HO: A Digital Frottage

Artist(s):

• HO

Title:

A Digital Frottage

Exhibition:

• SIGGRAPH 1998: Touchware

Creation Year:

1997

Medium:

Rubbing over a digitally produced wood block: graphite on handmade Japanese paper

Size:

7.75" x 7.75"

Category:

• 2D & Wall-Hung

Keywords:

• fractals
• pattern

Artist Statement:

Moving from digital output to traditional art media and permanent, pleasing output raises several issues. In this piece, a homemade, three-axis milling machine and a plotter were used to generate the third depth. With a cone-shaped bit, the depth was translated into line width, then a plane was defined, covering a fractal line, and attached to a depth/width pattern, which is repeated along its course.

This was all done in a few lines of code. Fractals can be beautiful, yet simple.

The resulting coordinates, translated into step-motor input, direct the bit into the maple in one single path from start to end – an elegant process, adapted to the tools at hand. The resulting carved woodblock can be the source of many pleasing experiments.

This piece is but one of many possibilities: a frottage or rubbing, as done by petrographs, archeologists, Chinese scholars, and artists. Max Ernst in particular was fond of the medium: “Histoires Naturelles.” The graphite lead rubbed on the sheet laid over the block marks only where wood was not removed.