways defined in my algorithms.
Form. For each work the thicker black line on the lower left reveals the form "initiator" for that specific work. This "initiator", serving as a visual signature, embodies the control points employed for generating the cyber-flower form. Technically every line in each work was derived from controller information embodied in the "initiator". This applies also to the text-like column of figures on the upper right. The self similarity permeating each line in each work, like the self similarity permeating the cells of an organism, echoes the procedures that are present in the "growth of form" in nature.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Unframed size: 23 by 29 inches (58.4 cm by 73.7 cm) each.
Framed size: 28 by 34 inches each (71.1 cm by 86.4 cm) each.
Software: Artist's original software.
Hardware: HI-Plot 7200 pen plotter; PC running on DOS.
Materials: Lightfast Acrylic Inks; "Strathmore Bristol 500" paper