The goal of the process was to explore new drawing languages from existing forms through the introduction of unpredictable partners. First, a realistic drawing was produced from a photograph of a sculpture. Next, the forms in the original drawing were interrupted by an outside source to create accidental variations. For example a three-year-old child was encouraged to mark with abandon on top of the original drawing or a scanner was used improperly to drastically alter the image. Distortions created by these companions pushed the formation of new shapes forward and became the basis for the next drawing. Changes randomly made to the original visual forms were then duplicated by hand into this new drawing. By reconstructing the unsystematic qualities created by the partnering source into the next drawing, new constructions of visual organization could be captured. In addition falsification of language could be explored through the translation process found in hand replication.
Called Generations, this system was repeated over and over again in several sequences for comparison. Each started with a drawing of a different original sculpture and then had a variation of child/scanner collaboration, applied to it and then redrawn. After each of the three steps was complete, the latest drawing in the sequence could then undergo the same series of steps again. Each move builds off the last and each step moves further and further away from the language of the original sculpture.
For example the sequence could look like this:
Step 1. Photo of sculpture, hand replication of photo,
Step 2. Scanner distortion, hand replication of those changes
Step 3. Scanner distortion, hand replication of those changes
Step 4. Scanner distortion, hand replication of those changes.
At this point in the series of steps the work would be titled Generation 4.
The "companions" in these drawings was an unrestrained small child and misused scanner that allowed for the alteration of the information outside of consciously formed and planned visual organization. Since the drawing language was in constantly flux during their development, I could not anticipate how my companion would visually construct the next drawing in a sequence. Once the process was begun the conversation with these outside sources became the driving factor of the visual dynamics. As I am not a machine, these drawings exist somewhere between the new information invented by my companions and my ability to deliberately translate their disorderly outcome.
Both drawings presented offer views to two different sequences and two different starting pointsGeneration 5 DuckFeet, 2014 is the results of 5 steps towards the new constructed language using a scanner alone. Drawing language used in Generation 6 BunnyLegs 2014 was created through a partnership with both a child and a scanner and we are viewing it in the 6th step of the process. The inclusion of both drawings allows the failures and successes in the creation of the new languages and drawing systems to be compared by the viewer.
As they are in similar places in the process information invented through the conversation between the companions and myself can be reviewed. Similarities and differences become important elements in the cypher of the new.
